Better Safe Than Sorry

Well you all have the application I’m talking about this week, although to be honest, some of you will have an earlier version than the one I’m talking about. So if I have your attention I’ll dive straight in. iPhoto, see I told you you all have the application, currently I’m using the latest build 8.0.4 which is part of the iLife 09 suite.

Why did I want to chat about iPhoto? I’m not going to go through all of the great features but specifically, and emphasising I’m no expert, I was amazed to hear someone in an online meeting I was on say that they didn’t realize how much editing you can do within the application, and since I’ve just come back from holiday iPhoto has had a lot of use.

This got me thinking, I wonder how many people buy their Mac, get it home, throw the pictures into iPhoto but never get to the point where they click on the edit button at the bottom of the screen? If you’re one of those types, listen on because iPhoto is really quite a powerful tool.

So you’ve imported the photos, whether they be JPEG’s or RAW images, although if you’re shooting RAW you may already use the editing capability of another more powerful photo editing application, but iPhoto can do a lot. Click on the edit icon and you’re into a world of improvements.

Once you’ve clicked the edit icon you should see at the top of iPhoto a row of your photo’s then the photo it’s self and at the bottom a row of icons that do varying things to your pictures. The first icon is nice and easy and can also be adjusted without entering the edit mode, Rotate. Rotate your photo through 360 degree’s in 90 degree increments.

Then we have Crop. To me, this can be a really powerful way to improve your picture, go in and try. Choose a picture, click on Crop and iPhoto opens the picture and adds a white outline where you can grab the corners or any of the edges and adjust on certain parts of the picture. When you make the adjustment, iPhoto adds a grid which helps when it comes to getting your thirds correct on the photo. I won’t go into thirds here, but believe me taking note of the grid will help you compose your image. One thing I like to do is change the view to a more rectangular view. It’s amazing how you can change the shot with this tool.

Now before I go on, remember these adjustments are non destructive so if you don’t like the finished product then you can always revert back.

The next icon is straighten. We all try to take a level picture but it isn’t always possible, so go into Straighten and make that right. If you combine angling the picture, you don’t have to straighten the picture after all, just Crop and you’ll come up with some great affects.

The next icon is Enhance, this button will automatically adjust the photo to enhance it’s light and color. Here’s a trick, if you want to see exactly what is being done, click on the Adjust icon before clicking the Enhance icon. A floating panel will open up with lots of adjustment bars, with Adjust open, click on the Enhance icon, you’ll see that some of those adjustment bars move. If you want to experiment move some of those bars to see for yourself the impact your having. Enhance does a pretty good job, but sometimes it doesn’t create the affect you want, if this happens you can undo the affect easily with the key combination CMD Z.

The next icon is Red-Eye. The current Red-Eye reduction is better than previous versions but it’s still not quite there, but with some practice you’ll soon get used to using the tool for best results, and get rid of those ugly red eyed pictures that always seem to occur no much you try to avoid them.

Moving onto the next icon which is Retouch. This tool is great if you find you have a blemish on the picture, this could be because of a dirty lens or that darn fly landed right where you didn’t want it to when you took the shot. Click here and iPhoto gives you an adjustable size circular curser which you then click over the blemish and iPhoto will use data local to outside of the cursor and replicate the area with that data, you’ll see the blemish disappear, it’s almost magic.

The next effect is something I haven’t used too much but again is a powerful tool and creates some interesting effects, and each of the effects can have an impact on each of the other. So if you want a sepia, vignette photo with an edge blur go here. Again a neat trick is to have the Adjust menu open to see what impact the adjustments your making are having on the metadata of the photograph. CMD Z here does work, but there is also an original photo in the middle of the grid that pops up enabling you to get back to the photo you had prior to all changes.

Now the final icon one that I’ve mentioned already is Adjust, this is a powerful tool and something that if you’re not careful, you can spend far too much time messing about in. I’ll try and give you pointers here, but there are many other websites and podcasts to really get into what each of these adjustments can do for you.

Once you’ve clicked on the Adjust icon, a floating submenu pops up which has what is referred to as a levels panel where you can make adjustments. Quick tip, if you have a full spread of peaks on this graph leave the end sliders alone, slide the middle adjustment left or right but as in all of the adjustments you must watch the picture as you get a live view of the impact you are having on the picture. CMD Z doesn’t work here, but there is a reset button on the bottom of the submenu, this is your friend. Now if those peaks of red’s greens and blue’s I mentioned are gathered around the middle of the panel, try moving the end sliders in toward the edges of the colors, watching the picture for changes.

The next three sliders below this panel are Exposure, Contrast and Saturation. I tend to leave these alone. They can have big impacts on the end result these can often be counter adjusted in some of the other edits, yes I am probably talking sacrilege, but this is how I use the adjustment sliders remember.

The next section of the submenu is Definition, Highlights, Shadows, Sharpness and De-Noise. These sliders I find myself using more than the others, you might want to try Highlights and Shadows first. The Highlights slider will often bring out clouds that you thought you’d captured and just seem to be a white greyish mass, and Shadows can bring out definition in the darker area’s of your picture.

The last two options again will have a big impact but until your really into making these adjustments you may find like me, your not using much are Temperature and Tint. There is also a droplet icon next to Tint that allows you to remove a color cast, I have only just started playing with that option.

Another nice option is that at the bottom of the menu is a copy and paste option, you can use this to paste any adjustments onto another similar picture you may have taken at the same time, this I do use but not as much as you’d think.

As I said these adjustments are non destructive and not permanent, but in the case of JPG’s I believe that iPhoto keeps a copy of the original and one of the adjusted photo. With RAW images the metadata is adjusted and the original metadata is not lost either.

I hope this gives you the initiative to go take a look at editing your photos. You never know, that magic shot you thought you had may still be a magic shot with just a few adjustments. Here’s a link that will help you when working in iPhoto. http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#iphoto

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