In Snow Leopard, Image Capture allows you to set a default application to open on a per device basis.

Snow Leopard is abound with small tweaks here and there that are really quite nice. I just noticed a new one this morning that is very useful.

In previous versions of OS X, you could use Image Capture to set a preferred application to launch (or not) when you attached a camera to the Mac.  My first run-in with this preference came because I wanted to disable iPhoto from launching every time I connected my iPhone.

The common complaint with how this worked in Leopard was that Image Capture managed this as a global setting, i.e. I could tell my Mac to not launch iPhoto when any camera was connected, but I couldn’t say don’t launch iPhoto for my iPhone, however do launch it for my Canon DSLR.  This led to some fairly clever, but hacky workarounds requiring Applescript.

However now in Snow Leopard, Apple has updated Image Catpure so you can set this preference on a per device basis.  A small tweak, but much appreciated.

Over the past year I tried a number of different web photo galleries before settling into Flickr as my web gallery of choice.  During this process I installed iPhoto plug-ins when available to make it easier to export photos out of iPhoto.  An unintended result of this mini-trial was I ended up with a somewhat messy list of abandoned plug-ins anytime I pulled up the Export interface in iPhoto.

Until this weekend, I never took the time to clean up the plug-ins that I was no longer using.  iPhoto plug-ins do not have “uninstall” buttons, so you need to go through a different process to remove them from the application.  Here is what you need to do:

1. Log in under an account with Administrator privileges.
2. Close iPhoto if it is open.
3. In the Finder, open the Applications folder.
4. Select iPhoto.
5. Go to the File Menu and select “Get Info” (or just hit command I).
6. This will open the iPhoto info screen.
7. Expand the “Plug-ins” section.
8. Find the plug-in you are looking for and select the “-” option.  You will get a prompt to confirm deleting the plug-in.  (See links below to get the actual names of the individual plug-ins).
9. Repeat for as many web gallery plug-ins as you would like to delete.
10. Restart iPhoto.

If you want to go straight to the source material for the uninstall instructions for some common web gallery plug-ins you can use the list below for reference.  Please note the Flickr plug-in has a custom program to run – the author does not recommend you use the above method to uninstall although it will work.

• Facebook iPhoto Plug-in FAQ – this is the general FAQ on the plug-in.  Uninstall directions are the fourth question down.
• Flickr eXporter iPhoto Plugin – this is a third party app.  As I mentioned above, this has specific uninstall directions that are more detailed than what I list above.
• Kodak Photo Gallery iPhoto Plug-in Uninstall Directions
• Picasa iPhoto Exporter
• SmugMug Export – this is a third party app.  Uninstall directions are about halfway down the page.