Robin Williams Cool Mac Apps, Second Edition [Electronic resources] : A guide to iLife 05, .Mac, and more! نسخه متنی

Edit Photos

Photos often need a little help to look their best. Your favorite shot may be a little too dark, too blue, or have a small blemish in the middle of the picture. Even photos that look great can sometimes be improved by cropping them to change the composition. iPhoto includes easy-to-use tools that enable the most common image editing procedures.

To view a photo for editing

Select an album or a single photo, then click the "Edit" button beneath the viewing area. Three things happen:

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Create a duplicate photo before you do anything drastic

When you drag a photo from the Library into an album, iPhoto doesn't make a separate copy of that photoit creates a "link" that points from the album to the original photo in the Library. This prevents your hard disk from getting stuffed full with multiple copies of the same photo.

So when you edit a photo, you affect its appearance not only in the Library but in all other albums in which that photo appears. If you want to avoid changing the photo's appearance in every instance, create a duplicate of the photo and edit the duplicate.

Select a photo in the Library or in an album. When you duplicate a photo in an album, the duplicate appears in both the album and the Library; any changes you make will apply to both duplicates, since they're actually the same photo.

From the Photos menu, choose "Duplicate," or press Command D.

Or instead of Steps 1 and 2, Control-click on a photo, then choose "Duplicate" from the contextual menu that pops up.

iPhoto automatically renames the duplicate by adding "copy" to the title, but you may want to change the name: select the duplicate, then enter a new name in the "title" field of the Information pane.

Select the duplicate photo, then click the "Edit" button to show the photo in Edit view and access iPhoto's editing tools.

Duplicate photos take up as much room on your hard disk as the original. Use duplicates sparingly to economize your computer's storage space.

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Crop an image

The Crop tool lets you select the most important part of a picture and delete the rest of it. Thoughtful cropping makes your photos visually stronger and more interesting.

Select a photo.

Click the "Edit" button.

Select an option from the "Constrain" menu, shown on the left.

Choose "None" if you don't want restraints on your cropping so you can drag-select any shape and proportion you want. Choose one of the other options to limit the cropping area to a specific ratio. For instance, if you plan to use the photo in an iPhoto Book, select the "4 x 3 (Book)" option.

As you make the editing changes described on the following pages, you can use the Undo command to undo changes, one at a time. Press Command Z, or choose "Undo" from the Edit menu.
The Constrain pop-up menu contains common size and proportion options, plus a custom option for creating a photo any size.

Position the crosshair pointer at one corner of the desired cropping area, then press-and-drag diagonally to create a cropping area, as shown below. When you like the selection, let go of the mouse.

To move the crop selection, press inside the cropping area and drag.

To resize the crop selection, position the tip of the pointer on any edge of the cropping selection, then press-and-drag the edge to a new position. Or click outside the crop selection and start over.

Click the "Crop" button to apply the cropping.

Drag the crosshair pointer diagonally to draw a cropping area within the selected photo. The "faded out" area is removed when you click the "Crop" button.

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Improve photos with the Enhance tool

Sometimes you think photos look pretty good because you don't have a "corrected" version that you can compare them to. Colors may be dull and the contrast may be flat, but who notices? The "Enhance" tool analyzes an image and automatically adjusts the color and contrast. You might not always prefer the enhanced version, but it can often make dramatic improvements to photos.

To use the Enhance tool

Select a photo from an album or from the Library.

Click the "Edit" button to fill the viewing area with the photo.

Click the "Enhance" button once. Check the photo in the Viewing area to see if you like the changes.

Compare the "enhanced" photo to the original version: Press the Control key to see the original. Release the Control key to show the current effect.

If you don't like the new version, undo the enhancement by pressing Command Z. Or from the Edit menu, choose "Undo Enhance Photo." Or from the Photos menu, choose "Revert to Original."

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The Enhance tool is fast and easy, but it's also a hit-or-miss solutioniPhoto does its best to analyze a photo, then applies the changes. To have more control when you enhance a photo, use the Adjust tools (see pages 34 35).

Rotate an image

The Rotate button.

You can rotate a photo from any view mode. Just select a photo and click the Rotate button (shown to the left) to rotate the image 90 degrees counterclockwise (if counterclockwise is what you chose in Preferences, pages 14 15). Additional clicks will continue to rotate the image in 90-degree increments.

Option-click the Rotate button to rotate the photo in the opposite direction indicated by the button's icon.

Reduce red-eye

Use the Red-Eye tool to remove the red glare in a subject's eyes caused by a camera's flash. The results may vary with different photos.

Select a photo that needs red-eye removal.

Click the "Edit" button (if you're not already there).

