How Do I Fix My Photos With iPhoto?

Introduction to the Edit Mode.
iPhoto is a full application designed to import, sort, edit, print and share your digital photographs. In this tutorial, I am going to look at what tools iPhoto offers the user to fix photographs and I am going to explain how to use it's tools to get real results. We will be covering iPhoto 6, the latest version and the one currently bundled with new Macs. Most of the information here can be applied to earlier versions, although some functions might not be available on those.

The 'fixing of photos' can be accessed in two ways, the first one is to click the 'Edit' button located at the bottom left part of iPhoto's window. To use it, select any photo by clicking on it and then pressing Edit. The second way involves double clicking any photo. Both methods have the same result; you end in a different window, the Edit window. You will notice that your album of photos is 'gone'. The main part of the window is displaying the photo you selected. On top of it, you will find your 'missing' album that now appears on a single row. The array of buttons below the main window also changed. The Edit button is gone and the rest of the usual buttons have been replaced. The rotate button is still there; you also have Constrain, Crop, Enhance, Red-Eye, Retouch, Effects and Adjust. Notice how this buttons are divided into groups, each separated by a grey vertical line. We are going to take the fixing of a photograph step-by-step, learning what each tool do and how to use it effectively.

Rotate the Photo (Rotate Photo)
If your camera doesn’t send your photos to iPhoto with the right orientation, the first thing you should do is straighten your photo. This step applies to those photos taken holding the camera in a vertical mode; by default iPhoto shows all photos horizontally, to fix this just click the rotate button. It will rotate the photo 90 degrees each time. Click it as many times as necessary until it is straighten up. The default pre-set of the button rotates the photos counter clock wise, you change this in iPhoto preferences (IPhoto menu > preferences) or by pressing the option key and clicking Rotate.

Note: If you have many to rotate, you may want to do your rotating in the Library view where you can select several at once, then hit Rotate. Use cmd-click to select more than one at the same time.

Basic Fixing.
After the crop button you have 3 pre set functions. Enhance will improve the colors automatically, this works on most occasions but not always; you don' have any control over what it does.

Red-Eye helps you remove the red eye effect from people's eyes. To use it click the button and the cursor will transform into a cross. With it, click on people’s red eyes to fix them. You might want to zoom in for that.

Retouch is a 'water brush' that smudges your pictures. After clicking the button, hold the mouse button on top of the picture and move it around it. You will notice what it does. The more you zoom the image, the bigger the brush will be.

Adjusting the image. (Adjust and Effects Button)
The biggest problem with the photographs that we take is that the colors don't match those that we saw when we took the picture. This is especially true to the pics taken indoors. iPhoto features really  neat tools to fix this. In order to do it we are going to use the options on the Adjust button (the last one to the right). Once you click it a semi transparent window appears. It contains several sliders divided into categories and a 3-color graph at the bottom. The first 2 sliders are Brightness and Contrast.

Brightness increases or decreases the amount of white 'light' in your photo. Doing so can brighten or darken a photo but in doing so, it will destroy the colors of it. Moving the slider too much will create either a white or black wash over your subject.

Contrast work in the same way as brightness, it increases or decreases the contrast between the colors in your picture by adding white or black to it, and yes in doing so it also messes the colors. The recommendation about these two sliders is to try to avoid them as possible. Sometimes B&C are useful but only when used in very small increases/decreases.

The second group of sliders, control the colors on the picture. Saturation, brightness the colors, but unlike Brightness it doesn't do it by adding white but rather increasing the strength of them (e.g. a pale pink will turn into bright red). How to use it? Compare how colors look from the picture to the real scene (or what you remember from it), if you think the picture is either too pale or bright, move the slider accordingly.

Temperature balances the color of the light. Different kinds of light produce different colored images. A picture taken in a room with incandescent bulbs appears yellow; one under fluorescent light appears blue. How to use it? If the photo is too blue move the slider to the orange side, and if it’s too yellow move it to the blue. The way to determine when is you have achieve the right colors is to look at the brightest white spot on the picture. Does the white look yellow or blue? Focus on achieving a neutral white and the rest of the colors will balance themselves.

