Description:
A DVD/book combo--what a great idea! Think of The Macintosh iLife: An Interactive Guide to iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD as "iReading." You get a 90-minute movie that allows you to peer over author Jim Heid’s shoulder as he demonstrates all the essentials of the four iApps. In iTunes, he shows how to create playlists, change the info tags for a batch of songs, burn a compilation CD, and more advanced features like choosing equalizer settings for each tune. In iPhoto, he shows how easy it is to organize even the largest collection of family pictures, and even how to make minor touch ups. In iMovie, he shows how to create a home movie that won’t put your friends to sleep by incorporating cross fades, an audio track of both ambient sounds and MP3s from iTunes, still images from iPhoto, and titles. He then shows how to use iDVD to create custom menus and chapter openings. You can watch the book’s DVD on the computer and hit pause whenever you feel like practicing something for yourself. The book goes into even greater detail on each iApp, for example, covering cross fades in iTunes, working with multiple libraries in iPhoto, and tweaking variations of the Ken Burns effect in iMovie. In bonus chapters and sidebars, Heid goes in depth on related topics like the inner workings of an iPod, tips for taking better digital photos and movies, and how to hook up a TV for improved playback while editing in iMovie. Anyone working in OS X, even seasoned Mac users, will learn new techniques, timesaving tips, and lots of ideas on how to get the most out of everything the iLife promises. And it may even turn skeptics who thought this was just another advertising gimmick into giddy converts. --Angelynn Grant
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