Click the "Red-Eye" button to select it. A green dot appears on top of the Red-Eye button to indicate the tool is active. A floating message bar appears with instructions to click the center of each eye.

Click the center of each eye.

To quit the Red-Eye tool, click the tool again in the toolbar, or click the "x" in the floating message bar.

If you're not satisfied with the results, press Command Z (Undo), or from the Photos menu, choose "Revert to Original."
You can also do this: Press-and-drag the cursor to select a rectangular area that encloses both eyes, or all the eyes of all the people in the photo. Then just click the "Red-Eye" button.

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Touch up photos with the Retouch tool

Even your best photos usually have some imperfections in them. If you scanned a photo, dust or scratches on the scanner glass may be visible, and digital images straight from a camera contain artifacts or digital "noise" that appears as oddly colored pixels in the image. There's also the possibility that the model or the background could have a blemish you want to remove.

The Retouch tool does an excellent job of fixing minor problems. Acting like a combination blur and smudge brush, it blends the pixels under the crosshair into the surrounding area.

Any retouching changes you make are applied to the original photo in the Library, even if you selected the photo from an album instead of from the Library. The retouched version will replace all occurrences of the photo in all albums in which it appears. If you want to prevent this, make a duplicate of the photo and make changes to the duplicate.

To use the Retouch brush

Select a photo to retouch.

Click the "Edit" button to fill the viewing area with the photo and show the editing tools. If necessary you can use the size slider (in the bottom-right corner) to enlarge the photo.

Click the "Retouch" button in the Edit toolbar.

Move the Retouch tool cursor crosshairs on top of the area you want to retouch, then click once. Click again if necessary to achieve the results you want. You can also press-and-drag the crosshairs to affect a larger area.

The Retouch crosshair is positioned near the area to be retouched.

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Size slider.

Convert a photo to black and white or sepia

To convert a photo to black and white or sepia, select it, then click the "Edit" button. In the Edit toolbar, click the "B & W" or "Sepia" button.

Remember, this will affect how this photo looks in every album it appears in. If you don't want to affect other occurrences, first make a duplicate of the photo, rename it, and convert the duplicate to black and white.

Use the Adjust tools to edit images

The Adjust tools let you manually change settings to modify the appearance of photos. This gives you much more control over the results than if you use the automatic modifications of the Enhance tool.

Try this

Open the Adjust window, then use the Enhance wand to modify a photo. You'll see the Levels graph change as the photo changes appearance.

Select a photo, then click the "Edit" button in the toolbar to switch to the edit view (shown below).

Click the "Adjust" button to open the "Adjust" window.

Drag the various image modification sliders to alter the image.

The "Levels" graph at the bottom of the "Adjust" window is called a histogram. It charts all the dark and light pixels in an image. To make light areas lighter, drag the right slider under the histogram to the left. To make dark areas darker, drag the left slider under the histogram to the right. You'll see the changes in the photo as you drag the sliders.

Tip

To change slider values in single increments, click the symbol on the left or right side of the slider.

When you're finished with your changes, click the "Done" button to save the changes.

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When you use the Adjust sliders to modify an image, it not only gives you more control, it allows you to experiment with effects that you wouldn't ordinarily think about. Compare the two examples below to the original image on the previous page. The version on the left shows bold changes to the Levels settings. The version on the right shows even more extreme levels settings, plus a very large amount of sharpening (moving the "Sharpness" slider to the right). It's fun to experiment with the Adjust sliders.

Tip

If you want to open photos in some other image-editing application, such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements, set iPhoto to open another application when you double-click a photo. See the bottom of page 14.

Straighten crooked photos

The "Straighten" adjustment slider lets you correct photos that need to be straightened (or tilt a photo for special effect).

Select a photo, then click the "Edit" button to open it in Edit view.

Click the Adjust button in the Edit toolbar.

Drag the "Straighten" slider left or right to tilt the image. A grid appears to which you can align elements in the photo.

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Edit a photo in a separate window

You can choose to edit a photo in its own, separate edit window rather than in the iPhoto window. This enables you keep more than one photo open and editable at one time. If you're comparing photos or editing for color harmony between photos, working with several open windows can be helpful.

To open a photo in a separate window, hold down the Option key and double-click a photo. Or Control-click on a photo, then choose "Edit in separate window" from the pop-up contextual menu.

After you've made image adjustments, click the red Close button to close this window and save your changes.

To revert to the original, unedited photo, Control-click on the photo and choose "Revert to Original." You can also revert to the original later from the main iPhoto window.

Use the "Size" pop-up menu to choose what size the photo is shown in this window. When you choose "Fit to window" the photo automatically resizes when you change the size of the window.

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Tip

If you want photos to open into separate windows every time you double-click, choose "Opens photo in edit window" in iPhoto's Preferences window. See page 14.