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The article presents information on how to rescue, restore, and reuse aging prints and negatives. By scanning old photos and film into one's Mac now, one is able to stop the aging process and preserve irreplaceable photos. With the help of image-editing software, one may even be able to reverse some of the worst damage. The best way to digitize the prints, negatives, and slides is to scan them. Pictures that have faded because of exposure to light and air or that have been damaged by careless handling and storage will require a full-fledged image editor such as Adobe Photoshop. These programs offer powerful image-correction tools, layer controls, and masking features that give one precise control over specific areas of photos. It also highlights Apple's iphoto software as photo-management software. Slides and negatives are much smaller than prints and therefore require a much higher output resolution. Some scanners enables one to address common image problems during the scanning process. The most useful of these options is the Reduce Dust And Scratches filter, which attempts to eliminate dust spots and light scratches.

This article describes the steps for using the Curves command of the software, Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop represents an image's brightness levels in two ways: as light or as ink. These are called adjustment modes. Most photographers are comfortable working with light, and most print-based designers are more comfortable working with ink. Open a gray-scale photograph and choose Image: Adjustments: Curves to access the Curves dialog box. The user can alter the curve to increase or decrease the amount of light used to display an image. To adjust the image, click anywhere on the curve to add a dot, called a control point, and drag it up or down. Upon moving the curve up, the image is brighten by adding more light. To focus adjustments on a particular area of an image, the user can find the brightness range of that area in the horizontal bar, and then adjust the part of the curve that appears directly above that part of the bar. To estimate how a curve might affect an image, compare the curve created to the original diagonal line. With a simple curve adjustment, the user can transform flat-looking images into images that pop. Making a curve steeper exaggerates the differences between the brightest and darkest shades in an area of an image, thereby enhancing detail in that area.

The article presents information about a handy photo-comparison tool in Apple Inc.'s iPhoto '06. This tool allows the user to compare similar shots side by side. To activate the comparison tool in iPhoto's full-screen mode. Select two or more images and press the Enter Full Screen button at the bottom left of the iPhoto window. The two pictures will appear side by side on a black background. Move the cursor to the bottom of the screen to reveal a toolbar of image-correction tools. Another way to compare photos go to iPhoto: Preferences and set the Edit Photo pop-up menu to in main Window. INSETS: Install and Uninstall;Make Save Dialog Boxes More Useful.

The article offers information on Adobe Systems Inc.'s new Photoshop Elements 8 released nearly simultaneously on the Macintosh and Windows. The new version offers new tools, sports an updated interface, and includes technology from its much larger sibling, Photoshop CS4. The Macintosh version comes with Adobe Bridge CS4, the same full-scale document manager that ships with the Adobe Creative Suite. Windows users get the Organizer, which uses an approach similar to iPhoto for managing photos.

The article offers information about the different ways in which Apple Inc.'s Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom store images in image library of a camera. It is observed that Aperture stores photos in a hierarchical, and project-based system with every photo residing in a project. It is noted that each project can have multiple albums, light tables, Web galleries, and Web journals associated with it. It is informed that Lightroom's management features are simpler than those of Aperture's. It in noted that the Library pane lets one see all of the images, while the Folders pane offers a visual representation of how the images are organized on the hard drive.

This article presents information related to the use of low-light photo processing with the help of Macintosh computer. By using camera's menus to increase the ISO setting, one can capture tricky shots such as these and expand his picture-taking options--but at a cost. Raising the ISO will also increase the amount of image noise--unsightly flecks that can make it look as if user took his picture during a digital snowstorm. In the Reduce Noise dialog box, drag the Strength slider to the right to increase the amount of noise reduction. INSET: Plug In to Noise Reduction.

This article presents instructions to use the Core Image Fun House and Quartz Composer tools to create a screen saver on a Macintosh (Mac) computer. On the DVD, open the Xcode Tools folder and doubleclick on XcodeTools.mpkg to install the tools. When that's done, go to the root directory of your main hard drive and look in the Developer folder. Core Image Fun House lets user quickly apply effects to his images. Launch Fun House and select one of the vacation images in the Open dialog box. The Effect Stack palette A works like Adjustment Layers in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. From here, one can add or delete layers, make adjustments, and toggle layer visibility. But unlike most image editors, Fun House displays layers from the bottom up. Click on the plus sign (+) B in the top layer. The Image Units palette will appear C, listing options for effects. Fun House adds Color Controls to the Effects Stack palette and offers sliders for adjusting Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast. Bump up the saturation to make the colors more intense. INSET: Buried Treasure.

The article presents information on the benefits of shooting raw images. It is said that raw image means an unprocessed image file. To convert these data into an usable image, the file must be processed with the help of raw converter software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop Camera Raw. With raw images, white-balance can be changed easily which is impossible to do with JPEG files. Highlights in the image can also be changed along with other extensive editing options.

The article offers information on Scrapblog which has all the tools needed to create an appealing digital scrapbook from digital photographs. Scrapblog provides a library of design elements. There are background textures, clip art, text boxes and balloons, shapes, and image frames. Scrapblog has built-in image-editing tools, so users can make a number of tweaks to their pictures on the fly, including cropping and color effects.

The article presents information related to the products which were showcased in the Macworld Conference & Expo show which was held in San Francisco, California, in January 2006. Adobe Lightroom from Adobe lets the users to take control of the photos in terms of sorting, from Smile on My Macrating, editing, and publishing in a nondestructive way. Browseback, is a handy way to search the browser history; it gives the users thumbnails of every page they have looked at and lets them search the history with keywords. EyeTV 2, from Elgato Systems,dramatically redesigned interface mimics that of iTunes and iPhoto. One can create playlists of video recordings and favorite channel lists, schedule videos to export automatically to iPod. Google Earth, from Google Inc. is a gorgeous program that gives a bird's-eye view of addresses, thanks to detailed satellite photos of Europe and North America. iLife '06, from Apple Computer Inc., is the latest version of iLife packs with the new iWeb application for creating Web sites and blogs, and updates to the other applications in the suite .

The article informs that if a user drag a large photo into an open Compose window in Mail, an Image I Size pop-up menu appears in the bottom right corner of the window, offering options for resizing all the photos in that window. He can do this directly from iPhoto, but if he finds iPhoto too slow to use this trick can come in handy.