Apple’s iPhoto brings all the functions you need for working with digital photographs together in one interface, shown in Figure 23.1, with different panes for Import, Organize, Edit, and Book views. You move between modes by clicking the row of buttons under the viewing area.
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Many recent digital cameras with USB connections are compatible with iPhoto. You can find out whether yours is one of them at www.apple.com/iphoto/compatibility/.
If your digital camera isn’t compatible with iPhoto, Apple recommends using a peripheral device to read the camera’s memory card directly. The type of storage media used by your camera dictates whether you need a PCMCIA Flash Card reader or some other kind.
The iPhoto interface contains several distinct areas, some of which change depending on the current mode. The bottom pane contains view-specific functions, and the upper-right viewing area takes on different appearances to support the mode you’re in. You can resize the contents of the viewing area using the slider to the right of the mode buttons.
Did you Know?
To jump between the smallest and the largest possible display sizes, click on the small and large image icons at either end of the resize slider.
The Source pane along the left side is available regardless of iPhoto’s mode. Let’s take a look at the elements it contains now.
The Photo Library contains all the images imported by iPhoto. Last Roll is a special unit containing the most recently imported pictures, and Last 12 Months contains all the images imported in the last year. Under these are albums, the special sets of pictures you put together, if you’ve created any. Selecting one of these items fills the viewing area with thumbnail images of its contents.
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If others on your local network are iPhoto users, you might see additional items in the Source pane: shared photos. In the iPhoto preferences, you can set iPhoto to look for shared photos and share your library or specific albums. Through this feature, you can browse others’ images and they can browse yours, but to open a photo in Edit view it first must be copied to your own photo library.
Below the Photo Library and albums is a section containing information about the selected item. For example, in Figure 23.1, Photo Library is selected, so the information section displays the name of the selection, the range of dates for the images it contains, the number of images it contains, and the total file size of its contents. It also displays the music currently selected to accompany slideshows, which we will discuss shortly. If a specific thumbnail image were selected, the given information would be the image title, date imported, size of image in pixels, file size, and current slideshow music.
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Additional details about a selected image can be accessed by choosing Photos, Show Info from the menu. This opens a window containing information about the image, file, and originating camera. If your camera supports it, the window also contains technical details such as shutter speed, aperture, and use of a flash.
There are also four buttons just above the view-specific pane:
Create a new album—. Enables you to create a special group of chosen photos that you can arrange in any way or export as a unit. This changes to Create a Smart Album when you hold down the Option key. We’ll talk more about albums and smart albums later.
Play the slideshow—. Plays a full-screen slideshow, complete with music, of all the photos currently selected. You can alter the slideshow settings under the Slideshow option of the Organize view, including the length of time each slide plays and the song to accompany the slideshow—you can even choose a song from your iTunes library.
Show information about the selected photos—. Toggles the information area through its different configurations, including one containing a field to add comments about the selected photo. (In another configuration, the info section is hidden entirely.) You can also edit titles and dates or add notes by typing in the corresponding fields.
Rotate the selected photos—. Rotates the selected items. Holding down the Option key reverses the rotation direction. You can also set the rotation direction to clockwise or counterclockwise in the iPhoto application preference dialog.
The first time you connect a supported camera to your computer and set the camera to its playback or transfer mode, iPhoto opens automatically. If it doesn’t, you can manually launch iPhoto either from the Dock or the Applications folder. The iPhoto window will be in Import view.
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Mac OS X includes in its Application folder the Image Capture program that downloads images and media files from supported cameras and card readers. It also works with TWAIN-compliant flatbed scanners (given an appropriate driver) to scan images.
The Import view, shown in Figure 23.2, displays the camera status, Import button, and an option to delete images from the camera after they’re stored in iPhoto.
To import the photos on your camera, click the Import button in the lower-right corner of the window. If the box for Erase Camera Contents After Transfer is checked, the Confirm Move sheet, shown in Figure 23.3, appears and asks you to approve deletion of the original photo files from the camera. Thumbnails of the transferring images appear in the image well of the Import view along with the number of photos remaining to be transferred. When the import is complete, the new images will appear in the photo viewing area along with any other images you’ve imported.
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By default, new rolls (groups of pictures imported at one time) are added to the bottom of the viewing area, but you can change that to order with the most recent at the top inside the application preference panel.
