How to Organize and Edit Images With Iphoto

If you are like me, organizing and editing your pictures can be daunting.

iPhoto has made it easy to edit and organize your pictures with a few simple clicks of the mouse.

I will cover all the different ways you can organize and edit your pictures in iPhoto in the following paragraphs.

Over the past week, I have gone through thousands of pictures in my iPhoto account to organize and edit them.

Now, I would like to share with some tips and tricks for organizing and editing your pictures in iPhoto.

There are 4 ways to organize your pictures in iPhoto.

Look on the left-hand side of the iPhoto screen.

Under 'Library' you will find the terms: Events, Photos, Faces and Places.

Events: When you are loading pictures onto your computer and into iPhoto, you will see an area where you can type in the Event and Description. Fill this in each time you upload pictures. When you go back to look at pictures you can find the event easily by clicking on the word Event on the left side of the screen in iPhoto and searching for the event. iPhoto will list all of the events on the screen in chronological order. You will need to click on an event to see all of the pictures in that event. If there is no event, iPhoto will categorize your pictures by date.

Photos: If you want to look for pictures by the date they were taken, click on photos on the left hand side of the iPhoto screen. You will see every picture that is saved in iPhoto in chronological order.

Faces: Apple came up with a pretty genius way to organize pictures by faces. Once you have gone into iPhoto, open up a picture. Under the picture, you will see the word "Name". Click on it. A box should appear around each face in the picture. Type in the person's name under the box that surrounds their face. If there is no box, you can add a box by clicking on the "add missing face" button. You can move the box and make it as large or small as you need to . After you have done this for a few pictures, iPhoto will begin to recognize faces! It will ask if this is the correct person. You will then press the check if it is correct or the x if it is not correct. If it is not correct, you can change the name to correct it.

Once you have done this a to several pictures, press the 'Done' button at the bottom of the screen. Go to the left-side of the screen and click on 'Faces'. This will take you to a new screen with the faces and names of people you have already identified. Click on one of the faces to find more pictures of the same person. Scroll down and push 'Confirm Name'. At the bottom of the page, iPhoto will list pictures with similar faces in it and ask you to confirm if they are correct. Click the X if it is incorrect and then change the name. Click the check if it is correct.

When you are done, you can go into Faces (from the left side of the screen) and click or move your mouse over the person you would like to look for. It will show you every picture that has been identified with that person in it.

Places: Click 'Places' on the left hand side of the iPhoto screen to view a map with different locations you have taken pictures. Click on one of the red dots on the map to see all the pictures that were taken in one location. iPhoto automatically does this when you upload pictures.

Click 'Edit' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen to begin editing pictures in iPhoto.

Rotate: Click 'Rotate' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen. Each time you click 'Rotate' your picture will rotate 45 degrees. Keep clicking until you get it where you want it to be.

Enhance: Click 'Enhance' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen to fill in color and dark areas. If you do not like how your picture looks enhanced, go to 'Edit' at the top of the computer screen, then choose 'undo enhance photo'. This will take you back to the original photo before the enhancement was made.

Fix Red Eye: Click on 'Red-Eye' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen. You will see a bar at the appear on your picture. Push the button that says 'auto' if you would like iPhoto to fix the red-eyes in that picture. If you would like to do it yourself, slide the little circle until you get it as large or small as the red-eye you would like to fix. Click on the eye that you would like to fix. If you do not like how it came out, you can click 'Edit' at the top of the computer screen and choose 'undo reduce red-eye'.

Straighten: Click 'straighten' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen. You will see a grid over your picture. Move the bar under the picture to the left or right until you get the picture where you want it to be.

Crop: Click 'Crop' at the bottom of the screen. You will see a box over your picture. iPhoto will crop anything outside of the box off. You can change the size and shape of the cropping box. If you would like a certain shape, put a checkmark next to 'constrain'. Push on the arrow beside 'constrain' to choose a shape you would like to constrain your crop box to. Push apply to save the cropped picture inside of the crop box.

Retouch: Click 'retouch' at the bottom of the iPhoto screen. A bar will appear on your picture that says 'click or drag over blemish to remove'. You can drag the circle to make it bigger or smaller depending on how big of a fix you want to make. Click on the area you would like to fix. It should blend the blemish in with the surrounding colors. If you do not like the retouch, click 'Edit' at the top of the computer screen and choose 'undo retouch'.