Well, we have seen earlier that your Mac also gives you three different apps that can help you quickly resize images. But it also helps if you know something about resizing images with iPhoto for various purposes.

The best and fastest way to resize photos on your Mac is to use iPhoto. It’s an application that comes installed in the iLife suite of most new Mac computers. If it didn’t come installed on your Mac, and you don’t think you take enough photos to purchase the application, there are still two other applications, namely Preview, included by default as part of OS X that you can use.

Checking Image Size

With iPhoto 11, you can not only quickly email an image right from within the application, but you can also find out the size of the images you’re resizing. In iPhoto’s menu bar, at the bottom of the application, you need to click the Info button to find out the image type and size of a selected photo, as well as other metadata.

In my screenshot above, the image is in RAW format, the largest size format next to TIFF that some digital cameras can produce. Notice the dimensions and actual file size of the photo are much too large for emailing or posting on a website. In order to send an image this size to someone, you would need to post it in a file sharing service like Dropbox so it can be downloaded.

Most cameras produce by default JPEG formatted photos, which means that the images are compressed to reduce the size. In the above screenshot, the dimension and file size of the photo is smaller. However, it might still be too large for emailing, especially if you want the receiver of the email to be able to comfortably view the image in their mail application or on an online gallery or forum. So it must be resized.

Mail Resizing In iPhoto

There are two ways to resize images in iPhoto ’11. Again, at the bottom of iPhoto, there’s a Share button, and in the pop-up menu you can select Email. Your selected photo(s) will get resized and placed in a stationary template.

You can of course change the template and size of the photo placed in the email.

In my selected photo, the Full Quality Actual Size of the RAW photo is over 7MB. The Large (Higher Quality) size is 797KB, the Medium size is 362.29KB, and the Small (Faster Downloading) size is 281.29KB.

With this method, all you have to do is select the smaller size for emailing, especially since the photo is placed in a stationary template. You can try sending the Full size if you know the receiver wants to reprint the image and has a fast Internet connection to be able to download it.

Export Resizing From iPhoto

If you don’t want to send your selected photo(s) in a stationary template, there are two other ways in iPhoto to resize images. Select File > Export.

This method provides a little more control over how you resize your images. In the first pop-up menu, Kind, you can select to change the format of the photo from say RAW to JPEG or PNG, or you can keep it in its Original format. The Current format means that when you import RAW images in iPhoto and then edit them, they will get exported as compressed JPEG images. You wouldn’t want to email or post a RAW image unless you know the receiver could process the image with an image editor like iPhoto or later versions of Photoshop. Most Internet service providers don’t allow for significantly large size attachments in an email.

If you want the receiver of your image(s) to be able to print your image, you would leave them at the highest quality and size that you possibly can for emailing or posting them to say a photo sharing site. So where it says JPEG Quality, Small would be for emailing and publishing to websites for viewing purposes only. The Medium size is also not for printing, but it provides a higher quality image to recipients who have a fast Internet connection, such as DSL.

The Large size is suitable for printing standard-size photos (2 by 2, 2 by 5, and 4 by 6 inches.) The recipient would need a fast Internet connection, or you would need to post the image(s) on a file sharing service like Dropbox.

The Full size should be used for making high-quality prints of an acceptable size or to post in a web gallery, in which recipients can download and print. Typically, JPEG images this size are a couple of megabytes.

There are other applications, like Photoshop, and Apple’s Preview that provide even more control over resizing photos. For Windows users, check out Simon’s article on resizing photos on Windows.

Let us know how resizing photos in iPhoto works for you. Or if you have found another useful way to resize images, let us know about it.

As I mentioned in the previous article, BetterTouchTool will be especially beneficial for Mac users who work in iPhoto, Aperture, and similar applications where you may primarily navigate controls using the mouse or trackpad. Of course if you use a MacBook laptop, BetterTouchTool is a must have program for power users.

In this article, I provide tips on how to use the trackpad on BetterTouchTool with iPhoto. What I cover can of course be applied to any application that you use on a regular basis.