Did you Know?
After your photos have been imported and deleted from your camera’s memory, don’t forget to shut off your camera!
To import images already stored on your hard drive or other media, simply select them and drag them onto the Photo Library icon at the upper left. Thumbnails appear as if the images were another “roll” of film.
After you’ve imported some image files into iPhoto, switch to the Organize view to work with them. The iPhoto window in Organize view, shown in Figure 23.4, looks similar to the Import view except for the controls in the bottom pane. Here, you can choose ways to share your images, which we’ll talk about in the section “Sharing Your Photos” later in this chapter.
While in Organize view, you can choose whether to display the images in your viewing area with additional information, including their titles, keywords, film rolls, and ratings by selecting those options from the View menu.
Selecting Titles displays the title of each image beneath its thumbnail in the viewing area. The default titles of images imported by iPhoto aren’t very helpful. You can give them more meaningful titles by clicking on the information button until the title field is visible and then typing your new text in it.
The View, Keywords option shows any keywords you’ve attached to an image file to the right of its thumbnail image. We’ll look further at applying keywords in a moment.
Displaying by Film Rolls divides the photos in the viewing area into sections labeled with roll number and date of import. Click the arrow next to a roll to the images it contains, and click again to reveal them.
If you’ve rated your photos, choosing View, My Ratings will display the number of stars you’ve assigned. We’ll discuss assigning ratings further in “Smart Albums.”
You can choose to view your images with any, all, or none of those pieces of information.
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You can tell iPhoto to order the images in your Photo Library by film roll, date, or title by selecting the appropriate option in the Arrange Photos submenu of the View menu.
You can select an image in the viewing area by single-clicking it. You can select a group of consecutive pictures by clicking just outside the edge of the first photo and dragging to create a box connecting all the photos that you want to select, or select a group of nonconsecutive pictures by holding down the Command key as you click the desired images.
If you want to delete a photo or several photos that are visible in the viewing area, highlight the photos you don’t want to keep and then press the Delete key on your keyboard or choose Photos, Move to Trash from the menu. In the original version of iPhoto, when you deleted a photo it was truly gone forever. In more recent versions, deleted photos are stored in a special Trash area, much like the one for your entire system.
You can view the contents of the Trash by selecting its icon on the left side of the iPhoto window. If you decide to save a photo that you sent to the Trash, you can drag it back to your Photo Library or choose Photos, Restore to Photo Library from the menu. When you are sure that you don’t want to see any of the items in the Trash again, choose File, Empty Trash from the menu.
You can also drag selected photos to your desktop, which will make additional copies of them, or into a new album, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter.
A good way to organize your photo collection is with keywords. When applied, keywords appear next to the image thumbnails in the viewing area whenever you check the box for Keywords.
To open the Keywords window, shown in Figure 23.5, choose Photos, Show Keywords from the menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Command-K.
You can use iPhoto’s default keywords or create your own custom keywords. To write your own, choose New from the Keywords pop-up menu at the top of the Keywords window. Then, in the line that appears, type your new keyword.
To change an existing keyword, choose Rename from the Keywords pop-up menu at the top of the Keywords window. Keep in mind that the change is passed along to any photos assigned the previous keyword.
To delete a keyword, click to highlight it in the keyword list, and choose Delete from the Keywords pop-up menu.
To apply keywords to a photo, select the image thumbnail in the viewing area and highlight the keyword you want to apply by clicking it. Then, click the Assign button below the keyword list. To remove a keyword, select the image and click back into the Keywords window. All the keywords you’ve added to the selected photo will be highlighted in the list so that you can remove them all, or click on only the one you want to remove.
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Included in the keyword list is a check mark symbol, which acts somewhat differently than the other keywords. Whereas other keywords are visible only when you’ve chosen to display them in the View menu, the check mark is always visible in the lower-right corner of the thumbnails it has been applied to. Also, the check box cannot be renamed or deleted as the other keywords can.
After you’ve applied keywords (including the check mark), you can search your image collection for photos labeled with a given keyword or combination of keywords. Simply open the Keywords window, select the keyword you want to target, and click the Search button near the middle of the window. Only those pictures that match your search appear in the viewing area. Click the Show All button to return to the full photo listing.
