Book Review: iPhoto 4 for Mac OS X
iPhoto 4 for Mac OS X
Adam Engst
208 Pages. Peachpit Press, 2004. $20
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Review by Amber Robey
If you’re like most tech-loving people, you’ve probably got a digital camera; either one you’ve had for a while, or one you’ve just gotten for Christmas. Have you ever wondered what you can do with all the photos you have been storing on your Mac?
I faced this dilemma shortly after I bought my first digital camera a year ago; while I had no problem importing all the pictures into iPhoto, I knew there were many other ways that I could enjoy them and share them with others. After some hunting, I came across Adam Engst’s “iPhoto for Mac OS X†book, part of Peachpit’s Visual Quickstart Guide series. Adam Engst, well-known as the publisher of TidBITS, starts by covering all the essentials: importing and managing photos, organizing and editing photos, backing up your photos, and creating albums and film rolls. He also discusses the more creative ways to share your photos, including having them published in a professional looking book that you design yourself, from within iPhoto. Engst goes into considerable depth here, covering all aspects of the book design process– from choosing a book theme through ordering the book and having it delivered to your door.
In addition to this personal photo album, he also explains how to create desktop and DVD slide shows, publish your photos quickly and easily to your own website, print custom greeting cards, create screensavers and desktop pictures, and export slideshows to QuickTime movies.
Engst also covers the range of photo editing features that you can apply to your photos within iPhoto. We all take photos that come out not quite right. While you cannot perform complex editing functions such as applying filters, layering or extensive photo restoration, he does show you how to deal with the most common problems and tells how you can avoid these problems in the first place.
Let’s take red-eye first, as it is easily one of the most frequent photography fouls we encounter. In two quick steps, Engst details how to eliminate the red-eye in any photo and then goes on to provide a list of tips to make this process even easier. There is also a long sidebar on the same page that explains what causes red-eye and how to prevent it.
Two further editing functions that most of us are familiar with are cropping and rotating.
Again Engst shows you how to perform both these operations in the same short, concise steps with accompanying photos. If you are planning to use your photos in a book, you learn how to crop them to the correct aspect ratio. He then goes on to provide the uses for specific aspect ratios to help you realize which one would be the most useful to you.
Another element included in iPhoto is the retouch tool. IPhoto allows you to cover up those small marks and irregularities that appear from time to time on photos (chocolate on a child’s face, shaving nicks, small cuts, chapped lips, etc.) simply by clicking and moving the retouch tool over the problem area to wipe it out. Voila – your picture is ready to be displayed in whichever way you choose without using an expensive editing program.
In case there is any confusion as to how to access and use the various editing tools, Engst provides two screen shots (pg 60-61) which extensively cover all the available features. Around each screen shot is a series of lines pointing to the various features, explaining how to use them all.
An entire chapter is devoted to showing you how to create your own customized book and prepare it for publishing through iPhoto. The chapter starts off with a detailed screen shot showing you all the features you will need to use to create your book. You are then taken through all the steps involved in compiling and designing the book, including the use of theme pages and layouts, arranging your photos, entering and editing the text, changing fonts, styles and text color, checking your spelling, previewing the book and finally printing the book on your own printer or sending it to a publisher.
The ability to create books is by far one of the most exciting aspects of iPhoto and I was pleased to see the depth with which the author covered it. In fact, this is by far my favorite element of iPhoto.
There is an additional chapter on the various methods of sharing photos, including steps on how to export your photos to Quicktime movies, distributing these movies, exporting files and using Applescript scripts to further extend iPhoto. After reading this chapter, even the most novice photographer and computer user will be able to export and publish their photos on personal web pages, create movies, create a DVD slide show, make their own screensavers and desktop pictures, burn photo CD’s and manage Homepage albums.
Before I picked up this book, I honestly did not realize what a powerful and useful program iPhoto is. Given the size of the book, I was a bit skeptical as to how much I would actually learn but was pleasantly surprised.
The explanations are clear and concise, and there are numerous tips and sidebars throughout the book that take you further and point out some of the details. All the screenshots are large and detailed and are clearly referenced to the surrounding text, and, while you won’t find color photos or inserts, they’re not really needed. This book is a perfect size to carry around and browse through, and yet it contains a considerable amount of information.
When you finish reading this book, you’ll be kept busy for ages with all kinds of cool photo projects! It’s the perfect book to pick up after Christmas to help you get the most out of your new digital camera.
Amber K. Robey
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