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iPhoto is designed to allow importing from digital cameras, scanners, picture CDs and the Internet. Almost all digital cameras are recognized without additional software, as are many scanners. iPhoto supports most common image file formats.
After photos are imported, they can be optionally titled, labeled, sorted and organized into groups (known as "events"). Individual photos can be edited with basic image manipulation tools, such as a red-eye filter, contrast and brightness adjustments, crop and resize and other basic functions.
The current version of iPhoto, included with iLife '09, features facial recognition and allows for tagging and organizing photos by person. As well, iPhoto will read embedded GPS tags in photos and organize photos by location, represented by a pin on a map (powered by Google Maps). Photos taken using a camera that does not support geotagging can be manually tagged with a location within iPhoto.
Numerous options then exist to share photos. Photo albums can be made into dynamic slideshows, and optionally set to music imported from iTunes. These slideshows can be exported to QuickTime movie files, further edited in iMovie or burned directly to DVD-video discs using iDVD. Both slideshows and static photos can be shared to other Macs on a local network by using the Bonjour "zero-configuration" technology. Or they can be uploaded using simplified web publishing to Apple's MobileMe online service.
iPhoto can also sync photo albums to any iPod with a color display. These iPods have an audio/video output that allow photos to be played back, along with music, on any modern television. Additionally, photos can be printed to a local printer or be sent over the Internet to Kodak for professional printing. iPhoto users can order a range of products, including standard prints, posters and even 100-page hardcover or softcover volumes.
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iMovie '09 was released January 2009 as part of the iLife '09 package. It introduced some new features and restored some features from previous versions of iMovie, including basic video effects (such as fast/slow motion and aged film) and image stabilization as well as travel map functions for marking locations where a video was shot. iMovie '09 also introduced simple implementations of more advanced features such as picture-in-picture and greenscreening. It also improved editing (with a precision cut editor and a clip trimmer), improved support for hard drive based cameras (such as the Flip Mino), added some new titles and transitions, and added full iDVD support which was unavailable in iMovie '08. But it is still lacking in the effects that iMovie HD 6 had, leaving out simple effects such as "lightning" and "fairy dust".
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The program uses the concept of themes to allow the easy creation of DVD menu systems. The themes have 'drop zones', onto which movies or photographs can be dropped. The theme automatically animates the drop zones if necessary. iDVD has more than 150 different Apple-designed animated themes for your movies in both widescreen 16:9 and standard 4:3 formats. These themes can be applied to multiple levels of your DVD.
The program integrates with the rest of the iLife suite. iMovie projects and iPhoto slideshows can be exported directly to iDVD. In the case of iMovie projects, scene selection menus are automatically created in accordance with chapter markers that are set within iMovie. The application also has a 'Media' area that provides access to the user's iTunes library, iPhoto library and Movies folder at any time, and there is a map view, which shows the current project's menu system in a graphical form. Another feature is the ability to hide or show an approximation of the 'TV safe area' (because old televisions often cut off some of a video's outer areas).
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iWeb is a website and blog creation tool. The end-user does not need to have any knowledge of Web languages in order to effectively use the product.
The features of iWeb include:
• Apple-designed templates
• Easy website creation
• An iLife media browser
• Drag and drop support for media files
• Blogging in a limited sense
• Podcasting
• One-click MobileMe publishing
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Tunes is a digital media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone. Additionally, iTunes can connect to the iTunes Store via the Internet to purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, applications, iPod games, audiobooks, podcasts, feature length films and movie rentals, and ringtones. It is also used to download applications for the iPhone and iPod touch running iPhone OS 2.0 or later.
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iChat (formerly iChat AV) is an instant messaging software application by Apple for their Mac OS X operating system. It has audio, video and screen-sharing capabilities as well as text messaging.
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About Joe Seidler
iLife Instructor
(650) 996-4700
San Francisco, CA
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