You can’t arrange the individual images in your Photo Library just any old way. To choose the sequence of a set of images, you must create an album and add the photos you want to work with. (Keep in mind, that every photo imported into iPhoto will appear in your Photo Library; adding photos to albums doesn’t move them out of the Photo Library.)
Did you Know?
You can choose whether to arrange the photos in an album by film roll, date, or title using the View, Arrange Photos option in the menu, just as you can for your Photo Library. However, for albums there’s a fourth option that lets you arrange your images manually, which gives you the power to arrange them in any order you see fit.
Albums are a useful way to organize your photographs into collections, especially if you have many photos. Albums are also a basic unit in iPhoto that can be used when creating books, slideshows, and Web pages, which we’ll discuss later.
The option to make a new album is available from any view in iPhoto. To create a new album, perform the following steps:
Click the button showing a + sign near the left edge of the iPhoto window, or choose File, New Album from the menu.
A dialog box (shown in Figure 23.6) appears, into which you can type a name for your album. (If you change your mind later, you can double-click the name of the album in the album list to change it.)
When you’ve named your album, click OK.
The album you created appears at the bottom of the album list at the upper left of the iPhoto interface. If you want to change the order of your albums, select the one you want to move and drag it to a new position. A black bar indicates where the album will be inserted, as shown in Figure 23.7. If you want to remove an album, select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Unless the album is empty, you will see an alert asking you to confirm deletion.
To add images to your album, make sure that you’re in Organize view and select the images you want from the viewing area. You can select them one at a time or in groups. Drag your selection to your album name until a black border appears around it. As you drag, a faded version of one of the selected images appears behind your cursor, along with a red seal showing how many items you’re dragging.
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The images within albums are something like aliases on your desktop—you can delete a photo from an album without affecting the original file. However, when you delete an image from the Photo Library, it also disappears from any albums to which it has been added.
After you’ve created an album and added images, you can open the album and drag the contents into any order you want. You can also remove images from the album by selecting them and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. Because the photos in your albums are always a part of the Photo Library, only the album copy will be removed. (If you want to delete a photo altogether, you’ll need to delete it from the Photo Library as you learned earlier.)
In addition to the albums you compile by hand, you can have iPhoto automatically generate smart albums based on criteria you set. The Smart Album sheet, shown in Figure 23.8, lets you add conditions for including images in a given smart album. You can have iPhoto search any text associated with a photo, comments, date, filename, keyword, rating, roll, or title or combinations of those things. You also can set conditions to exclude photos based on those criteria.
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Ratings are a very useful tool for creating smart albums to show off only your best work. To add ratings to a selected photo or group of photos, choose Photos, My Ratings, and then select a number of stars to represent your rating. With ratings in place, you can set criteria to display only your five-star images.
To create a smart album, choose File, New Smart Album from the menu. In the sheet that appears, give your album a name and set your first condition for selection. If you want to have more conditions, click the + button to the right of the first condition to see another condition group. If you want to remove a condition, click the – button. When done, click OK and your new smart album will appear in the Sources pane. If you need to change the smart album criteria, select it in the Source pane and choose File, Edit Smart Album.
iPhoto’s Edit view enables you to improve your existing photos by cropping them, adjusting their coloration, and performing simple retouching. To edit a photo, select it in Organize view and click the Edit button, or double-click a thumbnail image. You’ll see a screen similar to that shown in Figure 23.9, with a large view of the photos and a number of editing tools in the bottom pane. While in Edit view, you can use the Previous and Next buttons at bottom right to move through a group of images without going back into Organize view.
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When editing a photo that’s been added to an album, bear in mind that any changes appear in both the Photo Library and the album.
A major function available in Edit view is cropping or trimming away the unimportant edges around a subject. iPhoto enables you to constrain the size of your cropped images to fit the common photos sizes including 4×6, 5×7, and 8×10, as well as ratios such as square, 4×3, and a size to fit the resolution of your monitor.
Watch Out!
Depending on the resolution of the images produced by your digital camera, you might not be able to crop to a small section of a photo without the resulting image becoming grainy or fuzzy. This is especially a problem if you plan to make printed versions of your photos because the images might look okay onscreen but look terrible on paper. When ordering prints or books, watch out for the low-resolution warning symbol, which looks like a yellow traffic sign. This symbol appears when creating a book or ordering prints if iPhoto determines that an image’s resolution is not sufficient for the requested size of the finished image.
