Technical and Creative Guidance for Great Digital Photography

O'Reilly Releases "iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition"

Sebastopol, CA--Taking the ubiquitous advice to "get a life," Mac users are doing just that--Apple's iLife, of course. And one of the most popular and compelling reasons to get iLife is iPhoto, beloved by photography professionals, grandmas, and graduates alike. iPhoto's third incarnation has solved one of its early annoying traits: speed--or rather, lack thereof. The new version zips through a library of 25,000 photos as quickly as a library of 250. Now that their collection horizon has been expanded, users will no doubt want to add to their library of iPhoto skills as well. While iPhoto's spartan help screens get the basics across,

"iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition" (O'Reilly, US $24.95) by David Pogue and Derrick Story, is a much more entertaining and useful way to get the most out of iPhoto 4.

Speed is just one improvement to iPhoto 4. Other ingenious additions include Smart Albums, which organizes photos similar to the way iTunes creates playlists, and a networking option for users to share photos using the same Apple technology for sharing music. Apple also added more designs and effects, so users can present their photos more creatively than ever. There's much more, and "iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual" covers everything in detail and with scrupulous objectivity.

The book is divided into four parts, each containing several chapters:

-Digital Cameras: The Missing Manual

Using iPhoto without a grounding in camera technique is like getting a map before you've learned to drive. This book offers a friendly guide to the digital camera, and professional tips for making everyday snapshots look spectacular.

-iPhoto Basics

This section covers the fundamentals of getting photos into iPhoto, including organization, searching, and editing tips such as how to master iPhoto's brightness and contrast controls, cropping tools, new Enhance and Retouch commands, and more.

-Meet Your Public

iPhoto excels at presenting photos. "iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual" goes into detail about creating and uploading a web site gallery, creating QuickTime movies from pictures (both for DVD and on the Web), slideshows, and AppleScripting iPhoto. This section also covers creating one of Apple's linen photo books, including hints on how to arrange the pictures, what book formats work best for what kind of material, and how to override and customize the installed designs.

-iPhoto Stunts

Pogue and Story dispense a variety of handy tricks, from turning photos into screen savers, exporting photos in various formats, using iPhoto plug-ins, and backing up photos.

The book winds up with appendices covering troubleshooting, iPhoto menus, and web sites chosen to help fuel your growing addiction to digital photography.

Witty and authoritative, "iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition" is a step-by-step guide to all of iPhoto's features down to the smallest nips and tucks, giving readers the know-how they need to make iPhoto really work.