While it may seem time consuming to set up presets in BetterTouchTool, the effort will save you time over the long run. BetterTouchTool is what computer automation is all about””saving us time.

Default Gestures and Actions

Apple provides a small set of trackpad presets that are especially useful in applications like iPhoto or Aperture.

Opening the trackpad settings and instructions in System Preferences, you see how to use your trackpad or Magic Mouse to rotate, zoom-in and scroll through a sets of photos. These actions are useful but they don’t compare to the power of BetterTouchTool. So let’s move on.

Set Up of iPhoto

I’m assuming you have already downloaded BetterTouchTool and have read over the basic setup in my first article, as well as the instructions provided in the application’s manual. As you may or may not know, you can scope BTT gestures and actions to work only in specified applications. You add the application in the left column.

The actions we assign in BetterTouchTool for iPhoto are all based on the latter’s menu shortcuts, because that’s mainly how you navigate iPhoto””using keyboard shortcuts. Typically keyboard shortcuts are useful for when your fingers are already on the keyboard, but when they’re on the mouse or trackpad, your workflow gets slowed down when you move your hand away from your mouse or trackpad in order to activate a keyboard shortcut. The same goes for when you move the cursor to the application”˜s menu bar to select a menu shortcut. Using BetterTouchTool you can keep your hand on the trackpad or mouse and quickly activate shortcuts.

Re-using Assigned Gestures

If you use iPhoto on a regular basis, you probably do a lot of editing in the program. While you can double-click on the thumbnail version of a photo to enlarge it, you have to use the menu shortcut, Command+E, to open the photo in the Editor. Or you can click the Editor button in the menu bar of iPhoto. But those options are a little troublesome if your fingers are already on the trackpad. Let’s make a simple Three Finger Swipe Down gesture to activate that shortcut.

Notice when I select the Three Finger Swipe Down gesture, a little pop-up informs me that the gesture is already in use. But I’m going to re-use it anyway because when I’m working in iPhoto, that assigned gesture won’t conflict with what I’m doing while I work in iPhoto. If you already started using BetterTouchTool, you will want to make sure the gestures you use don’t override an important global three-finger gesture you will want to use while in iPhoto. For example, I use a global Three Finger Swipe Left and Swipe Right to control the volume on my computer. I would not use those same gestures again application because I want that volume control in every application I’m working in.

Next, in the Custom Keyboard Shortcut box, I assign the shortcut, Command+E to the gesture. Now when a photo is selected, using the Three Finger Swipe Down quickly opens the image in the Editor. You use the double-tap or clicking gesture on the image to move it back to the browser.

Other Gestures and Actions

To add more gestures and actions for iPhoto, you just need to select those keyboard shortcuts you use on a regular basis. If for example you rate your photos, you might create three and five-finger tap gestures for assigning 3 and 5 star ratings to photos.

You might use the Four Finger Click to send selected images to the trash. It takes more effort to use the Four Finger Click than to use a Four Finger Swipe Down; this means you’re less likely to accidentally delete photos.

Another useful set of gestures is one for quickly copying image adjustments made on photo, and another related gesture for pasting copied adjustments in other photos. Using gestures this way helps improve your workflow.

The key to BetterTouchTool or similar programs is to focus on using and learning a few gestures at a time. Presets should only be created for actions you perform on a regular basis, which helps you remember them.

Now that I’m using BetterTouchTool, I probably won’t go back to my regular mouse. With BTT I can pretty easily automate more tasks and do things faster than with a mouse.

Let us know what you think of BetterTouchTool or similar tools. And by the way, if you’re looking for tutorials on how to better edit images in iPhoto, check out my article here.

With an understanding of iPhoto”˜s tools, you can correct problems and make enhancements to your photos with just a few clicks of your mouse. Of course, a caveat to this is that photos you take must be acceptable enough for editing. If photos are too dark or the highlights are blown, no editing program can fix that problem.

If you”˜re new to photography, check out my MUO Guide to Digital Photography and numerous other articles on this site about taking better photos. If you’re working with the ’09 version of iPhoto, check out tips in Jeffry’s how-to article.