To crop an image, open it in Edit view and follow these steps:
Set a Constrain option if you want to maintain a specific width-to-height ratio.
In the viewing area, a selection box will appear centered over the photograph in the viewing area, as shown in Figure 23.10. To reposition the selection box, move your mouse pointer to the center of the selected area until it changes to a hand and then drag the box where you want it. To resize the selection box, position your cursor along an edge so it changes to an arrow, and drag the edge of the selection box. If you want to clear the selection box and redraw it where you want it, click on the photo but outside the selection box so your cursor changes to lines that look like a plus sign. Then, place your mouse pointer at one corner of the object or scene you want to keep, and click and drag to form a selection box around it.
Click the Crop button to apply your change and see the result in the viewing area.
If you don’t like the look of the cropped image as well as you liked the original, you can undo your most recent edit by choosing Edit, Undo from the menu.
Did you Know?
After you make changes to images in iPhoto, you can always revert to the image as it was first imported by choosing Photos, Revert to Original from the menu. This enables you to make changes freely without fear of losing your original. However, if you achieve an effect you like, you might want to duplicate the photo in that state before trying additional edits. To do so, select the desired photo and choose Photos, Duplicate from the menu. That way, choosing Revert to Original after further editing returns you to that state rather than the original form of the image.
In addition to cropping, you can edit your images with the Brightness and Contrast sliders. Brightness makes a photo either lighter or darker overall—it can fix minor problems from under- or overexposure. Contrast increases the difference between light and dark elements by making lighter areas lighter and darker areas darker. Contrast also increases the saturation of colors. Although these settings are good for small corrections, keep in mind that they can’t save a photograph shot in really poor light conditions.
The Red-Eye, Black & White, and Sepia tools enable you to change coloration of photos. The Red-Eye option is useful for reducing red tint from the eyes of people and pets, but it also removes the red tones from any selected area. To correct red-eye, mark a crop selection box as tightly around the red eyes as possible and then click the Red-Eye button. Use the Black & White option to convert an entire image to black-and-white and the Sepia option to tint an entire photo rosy brown like an old-time photograph.
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iPhoto’s Red-Eye tool leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing, most red-eye regions are round, but iPhoto’s cropping tool can only make rectangular selections. If you happen to select a portion of anything with red tones in it that lies outside the red-eye region you want to correct, you will also remove the red for that area. One solution is to use other photo editing software that allows oval-shaped selections.
The Enhance feature also changes the coloration of the selected image. Specifically, it adjusts the colors in the photo for maximum contrast. To use it, simply click the Enhance button. If you don’t like the results, you can always choose Edit, Undo from the menu.
The Retouch option allows you to blend specks and imperfections in your photos into the areas surrounding them. This tool is different from the options we’ve already discussed, all of which either work on the entire image or a preselected area. When using Enhance, your mouse cursor appears as a set of crosshairs. You use these crosshairs to target image flaws. It may help to use the size slider to magnify the image so that you can see the area you want to retouch, as shown in Figure 23.11. When you have this cursor positioned near a discolored spot, click your mouse button and watch the color in the region around your cursor even out.
Did you Know?
When using the Retouch tool, be patient. It takes some intense processing effort from your computer to make the adjustments, so you may have to wait for it to complete the task.
When done, click again on the Retouch tool icon to return to normal editing mode.
Although iPhoto is a fantastic tool for organizing photos and performing simple cropping, you may want to perform your serious editing in a separate image editing program.
To open an iPhoto image file in another image editing program, click and drag an image thumbnail from the Organize view onto the icon for the photo-editing program. If you plan to edit with an outside program frequently, you can go into the iPhoto Preferences and set images to open automatically in the outside program when double-clicked.
If you do choose to edit your photos in a program other than iPhoto, keep in mind that changes saved to an original image from an outside program replace the original file in iPhoto’s folders, so you cannot revert to the original image as you normally would. If there is a chance that you’ll ever want the original, it is best to make a duplicate before you begin editing.
