Part 10. Getting an iLife
iLife is Apple’s name for its collection of five “digital hub” i programs: iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie, Garageband, and iDVD. Along with iTunes, this software represents the company’s effort to empower Mac users to create and control their own entertainment media. With iLife and iTunes, you can manage and share your digital photos; acquire and mix music; make your own music; produce digital movies; create a website in seconds; and create professional-looking DVDs that combine movies, music, still images, and more.
In this Part you’ll learn how to get your pictures into iPhoto and organize them into albums. When you have albums, you can print your photos, share them on the web, and design real coffee-table-style books of photos. You’ll also learn how to import music from your CD collection into iTunes, create custom mixes called playlists, and burn your own CDs. With a visit to the iTunes Music Store, you’ll pick and choose from the latest tunes on the market—at 99¢ a pop.
With iMovie, you’ll learn how to import video from your camcorder and add scene transitions and fun special effects to turn your footage into a masterpiece. Finally, you’ll be introduced to iDVD; with this program, you’ll create a new DVD project, preview it to make sure it’s just the way you want it, and then burn it to a DVD disc so you can play it in your DVD player.
Managing Photos, Video, and Music
Importing Photos into iPhoto
iPhoto can do a lot of things, but its most important function is simply providing a place to keep all your digital photos. Think of it as a super-duper photo album, or maybe a filing cabinet for your photos (if you take a lot of them). So, the first step in doing anything with iPhoto is getting your photos into its database.
Plug your camera in to your Mac’s USB port, turn it on, and start up iPhoto (in the Applications folder).
Click Import All.
Click Delete Originals if you want to clear the original images off the camera; otherwise, click Keep Originals.
Tip: You Can Get There from Here
To import image files from your hard drive, a removable disk, or camera media you’ve mounted on the Desktop, drag and drop the files directly onto the Photo Library entry in the Albums list.
Note: Found, Not Lost
If you can’t find the latest photos you brought into iPhoto, check out the Last Import album. That’s where the most recent group of images you imported is always stored.
Creating iPhoto Albums
Rather than being exactly parallel to a real-word photo album, an iPhoto album is really just a way to group photos together so iPhoto knows which photos you want to print, display, or export. Albums are the way you organize your photos so you can find the ones you want. Creating an album is also the first step in creating a book or web page.
In iPhoto, click the Create New Album button.
Type a name for the new album and click Create.
Add photos to the new album by dragging and dropping them from the preview area to the album’s name.
Click the album’s name, and then drag and drop the album’s photos in the preview area to change their order.
Tip: Information Please
You can add descriptive information to the photos in your albums. Click the Show Info (i) button below the Album column to display Title, Comments, and Date fields that you can fill out.
Printing Photos
It’s not a paperless world yet, so you’re bound to want to print your photos at some point. iPhoto offers several printing layouts so you can create standard prints, picture packages like the ones photo studios offer, or just plain printouts in your choice of size and number.
Tip: Fine-Tuning Print Settings
Although your printer driver probably includes presets for photo and plain paper, you’ll need to fine-tune the settings for your printer. Click Advanced in the final Print dialog box to get to a Print dialog box with the usual options, including color and media.
-click in the preview area to select individual photos.
Choose File, Print.
Choose a printer from the Printer pop-up menu.
If available, choose an option from the Presets pop-up menu to set the output type.
Choose a Style option and a Print Size option, and make sure the Paper Size setting is correct for your printer.
Click OK.
Click Print.
Click Print one last time.
Note: Proxy Preview
The proxy preview area in iPhoto’s Print dialog box shows you how your printouts look with the selected printer’s paper size and the selected Style option. The proxy preview updates on-the-fly as you change the settings for the selected style.
Tip: Custom for the Customers
If you want to change the settings for a style, such as the order the photos print or their size on the page, click Customize in the lower right corner of the proxy preview area.
Sharing Photos on the Web
The best way to share your photos with friends and family all over the country or the world is to put them on the web. iPhoto makes creating a web picture gallery easy, even if you’re not a .Mac member. To share pictures, all you have to do is put the files that iPhoto generates on your web space and let everyone know the URL.
Note: Even Easier
If you do have a .Mac account, your job just got much, much simpler! Instead of Send to iWeb, choose Web Gallery from iPhoto’s Share menu. With this command, iPhoto uploads the whole shebang straight to your .Mac site.
Note: What’s in a Name?
iPhoto inserts the album’s name in the Title field, but you can change the page title to anything you want.
Click the album you want to share on a web page.
Choose Share, Send to Web, Photo Page.
Choose a design for the web page.
Click Choose.
In iWeb, choose File, Publish to a Folder.
Choose a location for the exported files.
Click Choose.
Note: Big and Little
iPhoto creates all the full-size and thumbnail images your web album needs, but you must specify sizes. Thumbnail images are small versions of the photos on which viewers can click to see the full-size versions.
Applying Fun Photo Effects
Ever spent time in one of those mall photo booths, messing around to produce a strip of funny photos? Now there’s no trip to the mall needed; just use Photo Booth to take pictures of yourself using your webcam. You can also add cool special effects and even change the background so it looks as though you’re sitting in, say, the mall.