With iPhoto ’11, Apple has re-designed the application’s interface so that it provides an even better workflow for processing your images. In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through that process.

Menu Bar & Photo Info

After you get your photos into iPhoto ’11, you definitely want to rate and tag them. Not much has changed in those features. But notice when you open an album of your photos, Apple has set up a menu bar at the bottom of iPhoto.

This where you can click on individual photos and work through the process of fixing, enhancing and then sharing them. Categories are set up just in that order.

The first menu item we see is the Info button. It has nothing do with fixing your images, but don’t overlook it. It not only reveals the keywords and ratings you have given a photo, but it also contains your camera”˜s EXIF data about a selected image. This can help you understand more about your images.

Check out Tim’s article about EXIF photo data for more information on this subject.

Basic Editing

While iPhoto is not an advanced image editor, it does provide the basic tools for Mac users who are willing to make a little effort to use the tools. So let’s start with a selected image, acceptable enough to work with.

Enhance Tool

The editing pane of iPhoto ’11 starts with what is adeptly called “Quick Fixes”. If your photos are shot reasonably well, a few simple clicks in this area may suffice for fixing and enhancing your selected image.

So let”˜s start with the Enhance tool. When I apply it to the above image, notice (see the following image) that it automatically brightens the exposure. I didn’t have to fool with sliders and Levels tools, just one click and it made some improvement to the image. We do notice, however, that the editing took out details in the white shirt. We’ll see about fixing that in an upcoming step.

Note: All the editing changes you make to a photo will apply to the appearance of that selected image in every album, sideshow, and project (e.g., card, calendar, book) that it’s used in. You can always revert back to the original photo, but if you want to edit a photo without changing it, duplicate the photo and then make edits on the duplicate.

Retouch Tool

The Retouch tool is a little more advanced. It works similarly to the Healing brush tool in Photoshop, but you have far less control over what it does. However it can be useful for some quick retouching in facial areas of a photo.

To use this tool, zoom in and navigate on an area of a subject’s face you want to retouch.

The only thing you can control with the Retouch tool is the size of the brush. You can’t control the amount of retouching it can do. Start with a fairly small size and simply move the brush over the area you want to remove.

If you’re not getting the results you want, drag the brush over a pixel area near the part you want to retouch, and then hold down the Option key as you drag onto the area you want to fix. If you have never used the Retouch tool, it can be a little tricky, but just keep practicing until you get a feel for how it works. You can always click Undo as many times as you need to get back to your previous settings.

Crop Tool

Apple has also improved the Crop tool some in iPhoto ’11. Cropping is useful for getting rid of dead space in your photo, as well as for printing and sharing your images.

See my article on the basics of photo cropping for more information about this subject.

Effects Process

The next category of the editing pain in iPhoto ’11 allows you to make a few more advanced tweaks to a selected image. Notice in this area, there’s no sliders and numbers to deal with. You simply click on an effect to see how it changes your image.

The six exposure buttons in this area are about as basic as you can get. If a selected photo is too dark, you might click the Lighten button several times to lighten it up. If you want to warm up and further saturate the overall colors of an image, you click the respective buttons several times until you get the effect you want.

I find the 9 other effects buttons in this area too simplistic for my taste. Notice however, when you apply an effect – except for the B & W and Sepia effects – you can increase and decrease the strength of the edit. You can also apply more than one effect to a photo. If you don’t like the results, simply click None to take you back where you started.

Adjust Tools

The Adjust tools of the editing pane are as advanced as you’re going to get in iPhoto. If you make exposure adjustments in Quick Fix and Effects panes, they will be reflected in the sliders in the Adjust tools.

Don’t let these tools overwhelm you. Play around with them and you’ll begin to see how they work.

In the top Levels tool, you simply move the sliders to adjust the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows of the area. These sliders will impact the entire image.