If you choose to further edit an image that has already been altered from within iPhoto, the image is already a copy, so you will be able to revert to the original version. To check whether a file is an original or a copy before you begin editing, look at the Photos menu to see whether Revert to Original is an available option or is grayed out. If it is grayed out, the photo you’re working with is the original.
Book view, shown in Figure 23.12, is a specialized option used to arrange an album’s photos into a book format, including any supporting text. You can then order copies of your book in the Organize view, as we’ll discuss in the section “Sharing Printed Photos” later in the chapter.
In the Book options view, the Theme pop-up menu enables you to choose a basic style, including Story Book, Picture Book, and Catalog. The options differ in their picture layouts and built-in text areas, and how the photos are arranged on the page. When you choose a theme, the photos in the selected album are placed in a basic template in the order they appear in the album. The individual pages appear in a row at the bottom of the photo viewing area.
Did you Know?
It’s best to choose the look you want for your book carefully before you start customizing it. If you change from one theme to another, you lose any text (except photo titles and comments) or special page formatting you’ve made.
Check boxes in the Book view also enable you to choose whether to show image Titles, Comments, and book Page Numbers on the pages, if the theme you’ve chosen includes space for them.
You can also choose whether to show guides for the text boxes. Check the Show Guides box if you want to edit the text. To edit text within a text area, select a page and type inside the space. If you want to check your spelling for a given page, you can do so by choosing Check Spelling from the Spelling submenu of the Edit menu. You can also change the font of an entire book in the Font submenu of the Edit menu.
When you choose a theme, an album’s photos are inserted into the page template in the order in which they appear in your album. For example, the first image in the album is the default cover shot. The Page Design pop-up menu enables you to adjust the templates to show more or fewer images on a selected page. If you like the composition of some of the pages and don’t want them to be shifted when you apply new templates or move other pages around, you must select the pages and check the Lock Page box. You can alter the layout of any page except the cover.
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You can change the order of whole pages by dragging them to a new position. However, to change the cover photo, you must go into Organize view and rearrange the images in your album to place another photo first. Any changes made to page order in your book are reflected in the order of images in the album.
To get a better feel for the chosen layout, click the Preview button to page through your book in a separate window, as shown in Figure 23.13. When you are satisfied with your book, click the Order Book button to open a window with purchasing details.
iPhoto offers a variety of ways for you to share your photos with others, both in print and onscreen. They are located along the bottom of the iPhoto window when it is in Organize view.
For those who want to share their photos the traditional way, on some sort of paper, iPhoto offers three button choices at the bottom of the window: Print, Order Prints, or Order Book.
Clicking the Print button enables you make print settings for the selected item, including page size, margin width, and number of copies. If you select the Photo Library but not a specific photo, you can print the entire group. Many additional print settings, including special instructions for paper type, are revealed by clicking the Advanced Options button at the bottom of the print window.
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As with other programs on your Mac, you can also choose to save your images in PDF format from the Print window. PDF documents can be opened by Adobe Acrobat, which is widely available and free, by people who don’t have other types of image-viewing software.
The Order Prints and Order Book buttons connect you to remote Web sites where you can choose what to order and supply your billing information. You can order prints of your pictures just as you would with pictures captured on film, or you can order a bound book of an album as you designed it using the Book view. If you order a book, keep in mind that the base size is 10 pages. If your book has fewer than 10 pages, several pages at the end are left blank. Also, additional charges are made on a page-by-page basis for books more than 10 pages.
To share your photos digitally with others, you can use the Email option. The Email option enables you to easily email a photo stored in iPhoto. Clicking the Email button brings up a dialog box in which you can choose the size of the image and whether to include the image title and comments. Click the Compose button to open a mail window containing the selected photograph and then add the email address of the recipient.
If you are a .Mac member, as discussed in Chapter 14, “Exploring .Mac Benefits,” you can also use the HomePage and .Mac Slides options. Clicking the HomePage button enables you to select up to 48 images from your Photo Library or a specific album to insert into a basic Web page layout that will be stored in your .Mac account. You can view a sample page in my .Mac account at homepage.mac.com/robynness/PhotoAlbum30.html.
Choosing the .Mac Slides options lets you upload a set of images to your .Mac server space, or iDisk, that can be used as a screensaver by anyone running version 10.1.5 or later of Mac OS X. You can only offer one slideshow at a time, but this is a fun way to share pictures with friends and family. When you update the slides, their screensavers will also be updated the next time they are connected to the Internet.
