Microbrew Media

Sending Photoshop PSD Files via Mac Mail the right way

I recently ran into a dilemma. I was planning to work on a mock up for a client a few days ago. I had it about 50% completed on my iMac in our office. So from my iMac I wrote a email to myself using Mac Mail and attached the file (Got to love GMail, my own personal storage bin). The next day I was away from our office and decided to pull it up in Photoshop via my MacBook Pro. To my surprise I downloaded the PSD file and opened it. I then noticed that there was only one layer! I started thinking, “I must have accidentally flattened it while I was at our office.” That night I checked our office iMac and it had all the layers and everything. “Weird” I said. I sent it again but this time via Gmail’s web interface. Worked like charm. But I don’t want to do this every time I send a file that would be a pain. After doing a bit of research, I found out the reason why this situation occurred. If you paste an image into Mac Mail there is a small setting in the bottom right hand corner of the window that reads “Image Size:” and has a drop down of Small, Medium, Large or Actual Size. It is set to “Medium” by default. I went ahead and changed this to “Actual Size” and it worked like a charm!

Image of Mac Mail’s Image Setting in bottom right hand corner