In the next section, you can further tweak the exposure, contrast and saturation of an image. Again, play around with them to see what results you get. With Exposure, for example, you’re simply lightening or darkening the image. Saturation affects the colors of the image. The “avoid saturating skin tones” is a useful feature in iPhoto “˜11 because it allows you to boost or soften the colors in other areas of the image without affecting skin tones.

The middle section of tools provide you with even more control. Remember the problem I pointed out about blowing out the highlights in the white shirt? Well, when I move the Highlights slider to the right some, it brings back that detail. It does the same for adjusting the areas in the photos where the flash was pretty strong.

The last tool you will want to apply in this area is the Sharpening tool. It works pretty well, but don’t overdo it. Nearly all digital photos will need some sharpening, especially for those images you plan to print.

You probably won’t use the Temperature sliders too much, but say your photo has an overly warm or cool overcast, you might try selecting the color picker and clicking on a neutral gray or white area in the image to see if it will remove the color cast.

Let us know what you think of the upgrades in iPhoto ’11. How well does it work for you as an image editor?

If you want the organisational changes that you made to your albums and photos to be reflected in the Finder, then iPhoto certainly isn’t the app for you. If you’re looking for a more convenient way to organise your photos, the free Mac app, Lyn makes getting the job done very easy.

Its intuitive and easy-to-use interface will have your photo library organised in no time at all, making it a great alternative to iPhoto. Photos can be displayed in one of three ways. As large thumbnails:

As small thumbnails, with a large preview of the selected image:

Or as a list of very small thumbnails and the photo’s EXIF data:

When viewing large or small thumbnails, you can easily access the photo’s EXIF data in a convenient sidebar, by clicking on the blue information button in the top right hand corner of the screen.

While there is no one-click way to import all of your photos from a camera to Lyn, you can still access all of the files from the camera and do a quick drag-and-drop to get the job done.

Opening any given photo allows you to zoom in and out, show the image’s actual size, rotates the image, and opens it in full screen, amongst a few other options.

Lyn’s strength is in its layout. The menu of directories and folders makes it much easier to drag and drop images from one folder to another.

The application gives you full control when organising your photos as you would want them in your folders – a feature that is sorely lacking from iPhoto. Any change made in Lyn is reflected in the Finder.

Create new folders, move and delete images quickly from the comfort of one screen without having to switch from one Finder window to the next. If you need to locate the image in your Finder, Lyn makes it as easy as possible.

While it is possible to delete images directly from within Lyn, using the keyboard shortcut, CMD-Delete, you can’t delete folders. That said, it is a small inconvenience as you can easily do this from the Finder. Another con to using Lyn is that it displays all files in any given folder, whether or not they are images.

Lyn supports a wide variety of images, including JPEG, TIFF, PNG, animated GIF and Raw. The app also allows you to display beautiful full screen slideshows of your photos.

Lyn’s preferences are limited mainly to the way that it displays and opens images, as well as the general display of the app’s fonts and colours.

Lyn is in public beta until December 1, 2010, so hurry up and download it while you can.

If you are looking for some some basic editing features, along with the ability to organise your photos, then Picasa is your best bet. Not only does it give you an easy way to organise, Picasa also has the added advantage of allowing you to sync your photos to your online Google account, giving you a quick and easy way to back up your images.

What app do you use to organise your photos? Let us know in the comments.

But what if you want to print small cell camera photos? If you’re shooting with say a 2 megapixel low-res iPhone camera, you won’t be able to print quality 4×6 prints. But if size is a not factor, you can still print these low-res photos using iPhoto.

This article explains how to create an iPhoto book of just low-res photos, and a similar book with both high and low-res images.

Creating A Low-Res Photo Album

Step 1: Select Photos

In iPhoto, select 20-25 low-res photos in your iPhoto library that you want to put into your photo album.

To determine the resolution size of an image, select it and then click the Info button at the bottom-left of iPhoto. A low-res image, taken with, for example, an iPhone 3G will be 1600 x 1200 or smaller in size. The file size itself my be less than 600KB.

Step 2: Select Book Type

Now select your album/folder of low-res images, and then select the Keepsakes>Book button in iPhoto”˜s tools bar.

