About Iphoto

Earlier this year when I went to the Macworld Conference in San Francisco, CA, I learned about the unveiling of Ilife ‘09 which included of course: Iphoto 09. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when I heard about some of the new features they added to this version– I was really impressed with technology. It’s amazing how far we’ve come along from your basic photo archive.

So what exactly does Iphoto do again? Basically, it’s an advanced photo archival system–like a database, only it’s really neat and interactive. It lets you organize your photos and perform basic photo editing so your pictures look beautiful and robust in color!

Basics:

• You can organize your photos
• You can edit your photos
• You can publish your photos as a slide show, calendar, photo book, greeting card, or to a social networking site like Facebook.

Events

This feature let’s you find your photos based on different events. This feature is available on previous versions of iPhoto has well. Basically, let’s say you upload pictures from your trip to Hawaii, iPhoto will automatically group them into one event which  you can then name — like Hawaii trip 2009. If you upload more pictures later, simply drag that event on top of the one you renamed and all of those pictures will be included in the group.

Basic Photo Editing

I think this is a great feature to have especially if you’re in a hurry to share your pics with family and friends. I like to use Photoshop if I really want to enhance my pictures or add special effects that can’t be achieved with basic photo editing tools. But, most regular consumers who aren’t graphic artists or interested in using a complicated program like Photoshop would prefer something where they can enhance a photo quickly and easily and have it printed or shared on the web. I take advantage of this feature especially if I don’t think the picture needs anything more — this is convenient and iPhoto does a great job. The special effects that are available like: antique, sepia, black and white ,etc. are easily to use with just a click. Iphoto gives you a preview of what your picture will look like, unlike Photoshop where you have to experiment manually.

New Features

Faces

Introduced with this version is facial recognition technology. When I saw this at the convention, I felt like a kid all over again watching the 80s hit sci-fi movie, “Total Recall.” How neat is it to have that kind of technology for a consumer application? Well, only Apple would be so innovative.  This feature automatically detects faces on the pictures you import from your camera or other source. You enter names for those pictures and next time when you’re searching for Joe, you’ll find all the pictures archived that have Joe in it.

Places to go

What if you want to find all the pictures you took at Yosemite National Park or in Paris, France? Places to go allows you to do that . If you have a GPS-enabled camera or an iPhone you can search for and sort your photos. If you don’t have this available you can go add your own location information on iPhoto. It’ll automatically give you a list of locations you can choose from. If you want to add a bunch of photos to one location, you just drag an album or an event into that place and it’s done.

Themed slideshows

This is great to use for parties, and receptions like a wedding. You can upload pictures you take of the event into iPhoto, take your laptop and place it on a table where every one can see your great work!

Learn more about iPhoto directly at Apple.