Super Easy Photo Editing on a Mac

Full credit is to be given to fungus amungus for his Instructable mentioned below that inspired this one. Thanks fungus! :)

Okay. Google doesn't offer Picasa for the Mac. Why? Because we don't need it! If you purchased your Mac over the last few years or you've purchased the awesome iLife package ($74US Retail), then you already have iPhoto. iPhoto does everything Picasa does and quite a bit more! (Can Picasa work with RAW files?).

This Instructable is the Mac answer to' fabulous, but Windows-centric Quick and Great Photo Editing with Picasa. To be fair, we will just import a picture, straighten it, color correct it, crop it and resize it in under a minute. While there's a great deal we could do more, this just shows the procedure to duplicate on the Mac what was done on a PC with Picasa.

Note: Like all of my Instructables, this one was done entirely using iPhoto, Preview and Mac OS X's built-in screen capturing features. Okay… Some of my Instructables have diagrams that were created in Appleworks or Eagle.

Step 1 Nothing to download!

It's already on your Mac. To open it, either launch it from your Dock or plug in your camera and let it auto-launch...

Comments

[ttrat]

Paint.Net is easily the best free photo editing software, along with drawing capabilities too.

[westfw]

Alas, iLife isn't free, and the "churn rate" of the applications means both that things may stop behaving the way you want, AND you start missing out on "standard" features. I've got iLife 04, and there's NO "adjust" or "effects" options, for instance. I recently install SnapNDrag as an alternative screen-capture tool, and I think I prefer it slightly to the Grab (Apple included) utility...

[LasVegas]

Forget Grab! OS X has so much better tools. The old standby "Command-Shift-3" still takes a screen capture including menus and selections. The newer variant, "Command-Shift-4" is even more powerful! • Use the crosshairs to select any area of the screen. • Hold the Control key to put it in the clipboard rather than save as a file. • Press and release the Space-bar to change the cursor and snapshot any visible window.

[Treethatisme]

That is the most immensely helpful piece of information. Thank you, I don't know how nobody thought of this sooner, but anyways. This tool basically replaces MS paint for me, since i only used that to combine photos. Now i can just do it in anything and cut it! niceeee

[Einsteins Circuitry]

My opinion is that you should save some money and buy photoshop NO pirating!

[LasVegas]

What pirating are you talking about? There is and was no mention of stealing software in this Instructable.

[Einsteins Circuitry]

I know there wasn't any mention of it. And I'm not saying anybody would do it. But Photoshop is the #1 pirated software. I was just trying to say that nobody shouldn't do it. Maybe it was kid of random. Sorry.

[jonross]

"nobody shouldn't do it"???? as in everybody shood???

[WillowGlenLover]

Firstly, I own a PC and a MAC so no hatemail please ;-)

I bought the MAC because I thought that the photo editing tools were so superior.
Now that I used the MAC for a year I have to admit that I seldomly edit the pics and that I am only in need of a good data repository tool for pictures.
And for that Picasa is clearly the winner.

check out my longer post on

Picasa versus iPhoto

[LasVegas]

You know? When they write Picasa for Mac or iPhoto for PC, I'll consider a head to head between the two. Right now though, it's Apple's and Oranges. For now, most of my real editing is done in Photoshop. For quick tweaks, iPhoto does everything necessary as I'm sure Picasa does.

[vincenzof]

Picasa most certainly handles RAW files. In many ways, I liked Picasa a hell of a lot more than I like iPhoto. :-( But I'm happier on a Mac so it's all good.

[godsdog]

phu...Mac's are dead now because they're made with the same crap PC's are. You're not special anymore and those new comercials annoy me. When was the last time you saw a Linux commercial?!? Maybe the next flavor of crap from Apple will be called Granny Smith or Golden Delicious...I can see the comercial now, Apple present the iCrab...lol (I'm not a mac hater...just drunk and ignorant) Flame on.

[LasVegas]

It never ceases to amaze me the level of intelligence of the anti-mac postings. They don't even merit an argument.

[godsdog]

You failed to mention exactly what the level of intelligence was that managed to amaze you. I'm guessing it was probably pretty high due to you never having not being amazed. I'm not anti-mac, I'm anti-mac-users.

[LasVegas]

And judging from your post above, you're either severely misinformed or just stupid. Either way, keep your PC.

[fungus amungus]

Heh. I knew that iPhoto was a good solution as well, but I don't own a mac. Thanks for putting this up. Now we can hopefully see better pictures on here. PS. Look at all those hand photos on the project page!

[LasVegas]

Per lebowski's suggestion, you can upload your photos directly from iPhoto too!
Get your Instructable Upload Email and use the Email option from iPhoto to send the whole set of pictures!