In the drop-down palette, select one of the Book Types (Picture Book, for example), and select the 3½ x 2⅝ size book. The size of this book can accept low-resolution photos. You will get a warning sign if a photo for some reason is still too small for printing. More about that later.

When the layout editor opens, select an image for the front cover, and then customize the title (click in the title area to change it.)

Step 3: Layout Pages

Next, start adding photos to your pages. ï»¿By default, the layout of the pages may be all set to either portrait or landscape. But you can change that by selecting the Layout button in the tools bar. With the small album, you’re only allowed to use up to two photos per page. If you want two photos on a page, select Layout button>Two.

If you like, you can have iPhoto auto-fill your pages by selecting the arrow button and then Auto Fill in the toolbar.

After your album is laid out, click the Buy Book button to initiate the printing process of your album. If you have your own photo paper, you can print your layout on your own printer.

Create A Larger Size Book

If you want to create a larger size book, you will need to include both low and high resolution photos. After making your selections, follow the steps above, and choose a larger size type book.

iPhoto will stamp each photo that is too small in resolution for the page layout.

To address the low-res limitations, choose a layout that will allow for a combination of your low and high resolution photos.

If you try this, let us know how it turned out for you. And if you’re interested in other iPhoto book making ideas, check out this MUO article.

In fact, after going through this tutorial, you will see that nearly every photo you take can be significantly enhanced using these or similar color adjustments.

So fire up iPhoto ’09 and let’s try out an example. You can use any color photo that is relatively well exposed and not blurry.

• Select a suitable, flat image from your iPhoto library and click the Edit button.

• We’re going to work with two Editing tools in iPhoto – Effects and Adjust. Most professional photographers shy away from Effects-like tools because they want to have more control over the adjustments they make to a photo. But Apple understands that most digital photographers are not professional and don’t have lots of time to spend on editing images. So they created the Effects tool for the quick effects that it can make.
• So click the Effects button. It contains eight different image effects. The one in the middle represents your image in its original state. Keep that in mind because if you don’t like the effects applied to an image, you can always click the original to get you back to where you started.

• For our purposes, we’re going to focus on the Boost Color effect. Basically, what this effect does is saturate the colors in your selected image. Simply click and watch your colors instantly pop some.

• With iPhoto ’09, I believe Apple added a feature to the Effects tool which allows you to increase or decrease the amount of the selected effect. This adjustment feature provides a little more control, but don’t get carried away with it, because you’ll notice that when the effect is applied, it impacts the entire image. If you add too much, it can make the image too dark or overly saturated. So judiciously apply the effect.

• Now let’s switch to the Adjust tool and play around with some of the adjustment colors. If you haven’t used this tool much, just start from the top and work your way down, especially with the first four sliders. Before you get started though, if your image contains people, click the “avoid saturating the skin tones” button so that when you move the Saturation slider it won’t make the skin tones red or orange looking.

• Now depending on the brightness and contrast of your image, you will want to move the slides left or right – but mainly to the left if it’s a well exposed image. As you make the adjustments, make sure you’re not losing detail in the highlights (white areas) and dark areas of the photo.

Contrast, Saturation & Definition

• Definitely move the contrast slider to the right. I have rarely shot an image that didn’t need some boost in Contrast.
• Now adjust for saturation. Be very careful that you don’t blow out the colors, but mainly deepen and enrich them.
• The next set of adjustments are also very useful. Definition works very well for portrait images, but it can also enhance color saturation. So slide it to the right some and see if it further brings contrast to your image.
• The Highlights and Shadows sliders are for trying to bring back details in the bright and dark areas of your image. Some detail like the background sky might get lost in the original capture, but you can add these adjustments to see if they improve the highlights and shadows.
• Now, not to make your head spin, but you can do advance adjustments by using the Levels sliders at the top of the Adjustment panel. In fact, you could start there if you understand how it works. Basically, with Levels you can adjust the shadow/dark areas (the left side Levels) and highlight areas (the right side) of the image, and the midtones. By using Levels, you’re controlling particular areas of the image, instead of affecting the entire photo.

