How do I change the file format of a dragged and dropped image

Hey Kim, et al. I found a solution that'll solve the clipboard TIFF format problem, which is, how to copy an unnamed & unsaved image file to the clipboard, and then paste that clipboard-only image into, say, a Mail message as anything but TIFF, which Windoze people can't see & which is just way too big & lossless for everyday stuff anyway.

Apple's got a screenshot util in Sierra called Grab <Applications/Utilities/Grab.app>.

With it, a screenshot can be taken, which shows up in Grab as an unnamed/unsaved image, just as a "new" image pasted from the clipboard shows up in Preview.

Then, in Grab, unlike in Preview, you can Select All, then Copy that unnamed/unsaved image, and it'll then paste into a Mail message as an unnamed PNG image file. Despite that important difference between Grab & Preview, strangely, when a screenshot is saved for naming & locating in Grab, TIFF is the default format for saving that comes up, although JPG & PNG are also available in a DD menu.

I haven't explored Grab's file formatting yet, but I'd bet that its apparently native PNG format could be changed in Terminal probably so its unnamed screenshot format would be JPG. However, PNG's good enough for now. Having to save a file with a name & a location in Preview & then Select All & Copy it, Paste it into a Mail message or whatever, & then oftentimes immediately Trash the file ya just saved seems stupid and clumsy, so unlike Apple's usual excellence of procedures.

Try Grab! Works great. I just added it to my Finder's menubar next to Preview, & that's where it's going to stay until Apple gets the TIFF-in-clipboard-and-pasted-TIFF-in-Mail-messages issue, etc, mollified for Mac people.....

KK

Kevinkendall,

You're the only person in this thread that is not clueless about the focus of the original question. I capture images and paste them into Mail inline and edit them using Markup tool, and send them to people all the time. It is the single-most useful communication tool Mail has. For months and months, I didn’t know I was sending TIFF images to clients (mostly Windows people) who can not open them at all. I couldn’t fathom why my emails were not effective in conveying my detail thoughts and diagrams as if they didn’t see my markup notes at all.

Then it finally hit me. To the Windows Outlook recipients, any inline TIFF images appear in their email as TIFF attachments. Most people are too lazy to figure out what app opens TIFF and simply overlooked that attachment. So all my verbose diagram markup image goes to waste without even being looked at.

That’s the point of the question in this email. All that solutions of how to save captured files in JPG/PNG first before dragging into Mail again isn’t helping because it is tedious and forgetful. Apple should just let Mail users specify what image file formats they want to use throughout. Period.

In the meantime, I’ll give the Grab.app a try.

Howard

Same issue. Image is in my clipboard as png:

But becomes a tiff when pasted to mail:

Nasty in a world that mostly does not like tiff's!

Hello,

You can change the file format format in Preview.

Open the file, in the “File” menu select “Save as...” and choose one of the available image formats.

Hope this will help. 🙂

Why don't you send a mail to yourself to see what comes out the other end? Even if it changes it what's the difference so long as in goes in as the picture at one end and comes out as the correct picture on the other end?

I just tried this and if I insert a png into a message it remains a png. Similarly jpeg's remain jpeg's. At least that's what the "tooltip" says when I mouse over the picture inserted into the message.

Also tried a png in a signature. As with mail enclosures the file remains a png.

handeye wrote:

I want to change the setting that assigns the .tiff format to a graphic dragged and dropped (or even cut and pasted) into a mail.app signature within the mail.app signature preference pane.

Try TinkerTool > General

http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html

You can take a screenshot of anything, with OS X's command shift 3 or 4 depending, thus it's exactly in the format you want on your Desktop.

handeye wrote:

I use photoshop to create and size the graphic, save as a .jpg, then drag and drop directly from the jpg file open in photoshop. In the signature, the graphic is renamed 'PastedGraphic.tiff

It's because TIFF is a higher quality image format and Photoshop typically deals with higher quality output in it's files for the graphics industry.

All you need is a crappy little jpeg that doesn't take much, then take the screenshot method, takes a few seconds and it's on your desktop ready to use in exactly the format you require.

Try opening the image in Preview and then File/Export. You can choose a different format.

Notice above. It's already a png.

What I was suggesting is to use Preview Export to make it a JPEG, which most e-mails will accept.