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Disabling iPhoto When Syncing your Device

by Shaun

I don’t know about you, but I know for me it is very annoying when I want to sync my iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to my Macbook and every time that I do this, iPhoto pops up.

“Gosh, I hate when this happens because if I have no photos that I want to sync with iPhoto, I have no reason to have iPhoto open.  I just wish there was a way that I can disable iPhoto from opening up when I sync my devices. “

Have you ever thought this before?  Well, if you have, the solution to your problem is outlined below.

First, open up iPhoto.  Then click on the “iPhoto” tab, then click on “Preferences”.

When the preferences pane opens up you are going to want to click on the “General” tab.  Then, look for the “Connecting camera opens:”.  Here you are going to want to click on the drop down menu and select “No application.”

And there you have it!  Now, when you go to sync your device, iPhoto will no longer pop up.  Now if you do want to transfer photos from your device to iPhoto, then you can open up iPhoto manually and it will recognize your device that is plugged in and then you can go through the process of uploading your pics.

That is really it.  Really simple, short post.  Just wanted to share this tidbit because this is something that I just recently learned and I am guessing there are others out there with the same problem, so I thought it would be a good, quick idea to share with you all!

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Using the iPad as a Digital Picture Frame

by Dan

Nothing is as precious in life as to keeping memories, especially those happy ones that are worth keeping. Those are the memories that make us smile inside, keep us in high spirits when we are sad, and offer us some company when we are alone, lost in our thoughts. Luckily, these happy images won’t stay as images in our minds, but as something concrete that our eyes can feast on every second of the day. With iPad’s digital photo frame feature, it gives us the chance to experience the happy memories all over again, as if looking at your photos were the real life experiences happening at that very moment.

With the iPad, you can now carry your photos with you wherever you are and whenever you need them to be, so that when you meet with your friends and family, you can be sure to show them top quality pictures that seem to be more colorful and alive than ever! You don’t need to bring bulky albums, nor take out pictures from frames in your living room, because iPad can serve as a photo frame as well in which you can have your photos on slideshow mode.

iPad is user-friendly in that a user need not stress himself out as it reads simple formats like JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and PNG. Photos are then synced to iPad through iTunes. When these photos are already synced, they are formatted to fit the iPad screen.

Once these photos are now stored in your iPad, you can have the luxury of viewing them on the screen even while you are charging! When you are not using your iPad, when it is locked, or at the dock, slideshow of pictures can still be displayed.

If you want to customize how your pictures are shown, just go over the following steps:

  1. Go to the Settings app on your iPad and select the Picture Frame option.
  2. Although the duration of the slideshow remains constant, you can customize how the photos will be changed from one photo to the next. There are a couple of great transition effects in the iPad that you can use.
  3. The faces in the pictures can be zoomed in as it is shown on the iPad screen, and if there are a number of faces on the picture, it can zoom in and focus on any face randomly. This incredible iPad uses the face identification information from iPhoto, Aperture, or Mac; however, face identification cannot be done with Origami transition.
    4. iPad-Picture-Frame-Settings.png
  4. You can show all pictures in your albums but also have the freedom to decide which albums can be shown in your picture frame. You can also choose what particular photos in an album you want to be exposed. Selection is easy as you can choose pictures from the faces, events and album categories, same as in the iPhoto application.

If you want to start or stop the picture frame from showing pictures, all you have to do is press the Sleep/Wake button to lock the iPad. Then, tap lightly on the sunflower image. This action would start the slideshow of pictures. You can also pause the slideshow by lightly tapping the screen. Then tap the sunflower image again to lock it or slip the slider if you want to unlock it.\

iPad-Picture Frame.png

If you don’t want to see any pictures or do not want to use the Picture Frame feature of the iPad, you can proceed to Settings > Passcode Lock.

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Import Photos to the iPad from a Digital Camera

by Dan

Carrying different gadgets with separate functions can be both bothersome and burdensome. However, with the arrival of the latest Apple creation, the consumers do not have to deal with the unnecessary stress of juggling numerous devices at one time. The iPad provides its users a convenient and easy way to perform various tasks and gain access to any desired content, any time, anywhere.

One of its many features is its impressive sizeable screen that allows you to view your collection of vibrant photos in excellent quality, and enable you to share them with your friends and family. Because of the many iPad applications and hardware accessories available in the market, the iPad users can now easily import photos from their digital cameras, iPhones or any SD memory card that holds the digital photos to their iPad.