• The last adjustment you want to make is Sharpening. Simply slide that sucker over to your desired sharpness. This is especially important if you plan to print your image. Don’t over sharpen; but nearly every digital image you take will need some sharpening – even images shot with a professional camera.

Now if you think that’s a lot of work, you might be happy to know that you can actually copy and paste the adjustments you just made and apply them to another image that is similar in exposure. Just click the Copy button; navigate to your next image and click Paste. From there you can make minor adjustments if needed.

For additional iPhoto tutorials, check out How to Edit Photos Easily with iPhoto, and other related articles.

Let us know if you find this tutorial helpful or what problems you encountered when doing it.

Luckily, I had this conversation with my buddies a few years ago that gave me one alternative answer to the dilemma of picking a present. Basically, the one thing that normal people would surely love is themselves.  So why not give the thing that they love as a birthday present? Well, not literally. You can give the person pictures of themselves.

Finding A Face In The Crowd

So, what’s so special about pictures of oneself? Well, if you arrange them into a nice design and package everything professionally, those photos could turn out to be great, special birthday presents: a personalized photo book. And Mac’s iPhoto is the perfect tool to do that. This photo management app provides you with tools to easily build a personalized book from scratch.

The first tool that you should use is the Faces feature which will allow you to find photos that contain a certain person in them – among hundreds of photos in your library. If you want to create a personalized photo book as a birthday present, this feature is essential.

Painting A Picture Book

The next step is creating the actual book itself – the digital version first – and it’s as easy as clicking a few icons/buttons.

Select one of the “Faces” that you want to insert into the book and click the “Book” icon in the lower bar of the iPhoto window.

As with other iApps such as iWeb and Pages, there are tons of ready to use picture book templates that you can choose.

You can also customize the book types: such as the size, cover and bindings.

After you are settled with your options, click the “Choose” button and go on to the next step.

Fill In The Blanks

A blank photo book based on the template that you chose will be created in the middle of the window. While at the top of the window, theres a picture strip with all the photos coming from the “Faces” collection of the person that you chose.

Edit the text on the cover :

Then drag and drop one of the photos to be the cover.

You can edit the size of the picture by moving the slider, and also the position by using the hand icon (Pan tool).

The first page is a description that you can edit.

And the rest is a matter of dragging and dropping photos to fill in the book. Flip the pages and insert the pictures.

Depending on what template you choose, there might be some other pages with texts that you can edit such as the inside covers of the dust jacket and the back cover of the hardback version.

And Then There Are Others

There are other tools that you can use to enrich the “building a personalized picture book” experience.

To let iPhoto automatically fill in the pages with photos, use the “AutoFlow” tool. “Add Pages” tool is to go beyond the default number of pages set for that particular template.

You can change the layout of the page using the layout tool. For example if you want to change the description page into a photo page, or to switch from portrait to landscape.

Another thing that you can modify is the background color. Choose whether you want to use white, grey or black.

You can also change the theme (template) that you use on the fly. Just click on the “Themes” icon. But please note that you may lose any text that you added to the book (such as in the description page).

Clicking “Adjust” while selecting an image will give you several quick photo editing tools.

While the Settings button is there for you to change the font types and sizes used throughout the book.

Printing the Photo Book

The last step in this birthday gift creation process is printing the book. The easiest way is by clicking the “Buy Book” button at the bottom right of the window. You will be taken to the Apple site where you can order the book, and Apple will professionally print the book and deliver it to your door.

But for those of you who think that getting the book from Apple is out of the question (because of your geographical location or another reason), you can choose some other options. You can either print the book yourself, or save it as a PDF file and bring it to the local printer.

After you have the physical product in your hand, all that’s left to do is gift-wrap it and then deliver it to the birthday boy/girl. I’m sure this gift will be an unforgettable one.

Do you have other cool ideas for birthday presents? Have you tried to create picture books? Share using the comment below.

Image credit: Apple