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After you upload a .Mac slideshow, how can you share it with your family and friends? Tell them to go to the Desktop & Screen Saver pane of System Preferences and choose .Mac from the list in the Screen Saver pane. Then, they need to click the Options button and, in the Subscription window that opens, type your .Mac membership name and click OK. It will take a few moments for the images to be downloaded from the Internet to their computers.
If you want to test drive a .Mac slideshow, you’re welcome to subscribe to mine, which features my own photographs of flowers and leaves. Simply enter robynness as the .Mac membership name in the Subscriptions window.
If your Mac has a CD burner or a DVD burner, you have two additional options for sharing your images digitally. The Burn option allows you to burn an album, or your entire library, to a CD or DVD. Simply click the Burn button and insert a blank disc when prompted. Then, click the Burn button again to write to the disc. The iDVD option magically exports your iPhoto slideshows—including music choice and slide timing—into iDVD. All that’s left for you to do is choose a background image for the main title page, using iDVD, and burn your DVD on a Mac equipped with Apple’s SuperDrive. (We’ll talk more about iDVD beginning in Chapter 30, “Exploring the iDVD Interface.”
In addition to sharing your photos with others, you can also enjoy them at your own computer with the iPhoto Slideshow and the Desktop options.
The Slideshow option brings up a dialog box, shown in Figure 23.14, in which you can set the transition between images, the duration each image stays onscreen, whether the slides are displayed randomly and whether they repeat, as well as whether to display titles, ratings, and slideshow controls. You can also select music to accompany the show. When you’ve made your settings, click OK to start the iPhoto slideshow.
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If you move your mouse while in a slideshow, the controls will appear to allow you to move forward or backward through the show. You can also easily apply ratings to the photos using the slideshow controls. Simply click the placeholder for the number of stars representing your rating.
The Desktop option enables you to choose a single photo from your collection for use as a desktop background. To set a desktop, simply select the image you want and click Desktop. Your desktop background is immediately replaced with the selected image. To change your background back to a non-iPhoto background, open the Desktop & Screen Saver pane of System Preferences and choose a different image.
The iPhoto preferences, shown in Figure 23.15, allows you to customize several functions of the program.
The first grouping of preference options in the General pane controls what appears in the Source pane. Here, you can choose whether to have special albums for the last 12 months and the last roll imported. You can also choose whether to show the photo count next to items in the Source pane.
Double-click Photo refers to the action that occurs when you double-click on a thumbnail image in your Photo Library or an album. The default setting is to open in iPhoto’s Edit view, but those who want to edit with an external program might want to select the radio button for Opens in Other, and then select an application on their hard drives. You can also choose the option to open in Edit window, which is a separate window that presents the standard editing tools in a slightly different way.
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When working in separate Edit windows, you can have more than one photograph open at a time. The down side is that you can’t undo single changes as you can when editing in the iPhoto window. However, you can always revert to original.
The Rotate options simply let you choose whether to rotate images clockwise or counterclockwise by default. (Remember, you can reverse the default direction by holding down the Option key.)
The Mail Using preference enables you to choose which installed email program is used when you select Email from the Organize view. By default, it is set to Mail, which was installed with Mac OS X. If you’ve installed another email program, you will have the option to select it.
The options in the Appearance pane let you customize the appearance of the iPhoto viewing area. You can choose whether a drop shadow, a border, or both appears around thumbnails and full images. You can also choose a background shade for the viewing area; your options are white, back, and shades of gray.
The check box for Align to Grid alters how thumbnails are positioned. It doesn’t make much difference if all the images in your library have the same dimensions. However, if some are horizontal and others vertical, alignment will keep the same number of pictures per row rather than squeeze in however many will fit.
The option Place Most Recent Photos at the Top does exactly what it says; if left unchecked, the most recent photos are added to the end (or bottom) in the rows making up your Photo Library. You can also choose the size of the text in the Source pane.
The Sharing preferences refer to options for sharing your photos with others on your local network, as discussed earlier in the section “The iPhoto Interface.” Choose whether to look for shared photos and whether to share yours. You can also choose to share only selected albums or to require a password to view any of your photos.