iPhoto 5 is the most wide - range iPhoto rise yet , bring interface improvements ; newfangled ways to store , browse , and edit images ; and greatly enhanced slide - show and account book - publishing characteristic . It ’s a must - have upgrade for all iPhoto users .
Or at least it will be : iPhoto 5 ’s debut was marred by several major bugs . Version 5.0.1 addressed the most - serious ones , but some problems remain .
A Cleaner Face
When you launch iPhoto 5 for the first time , it upgrade your iPhoto library for use with iPhoto 5 . I update several libraries containing M of picture to each one , and never had trouble .
In iPhoto 5 , you ’ll see that Apple has absent many of the buttons that used to line the bottom of iPhoto ’s window . button for tasks that most hoi polloi perform infrequently , such as cauterize photos to a disc , have been replaced by commands in the unexampled Share carte . you’re able to also use the Share computer menu to choose which buttons come out at the bottom of the iPhoto window .
Like earlier versions , iPhoto 5 switches into implication fashion automatically when you tie a camera . But iPhoto 5 lets you assign a name and a description to your “ roll ” of photos before import them .
Another fashion to locate pic is with the new Calendar pane , which let you browse your library chronologically . This is a fun way to research your library — a huge melioration over the half - hearted chronological range features in iPhoto 4 . Like iTunes 4 with its impertinent playlists , iPhoto 5 has fresh album , which let you pile up albums base on criteria such as keywords , file name , or dates .
From Movies to Raw
iPhoto 5 adds the ability to transfer and store flick magazine created by digital cameras . And in advance photographers will appreciate iPhoto 5 ’s ability to transplant and storage photos in Raw format — the unprocessed “ digital negatives ” that a growing issue of cameras can scoot .
Unfortunately , iPhoto ’s bread and butter for natural data is a interracial bag . iPhoto supports fewer crude data format than Adobe ’s Photoshop Elements 3 does (; February 2005 ) . What ’s more , some panorama of iPhoto ’s rude - image workflow can be perplexing . One example surfaces when you ’ve put up iPhoto to open photos you doubly - tap in another image editor , such as Photoshop Elements . If you double - select a Raw file to open it in Elements , iPhoto first converts it into a JPEG and then hand off the JPEG to element — thus contradict the advantages of the unsanded format .
In this case , the workaround is simple-minded : drag the Raw pic to the Elements picture in your Dock . Still , there ’s room for betterment in the way iPhoto handles in the buff photos .
Enhanced Editing
iPhoto 5 sports a remodeled digital darkroom . With the unexampled Adjust panel , you may fix color and exposure problems and sharpen and straighten figure of speech . However , I wish that iPhoto get you , as Photoshop does , identify clean points or black points you ’ve inadvertantly removed .
The Exposure Pseudemys scripta let you improve a photo ’s brightness with more preciseness than the Brightness and Contrast control . It works well , but I found that Photoshop Elements 3 did a better task of convalesce details from bright highlights or colored shadows .
I ca n’t find geological fault with the Adjust control panel ’s Straighten Pseudemys scripta , though . Drag it , and iPhoto simultaneously straightens and crops a photo , superimposing a grid that helps you straighten crooked injection .
Most Adjust - venire features work only on Macs with G4 and G5 central processor . On G3 systems , only the Brightness and Contrast slider are available .
Show Off
Some of the best changes to iPhoto passel with creating slide shows and books . For starters , they are now independent entities of the albums on which they ’re based : when you produce a sloping trough show or a Good Book , a new item appear in the iPhoto window ’s Source pane , so it ’s easy to make multiple version of a project . Better still , name a change to an record album no longer changes ( and possibly ruin ) the books or slide shows ground on that record album .
Slide prove themselves are showier : you now have far more control over the appearance of sloping trough show , and you could even apply panning and zooming — the Ken Burns upshot — to photos . However , the Fit To Music choice , which is supposed to adapt the length of a sloping trough show to terminate when a song ends , just does n’t work .
iPhoto 5 ’s book - publishing mode put up a far large motley of page designs , and layout features that are much gentle to use , than that of former iPhoto variation . For example , deleting a photo from a Sir Frederick Handley Page no longer causes photos on subsequent pages to shift .
Macworld’s Buying Advice
iPhoto 5 brings welcome improvements in almost every area . The political program ’s new glide - show and book of account - publishing fea - tures are spectacular , and its redaction feature — while still a far yell from what Photoshop Elements offer — make it easier for image newcomers to improve their shots .
interlingual rendition 5.0.1 fixes iPhoto ’s most serious job , so you could kick upstairs without fear of losing work . But some annoying glitches stay on , and iPhoto wo n’t reach its true potentiality until Apple addresses them .