To facilitate the transfer of photos, the consumers need to purchase an iPad Camera Connection Kit containing two connectors: a Camera Connector and an SD Card Reader. The said kit is sold at any Apple store for approximately $29. The iPad supports normal photo formats, such as JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and PNG but it does not look like it includes RAW image formats. It uses iTunes, a media player application in your iPad, to sync photos to the iPad.

How to Import Photos to the iPad from a Digital Camera

To efficiently import pictures from your digital camera to your iPad, follow these quick simple steps:

  1. Attach the SD Card Reader or USB Camera Connector (found on iPad Camera Connection Kit) to the connector port of your iPad.

    If you’re using a digital camera or an iPhone, use the USB cable that was originally purchased with the device and attach it to the USB port of the Camera Connector. Check if the iPhone and camera are turned on and make sure that the camera is in transfer mode. If you have any difficulty setting the camera in transfer mode, refer to user’s manual for guidance. Take note that the USB port located on the iPad Camera Connector is specifically designed to fit cameras only and won’t work on other devices.

    If your photos are in a SD memory card, the iPad Camera Kit also have a SD Card Reader. Insert the SD Card Reader to the connector port of your iPad and simply place the memory card on the SD Card Reader. Remember not to force your memory card into the card reader. If it’s correctly inserted, it will readily fit into position.

  2. Make sure that your iPad is unlocked.
  3. Following a successful connection, a Photos application will instantly appear on your iPad screen and the stored photos on your device will be displayed for your selection.
  4. Choose the photos you want to transfer to your iPad. If you want to transfer all photos in your digital camera or iPhone, click Import All. If you want to import chosen photos only, you can pick the desired photos by tapping the small boxes on the photos you want. You would then see a checkmark on the box of the photo you have chosen. After selecting all the photos you need, the next step would be to click either Import or Import All.
  5. Once your chosen photos have been imported, you may opt to erase or save the photos in your camera, iPhone or memory card.

    Once you have finished your transfer, you can freely view your photos organized in the “Last Import” album. To import photos from your iPad to a personal computer, connect the two devices and transfer the photos using an appropriate photo program like Adobe Elements or iPhoto.

  6. Safely remove the USB Camera connector or card reader.
  7. Turn off your device. Now, you have successfully transferred your photos!

    8. With the successful transfer of your photos you should be able to quickly show them off, share them, and get a larger view than that provided by the small LCD on your camera. Setup your iPad to Digital Photo Frame mode and enjoy the slideshow.

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The iLife Series, #4: the Ken Burns effect

by Suki

First of all, what IS the Ken Burns effect? The first time I heard the name, it reminded me of high-school physics and chemistry. But that is not it at all, unless you confuse a presentation and archival technique with laboratory science.

Named after the documentary film maker Kenneth Lauren  “Ken” Burns, the Ken Burns effect can be used in iPhoto and iMovie to pan and zoom across stills or videos. This technique is mostly applied to still photographs, allowing the camera to move, engaging the eyes while a narrative voice engages the ears. The most common use of the Ken Burns effect is in slideshows and screen savers, followed by films which incorporate large amounts of still photographs.

Apple has offered the Ken Burns effect as a display option in iPhoto and iMovie. While the basics of the effect stay the same, the implementation differs a good deal due to the completely different natures of iPhoto and iMovie.

Ken Burns Effect in iPhoto

Here is how you apply the Ken Burns effect to an iPhoto slideshow:

  1. Create an iPhoto slideshow(stuff for a separate blog post)
  2. Go to the slideshow from the iPhoto sidebar, and press the “Themes” button on the bottom center. From the popup/dropdown menu, select “Ken Burns”.

    3. iPhoto slideshow editor

  3. At this point, you have a slideshow which uses the Ken Burns effect. However, the point of using Ken Burns is to highlight specific parts of photos, rather than to pan and zoom randomly across everything.
  4. Click on the picture you want to set Ken Burns settings for from the list on top. This list contains all the photos in your slideshow, and no more.
  5. Click the “Settings” button – the one with the gear on it. Check the “Ken Burns” checkbox.

