How to Download Photos: Just Drag and Drop

I am sure most Mac users already know this trick, but if you are just starting to build your stock you may find this tip useful. To download a photo from the internet to your computer

Click on the image, hold and drag to your Desktop.

It's dead easy, so easy that I always giggle to myself when I come across complicated multistep advice on downloading photos from the internet, sometimes even software for sale to do this.

When you've dragged a picture to your Desktop, you get a file, in most cases in .jpg format. They come in various sizes and resolutions. Many internet images have a 72 DPI count, quite low, to allow fast loading of internet pages.

For good quality print projects these can only be used in very small sizes. If you need a good quality picture which you plan to use in a large size you should have at least 300 DPI count in real size. Many web-sites, including wikipedia/wikimedia have clickable pictures which open up in higher resolution, good for quality printing.

Remember to check copyright status of images and crediting requirements. Wikipedia and many public/government web-sites have current affairs photos free for use (in public domain.) There is a number of web-sites, including bigfoto.com, offering amateur photos for free downloads and use. However, while digital photography made taking snaps very easy, a good picture requires a lot of creative work, planning, thinking, preparation, luck - and talent. A good photographer always puts part of their soul into the picture.

If a photo has a name to it, I make it a rule to mention it in photo credits.

Oh, and apple photos on this blog are all mine, clickable and free to reuse. Please credit to Alexander Anichkin (Александр Аничкин) and link to this blog.

Web-Pages to iWork Pages: just copy-paste

Quite often I need to copy material - text, images, logos from the internet.

Apple Mac allows just to click and drag elements off a web page onto your Desktop.

I haven't realised until recently that I can also copy-paste web pages straight into iWork Pages. Drag cursor over the web-page to highlight what you want to copy. Both text and graphics paste beautifully with pictures set as inline objects into a Pages document.

I find it useful for my own project because I can immediately see how images would look in my document, resize them, reprocess for high-end publishing or file for later use, already in Pages, or 'print' them to iPhoto.

I am sure many researchers and students who do a lot of work on the internet would find this simple trick useful too, because, as I hear, a lot of work these days is done the copy-paste way and not as we, old hands, used to do it by endlessly copying in long-hand from dusty volumes.

Bear in mind though, especially if your end product goes to professional printshops, that most images on the internet are low definition RGB with DPI count at 72 or lower. These are not good on high-quality print presses. Avoid them if you can. In fact, my printers ask me to provide them with a list of low-grade images in the magazine, so that they know I'm ok with that.

You can slightly improve the quality of 72 DPI images by reprocessing them through Acrobat to 300 DPI, the industry wide standard.

Check if higher definition downloads are available. Quite often images on internet pages are clickable and allow you to get a higher resolution version of the same image. Click on the photo of the beautiful Reinette Grise cider apples above to see how it works.

And don't forget to check the copyright!

In most cases you can find a free alternative to an image you are looking for. Many photo, cartoon or clipart downloads are inexpensive and allow multiple use. Or you can recreate the image yourself - these days it may not require sophisticated and expensive equipment.

Check these earlier articles:

- Quick JPEGs straight from Pages
- Creating your own clipart with instant Alpha in Pages