Best way to annotate photos with text, circles, arrows etc..

Question

Level 1

11 points

Best way to annotate photos with text, circles, arrows etc..

I can't seem to find a plugin that does the above functions to add simple annotations onto photos.

The apps that do these quite well are LittleSnapper and Skitch, but both of them don't support "round-tripping" meaning I would have to re-import the photos again after adding these additional annotations.

Any suggestions?

Macbook Pro, Mac Mini, Macbook, iPhone4, iPad, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 1, 2011 9:25 PM

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Answer 1

MacKyver Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 1, 2011 9:42 PM in response to MacKyver

Preferably something that would add versions to the master so that stacking of photos is possible, but then I'm dreaming?

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Answer 2

Feb 1, 2011 9:44 PM in response to MacKyver

No plugin needed. You can do that annotation with Preview which is included with every Mac. At least it works with Preview that is included with MacOS 10.6 Snow Leopard. I didn't try with previous versions.

Open Aperture preferences and in the Export section set Preview as the external editor.

Right click your image in Aperture and choose Edit with Preview. Aperture will create a new master based on the current version and open it with Preview.

In Preview, click the Annotate button in the toolbar at the top of the window. The toolbar is customizable so it is possible the button is not there. If not, the command is in the Tools menu.

Preview can do arrows, circles, rectangles, text boxes. You can change the colors, fonts etc.

When you've finished annotating, just select File->Save in Preview and close the Preview window. Aperture will update it's thumbnail to show the newly annotated image.

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Answer 3

CorkyO2

Level 4

1,290 points

Feb 1, 2011 9:47 PM in response to MacKyver

NM

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Answer 4

MacKyver Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 4, 2011 12:02 PM in response to Thomas Emmerich

This is great, thanks!

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Answer 5

Apr 21, 2015 1:00 PM in response to MacKyver

Why can't apple have a convenient way to draw on photos? While I am in class, it would be helpful to draw on handouts. Why do I have to find a plugin/app/alternative source for this simple function??????

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