    6. iPhoto kenburns1

  6. Make sure that the knob on the slider is in the “start” position. Now, you can adjust the level of zoom and the point to focus on when the slide first appears in view. Adjust the zoom from the slider on the bottom right corner. Next, click on the slide; your pointer will change to a hand icon. Click and drag until the image is centered exactly as you want it.
  7. Move the knob on the “settings > ken burns” slider to the “end” position. Then repeat the last step to adjust the zoom and pan for the “end” point. When the slideshow is being played, the photos will gradually move from the “start” position to the “end” position in one flow. [TIP: To include movement in more than one direction, use the same slide multiple times, with the “end” of one slide becoming the “start” of the next.]
  8. Repeat steps 4 to 7 for all the slides you want to adjust.

Ken Burns Effect in iMovie

For iMovie, applying Ken burns is slightly different. Here’s what you do:

  1. Hover your pointer over the frame you want to apply the Ken Burns effect to. Click on the blue gear that appears.

    2. iMovie Ken1

  2. From the popup menu, click “Cropping, Rotation and Ken Burns”. The frame will open up for editing, and you will be able to set “start” and “end” points(highlighted by blue rectangles) by moving around the green and red rectangles respectively. The iMovie editor also shows the path taken, which is an advantage compared to iPhoto.

Screen shot 2010-01-24 at 11.55.31 AM

That’s it! You’re done.
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The iLife series, #3: What you can do with iPhoto

by Suki

The iLife set of programs is designed to manage the entire collection of photos, music, movies and multimedia projects on any Mac. In the beginning, this can be quite confusing for people who are used to the simple file-and-folder type organization. But once you get used to having your media categorized and tagged in every manner you need, there’s no going back.

The application that performs this function for photos on the Mac is iPhoto.  This iPhoto Tutorial will help you understand the best ways to utilize iPhoto to help manage your photo collection.   As a photo manager, it will help you:

  • Store photos in a library
  • Group photos according to “events”, for example “X’s wedding”
  • Group photos by date – this is done automatically, by reading the photo’s metadata. When the metadata is not present, it works by import date.
  • Create custom albums, books, calendars and slideshows for print and virtual publication. These can be printed out using Apple’s own service, which delivers the hard copies by post.
  • Rate photos on a scale of 1 to 5 stars
  • Create “smart albums” that group photos according to any parameter – date, ISO, rating, faces, names, location and many more

Elementary photo editing can also be done on iPhoto. You can see your available options on the bottom of your screen, as well as in the menu that appears on clicking the “adjust” button.

Name edit rotate etc

Adjust menu

These options include:

  • remove red-eye
  • retouch
  • apply preset effects – sepia, matt etc
  • enhance color with one click
  • adjust brightness, contrast, RGB balance, sharpness, temperature, tint and more

Photo edit menu

One thing needs to be clear, however. iPhoto is meant for consumers, not passionate or professional photographers. It is no substitute for the big guns like Adobe Photoshop, but it works just fine for people who want to polish up their photos before saving them.

The next area of this iPhoto tutorial will help you understand how to quickly share your photos from iPhoto.  For people who share photos frequently from their computers, iPhoto’s flawless integration with Flickr, FaceBook and Apple’s own Mail and MobileMe can be a lifesaver.
When you click on any events or folders in your iPhoto Library, you will see buttons for these 4 applications on the bottom right of your screen. Simply click on the one you need, enter your login details(for Facebook or Flickr), et voila!

iPhoto

Any events or slideshows that you create on iPhoto can be shared across all your Apple-iances (pardon the wordplay!) by clicking on the “Export” button on the bottom right. This exports the project into a format recognized by iTunes, so that it works on your iPhone or iPod touch as well as the iMacs and MacBooks.

To create a new slideshow, book, calendar or card, all you need to do is to click the photos you would like to use, and click the button on the bottom of your screen. Holding down the Cmd(Apple) key while clicking lets you select multiple photos.
Apple has provided a commendable collection of backgrounds and themes for slideshows, cards, calendars and books, just as it has done with the iDVD themes. The themes can also be customized to a great extent – the background color, page layout, border type and image order can all be changed at will.

Whether you just want to keep your precious memories nicely organized, want a homemade project to gift a loved one, or want practice for your life as a professional photographer, iPhoto is a great program to help you do it.

Have additional helpful knowledge on how to get more from iPhoto?  Be sure to let us know in the comments!

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Mac Help

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