Note: Wait! There’s More
Photo Booth’s Effects include lens effects—such as fisheye—and backdrops that you can put behind your image. You can even add your own backdrops: Just drag a photo into one of the blank spaces in the Effects pane of the Photo Booth window.
Note: Flickring Photos
If you use Flickr.com to share photos with friends and family, you’ll love FlickrBooth (www.otierney.net/flickrbooth). It’s a plug-in for Photo Booth that lets you send your photos directly to Flickr, no Web browser required!
Start up Photo Booth (you’ll find it in the Applications folder).
Adjust your position within the photo frame and click the Effects button.
Use the arrow buttons to scroll through the available effects.
Double-click on the thumbnail image for the effect you want to use.
Click the camera button when you’re ready to shoot a picture.
Click one of the photos shown at the bottom of the window to use it.
Click a button to indicate what you want to do with the photo: email it, send it to iPhoto, use it as your login picture, or use it as your Buddy icon in iChat.
Tip: More in Store
When you feel that you’ve exhausted Photo Booth’s possibilities, hold your horses. You can also take quick bursts of four pictures (which are then displayed four-up, rather than singly), and you can take videos as well. Click the Burst button in the lower left corner of the Photo Booth window to shoot a burst, and click the Video button to shoot a movie.
Ripping Songs from a CD
You’ll be amazed at how much more use you get from your CD collection after you get the music off CDs and into iTunes. The songs on CDs are already digital files; ripping them consists of transferring them to your hard drive and resaving them in MP3 format.
Insert the CD.
If iTunes doesn’t start up automatically, open the Applications folder and double-click to start up iTunes.
Click to remove the check marks next to any songs you don’t want to add to your library.
Click Import CD.
Tip: The Sounds of Silence
iTunes plays songs while it’s importing them, but if you don’t want to listen to them, you can click Pause to stop the playback. iTunes continues importing the songs.
Tip: Mind the Gap
If you want consecutive songs to play with no pause between them, choose Advanced, Join CD Tracks before clicking Import.
Making a New Playlist
Playlists are simply groups of songs, containing just one song or hundreds. You can use them to create party mixes, plan mix CDs, or categorize your music by genre or any other criterion. Building playlists is a simple drag-and-drop operation.
In iTunes, click the Create Playlist button.
Type a name for the playlist.
Click the Library entry in the Source column to see all your songs, or click the name of another playlist.
Drag songs from the Name column and drop them into the new playlist.
Tip: Finding What You Want
To locate a specific song in the Library or in a playlist, click in the Search field and type part of the song name. As you type, the list of songs shortens to include only the songs that match your search term.
Tip: Changing Your Mind
To remove a song from a playlist (but not from your Library), click to select it and press Delete.
Burning a Music CD
You can take your music with you in the form of custom mix CDs for parties, for gifts, or just to use in the car. Before you burn a CD, you need to create a playlist containing the songs you want to use on the disc. And, of course, you need to have a CD drive that can write CDs as well as play them.
Tip: Picture This
Any song you buy from the iTunes Music Store (see the next task) comes with cover artwork. When you burn a compilation, iTunes creates a custom mosaic of the songs’ cover art and drops that into a template to create an insert for the CD case.
Tip: The Right Media
Make sure you use CD-R media, rather than CD-RW media, if you plan to play your CD in a regular CD player (meaning, on your stereo) rather than in a computer CD drive.
In iTunes, choose iTunes, Preferences.
Click the Burning button at the top of the window; then choose Audio CD as the Disc Format.
Click the Audio button and click the check box labeled Use Sound Check.
Click OK.
Click to select the playlist you want to make into a CD.
Click the Burn Disc button.
Insert a blank CD-R disc; iTunes burns your playlist onto the disc.
Tip: Avoiding a Small Annoyance
If you insert a blank CD before clicking Burn Disc in the iTunes window, your Mac asks you what you want it to do with the CD. Clicking Burn Disc before putting the CD-R in the drive bypasses this dialog box.
Tip: Stop Right There
To stop the CD burner after you click Burn Disc, click the X next to the progress bar. You can use your CD drive again immediately, but the CD you canceled is no longer usable.
Purchasing Songs Through iTunes
The iTunes Music Store offers thousands of tunes in all genres at very reasonable prices. You can download entire albums or one song at a time. Your purchases are charged to your credit card, and the songs are downloaded directly into iTunes, where you can play them on your computer, transfer to them to an iPod, or burn them to a CD.
Tip: Getting an iTunes Account
If you already have an Apple ID, you’re all set—just enter that username and password to sign in to the iTunes Music Store. If you have a paid subscription to .Mac, use that username and password for the Music Store. If you don’t have either, follow the Music Store’s prompts to create a new ID and supply your credit card information for purchases.
In iTunes, click Music Store in the Source column.
Click Sign In.
Type your Apple ID and password and click Sign In.
If you haven’t bought songs before, a dialog box tells you that this ID hasn’t been used with the Music Store; click Review.
Read the Terms and Conditions and click Agree; then enter your credit card information and click Done.