Tint is a complement for Temperature, sometimes photos also tend to be either Reddish or Green, move the Tint slider accordingly, also looking for a neutral white.

Next are the Sharpness and Straighten sliders, they don't have anything in common with the rest of the controls, so we will skip them to the end.

Below those, we find two things; the first is a slider call Exposure. It can increase or decrease the amount of light in the picture. If you move the slider to the right you will notice how the photo looks like it was taken with more light. The opposite is true if you move the slider to the left. How to use it? If your photo is either over exposed (too bright), move the slider to the left. If your photo is very dark, which means is under exposed, move it to the right to balance them.

Below Exposure, there is a graph that shows 3 areas that look like mountains. That graph is called a Histogram and it shows you the amount of light in the picture. Each colored mountain represents the primary colors in light: Red, Green and Blue. A Histogram represents the luminosity of the photo. A perfect exposed photo will have a mountain in the middle, if it’s too dark the mountain will be on the right and if its too bright it will be on the left. How to use it? Use the Levels slider below the Histogram, if you see that part of the graph is flat move any of the 2 arrows in it so they only cover the area with information. Check how it changes every-time you move any of the sliders above.

While you are using the Adjust control and you don't like what you have done, clicking the Reset Sliders Button will remove all the changes made and return you to the original picture. If you only want to reset the last thing you do, the undo function is always available (Edit menu > Undo). Once you close the adjust window, iPhoto will confirm all the changes you made (you can Undo this as well)

The Final two controls, Sharpness and Straighten do two completely different things, Sharpness lets you define or soften the image, it lets you enhance or diffuse detail. How to use it? If your photo is too grainy you can move the slider to the left and defocus it, the more you move the more you blur. If you move the slider to the right you can enhance the detail of a blurry picture. This will be especially noticeable on the edges of things.

Straighten is a complementary option to rotate. Even if your photo was correctly rotated with the Rotation button, you might notice that the subject on it looks like it’s going to fall from the picture. Moving the slider would make a reference grid appear. How to use it? Move the slider using the grid as reference.  Look for a straight line in your photo for reference. You can 'straighten' your photo up to 10 degrees in each direction.

Effects
When you are done using the controls, just close de Adjust window by clicking the x on the top left corner, iPhoto will apply the changes. Next to the left of the Adjust Button are the Effects options, clicking it reveals another window with  eight pre-fixed effects, based on common techniques used by pros. their name are very self explanatory. I encourage you to try them and see what they do to your photo. If you don't like what it does, you can Undo the effect or just press the original button in the middle.

Crop and Constrain
Once you have adjusting the picture, is time to cut it. Why not earlier? Because some part of the image that you cut might be useful in helping you adjust the image. If you cut it first you might lose valuable reference points. There are two ways to cut.

Crop lets you cut the part of the pictures you don't want, like when you have too much sky on a picture. To use it, simply click it and draw a square on your photo. The Crop area has a white transparent layover frame, you can adjust it by putting the cursor on top of the border of the crop area. To crop the photo press the Crop button again.

Clicking the button above Constrain gives you a list of different pre determined sizes. That is the area that will cut. To do so after selecting the desired size, click the Crop Button. If you are not happy with the selection you can reshape the area manually the same was is in crop. To finish click the Crop button.

So now you have finished fixing your photo, to return to iPhoto's album, just press the Done button that is located at the right bottom part of the window. Hope you practice and enjoy it!


Do you have any other questions? Ask them in the comments below.

DIG DEEPER

iPhoto Tutorial from Apple

iPhoto Quick Tour from Apple

Apple's iPhoto Dicussions forum

Comprehensive iPhoto reference links from Jim Heid's Macintosh Digital Hub on MacLife

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