This site is the online companion to my book/DVD, "The Macintosh iLife '05", published by Peachpit Press and Avondale Media. If you like this site, you'll love the book and its nearly three-hour DVD-Video disc. Learn more. Have news, tips, comments, or links? Send them along! How to contact me. Get an iLife. Get your own copy of "The Macintosh iLife '05". Patronize your local bookstore or buy from Amazon for just $23.09 (34 percent off). Learn more about the book and DVD. Find out what all the buzz is about: view samples of this beautiful book and watch QuickTime excerpts from the DVD. Upcoming Appearances June 21. Apple Store, San Francisco, 6 pm June 25. Northeast Ohio Apple Corps, 9 am July 23. iLife seminar, Santa Rosa, CA Photo gallery. I love the Flickr photo sharing service; here are some recent shots. (Newsreader users: To subscribe to my photostream, drag this link into your newsreader.)

Looking at Photoshop Elements 3

Today, Adobe announced a new version of Photoshop Elements 3, its version of Photoshop for the rest of us. Elements 3 is a great upgrade that borrows some of the best new features from Photoshop 7 and Photoshop CS, while at the same time making the entire image editing process easier and more approachable for people who aren't digital imaging gurus.

Here's a preview.

Out of the Shadows
Most noteworthy is a shadow/highlight recovery feature that, like its Photoshop CS counterpart, does an amazing job of bringing out details hidden in dark shadows and bright highlights.

In Elements 3, Adobe has also refined the Quick Fix mode, placing key sliders along the right hand side of the screen (click the screen below to see a larger version).



You can also access the shadow/highlight recovery feature from Elements' standard editing mode, which shows off additional user interface changes. The tool palette along the left side of the screen is now resizable, and the Layers, How-To, and Styles and Effects palettes are now collapsable. (You can also undock them and turn them into floating palettes.)



See Spot Heal
Also noteworthy is Elements 3's new set of healing brush tools. The healing brush first debuted in Photoshop 7, and Elements takes it one step further with the spot healing brush.

Like the retouch tool in iPhoto, the spot healing brush doesn't require you to specify a source point before you use it. Simply point to a flaw and then click and drag. The standard healing brush (which does use a source point) is also available.

Let's Get Raw
Photoshop Elements 3 also includes support for Camera Raw images. That's a first for Elements, and it's a welcome addition, now that more and more advanced amateurs are embracing the raw format.

The version of Camera Raw included with Elements 3 lacks some of the capabilities of its Photoshop CS counterpart. For example, the Lens and Calibrate tabs aren't present, which means you can't fix chromatic aberration and vignetting, nor can you create a custom calibration for a specific device. Also, the Elements 3 version of Camera Raw doesn't have the impressive "up-rezing" features of its Photoshop CS big sister, nor does it let you choose a color space for the image (click the screen below to see a larger version).



But still -- having raw format support in an $89 program is a good thing.

It's No Shoebox
If you browse the pages for the Windows version of Photoshop Elements, you'll notice it has a feature the Mac version lacks: photo cataloging. Adobe has rolled many of the features of its Photoshop Album software into the Windows version of Elements 3. But it left these features out of the Mac version, and for a good reason: we Mac users have iPhoto for cataloging.

Happily, the new Elements 3 also coexists beautifully with iPhoto. You can use iPhoto's preferences command to have iPhoto launch Elements 3 when you double-click an image in your photo library. And as I describe on page 111 of The Macintosh iLife '04, you can also simply drag a photo from your iPhoto library onto the Elements icon in your dock.

There's more to Elements 3, and I'll have more to say later. In the meantime, Mac shutterbugs have a lot to look forward to when the new version ships.

Master the elements of iLife. The Macintosh iLife '04 is the only computer book of its kind: a gorgeous, full-color guide to all five iLife programs, plus a companion two-hour instructional DVD that's also packed with GarageBand loops, example files, software, and more. (Check out the excerpts.) All for a price even the author thinks is too low: $20.99 on Amazon.com.

Let's Get Together: Upcoming Appearances in Northern California

Attention, Northern Californians: I'll be participating in two user group events within the next week, talking about iLife and digital hub-related topics of all kinds. Let's get together!

Saturday, September 18, Santa Rosa, CA. Beginning at 10 am, I'll be heading up the GarageBand track at the North Coast Mac User Group's annual Mac Computer Expo. Here's your chance to see me play a keyboard that doesn't have QWERTY printed on it.

Monday, September 20, Cupertino, CA. I'll be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Silicon Valley Mac User's Group. I'll be talking about The Macintosh iLife '04, showing snippets from its two-hour instructional DVD, and most of all, sharing some of my favorite tips for all five iLife '04 programs. The meeting takes place at Apple headquarters: the DeAnza 3 building, 10500 N. DeAnza Blvd, just south of Interstate 280 (click for map). The meeting begins at 7 pm in the Beatles Conference Room.

At both events, I'll have copies of my iLife '04 book/DVD available at a big discount. I hope to see you there!

  04/20/2003 - 04/26/2003
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Really old stuff (before February 2003)

©2002-2005 by Jim Heid.