iPhoto '09: The Missing Manual

Appendix B. iPhoto ’09, Menu by Menu

Some people use iPhoto for years without pulling down a single menu. But unless you explore its menu commands, you’re likely to miss some of the options and controls that make it a surprisingly powerful little photo manager. Especially since some commands, like Export, appear only in menus.

Here’s a menu-by-menu look at iPhoto’s commands.

iPhoto Menu

This first menu, Mac OS X’s Application menu, takes on the name of whatever program happens to be running in the foreground. In iPhoto’s case, that would be “iPhoto.”

About iPhoto

This command opens the “About” box containing the requisite Apple legalese.

There’s really only one good reason to open the About iPhoto window: It’s the easiest way to find out exactly which version of iPhoto you have.

Preferences

Opens the Preferences window (Figure B-1), which has six panels to choose from:

General

• Tell iPhoto how many months to show in the Last ___ Months album, as discussed in Chapter 2.

• Have iPhoto display the total photo count, in parentheses, next to each album in the Source list.

• Specify what you want to happen when you double-click a thumbnail: Open it for editing, or magnify it so that it fills the iPhoto window (and shrinks down again with another click).

• Change the setting of iPhoto’s Rotate button so that it spins selected photos counter-clockwise instead of clockwise.

• Choose how you want iPhoto to open photos when you double-click them. You have three choices: You can open the photo for editing in the ...