Master iPhoto's crop tool to create close-ups - iLife Tutorial

iPhoto has some great features for picking out specific people in your photos. You can easily find your favourite friends and family mmbers using Faces or make someone the focus of a photo using the crop tool. How about combining the two along with some if iPhoto’s powerful built-in effects to create cool close-ups of someone special at a recent party or event? You could even make a book or slideshow out of them to create a personalised gift. Start off by creating an album of the images you want to use then implement the cropping techniques shown here. It might take a few attempts to get each photo looking really great, but through trial and error you’ll eventually get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. So, load up iPhoto and let’s get started…

Step 1: It starts with an album
Click Create, bottom-right, and choose Album. Give it a name that’s relevant. Albums are great for organising photos for a specific project.

Step 2: Find a face
Use Faces to find all the pictures of the person you want to create close-ups of. Scrub your mouse over the different Polaroid-style photos to see previews.

Step 3: Drag and drop
Drag the photos you want to create close-ups of onto the album you’ve made. Try to go for ones that aren’t already close-up shots as they’re harder to crop.

Step 4: Edit and crop
Select a photo, click Edit and click on the crop button. You can either drag an area to crop to, or choose a pre-determined size from the Constrain menu.

Step 5: Done and Done
Drag and re-size the crop area as much as you want (there’s a rule of thirds guide to help – see Knowledge Base) and then click done to confirm the crop.

Step 6: Enhance your image
Click on the Enhance button for an automatic change to the contrast, sharpness and exposure. If it doesn’t look quite right, hit undo and use the manual controls.

Step 7: Straighten up
Click the Straighten button and drag the slider to straighten your photo. You could also use it put the subjects on an angle to create a quirky close-up image.

Step 8: Edit away
When you’re done cropping and straightening, click the Effects edit tab in the edit sidebar and add effects to taste. Make sure you don’t over-do it, less is more!

Step 9: Get creative
When you’ve finished editing, click the Create button on the bottom-right and choose a product to make with your cool new close-ups.

(Click on the image below to zoom in and view the annotations)