iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

Chapter 1. Welcome to Digital Photography

Apple’s marketing team came up with a cute slogan for iPhoto 2: “Shoot like Ansel; organize like Martha.” Today, of course, that slogan would never fly—and the reference to Martha Stewart is only half the problem.

The truth is, iPhoto doesn’t help you shoot like Ansel Adams, either. In fact, it does absolutely nothing for your photography skills.

But this book will. The first three chapters cover both the basics and the secrets that the pros use to take consistently good photographs. After all, if you’re going to the trouble of mastering a new program, then you should be rewarded with stunning results. Or, put another way: Beautiful pictures in, beautiful pictures out.

Meet Digital Photography

When you use a film camera, your pictures are"memorized"by billions of silver halide crystals suspended on celluloid. Most digital cameras, on the other hand, store your pictures on a memory card.

It’s a special kind of memory: flash memory. Unlike the RAM in your Macintosh, the contents of flash memory survive even when the machine is turned off. You can erase and reuse a digital camera’s memory card over and over again—a key to the great economy of digital photography.

At this millisecond of technology time, most digital cameras are slightly slower than film cameras in almost every regard. Generally speaking, they’re slower to turn on, slower to autofocus, and slower to recover from one shot before they’re ready to take another.

Once you’ve captured a picture, ...