Click a song or album title to see more information about it.
Click Buy Song or Buy Album to purchase music.
Click Buy. The song downloads into iTunes and appears in a new playlist called Purchased Music.
Tip: Quick and Clean Searching
You can search the Music Store quickly for any text by entering the search text in the regular iTunes search field at the top of the iTunes window. Type the song or artist name you want to look for and press Return.
Tip: Just a Taste
When you’re browsing the iTunes Music Store, click iTunes’ Play button to hear a high-quality, 30-second snippet of a selected song.
Importing Video Footage into iMovie
With iMovie, your home movies will reach new heights. You can add titles and credits, special effects, music and sound effects, and more. Then you can save your finished creations as small QuickTime files for emailing, high-quality DVD movies, or anything in between. The first step is to bring video from your video camera into iMovie.
Note: Trouble in iMovie Paradise
Can’t seem to get the camera to respond to iMovie’s controls? Check to make sure the camera is in playback mode (VTR or VCR mode) rather than recording mode.
In iMovie, choose File, New Project.
Give the new movie project a name and click Create.
Choose File, Import from Camera.
Choose a location for the imported footage and click OK.
Click Fast Forward or Rewind to move the tape to the section you want to import.
Click Import to start importing footage.
Click Stop when you’ve imported the footage you want. The video is added to the Clip Shelf.
Note: On the Safe Side
Be conservative when importing video—always import a bit extra on either end of the section you want. You can trim extra footage in iMovie to end up with just the right scene, but if you cut off the scene you’ll need to import it again.
Tip: Sound and Vision
Drag the slider next to the playback controls to adjust the volume level of the tape’s audio while you watch it import. Doing this doesn’t affect the recording level on the tape or in the final movie.
Inserting Transitions
After you’ve assembled your movie’s raw footage by dragging clips from the Clip Shelf into the Clip Viewer, you can spice up the production by adding transitions between clips.
Note: Creative Transitioning
Unfortunately, iMovie restricts you to using one transition between each pair of clips. But don’t forget that you can also use transitions before and after titles, photos, and other elements.
To see the available transitions, click the Transitions button.
Hold the cursor over a transition to see how it looks in action.
Drag the transition to the Clip Viewer and drop it into the point in the movie where you want it.
To change settings for your transitions, choose File, Project Properties.
Drag the Transition Duration slider to determine how long each transition takes.
Click OK.
Note: Transition Timing
Be sure to pay attention to the duration of your transitions as you preview you movie. What seemed like a perfectly reasonable amount of time when you put in the transition can stretch to an awfully long time when you’re watching.
Saving a Movie
When your magnum opus is complete—or at least when you’re ready to share it with the outside world—you’ll need to export it to a tape or to QuickTime movie. This is an easy process, with only a few options to set.
Choose Share, Export Movie.
Choose a size for the movie, based on what you want to do with it.
Enter a name for the file.
Choose a location for the file and click Export.
Tip: Saving Your Work
When you quit iMovie, your project is saved in iMovie’s special project format, and when you start iMovie again, you’ll see everything right where you left it. You don’t need to export the movie until you’re done working on it.
Creating a New iDVD Project
Like iMovie, iDVD always opens the last project you worked on. You can open another project by choosing File, Open, or you can begin a new project from scratch. Here’s how to do that.
On the iDVD opening screen, click Create a New Project.
Enter a name for your DVD project.
Navigate to the location where you want to save the project and click Create.
Note: Where to Stash Projects
Using the folders that Mac OS X creates for certain purposes makes remembering where you put things much easier. In the case of iDVD, the default folder in which to save your projects is the Documents folder within your home folder.
Previewing a DVD
It’s a well-known fact that creative projects don’t always turn out the way they’re envisioned. It’s far better to catch mistakes and make tweaks before you’ve burned a DVD than after. That’s where iDVD’s Preview function comes in handy. Always preview your projects before burning them to disc.
Click Preview to play the DVD.
Click buttons on the remote control to test the way the DVD will work on a TV.
Click Exit to leave preview mode.
Tip: Playing It Safe
To be sure the DVD’s elements won’t extend off the edge of the screen, choose Advanced, Show TV Safe Area before you click Preview. This command places a rectangle on the screen that defines the boundaries of older TV screens.
Burning a DVD
After your DVD project is set up the way you want it and you’ve confirmed this by using the Preview feature, it’s time to burn an actual DVD disc. You must have a Mac with a built-in SuperDrive to accomplish this with iDVD.
In iDVD, click the Burn button twice.
Insert a blank DVD disc. The process starts automatically and alerts you when it’s finished.
Note: Make Way for DVDs
You should quit all other programs while you’re burning a DVD. This ensures that no other program will take over the computer while the DVD is being created, which might cause an error in the DVD.
Note: iDVD Without the Burn
Previously, iDVD wouldn’t even install if your Mac was SuperDrive-less, but with iDVD 3.0.1 and later versions, you can create iDVD projects on a Mac that doesn’t have a SuperDrive. To burn a project, copy it to a SuperDrive-equipped Mac.