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The creative tutorial home of image wrangler, Lesa Snider.

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8 'side doors' for importing images into Photos for OS X and iOS

OS X and iOS are very wise. They know full well that you’ll encounter files you want to import into Photos in several places on your Mac and iOS devices, including from within other apps. In this column, you’ll discover several convenient sidedoors into Photos that work whether the program is running or not...click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

5 surprising tips for Apple’s new Photos app

Most of the reporting to date on Apple’s new Photos app logically focuses on getting your pictures into the program, dealing with iCloud Photo Library (the syncing service used to copy all your pictures onto all your devices), the Adjustment panel’s smart sliders, and so on. In this column, you’ll learn a few slick Photos tricks that you may not have read about anywhere else. Read on and prepare to be impressed...click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

7 reasons to love QuickTime Player

The QuickTime Player app lives a lonely quiet life in the Applications folder of many Mac users. It’s often ignored because folks assume it’s simply a video playback app. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are several useful things you can do in QuickTime Player that you can’t do in iPhoto or the new Photos app. (Such as display or record your iPhone/iPad screen on your Mac!) click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

Lightroom 6 released today

Today Adobe announced Photoshop Lightroom 6. Here's a super brief roundup of new features:

How to Photoshop the color of absolutely anything

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are the ultimate re-colorizing tools because you can use them to put a fresh coat of paint on anything. You can repaint your car, change the color of your cabinets, and even recolor your hair before heading to the salon. Here are two easy ways to get it done that work in nearly any version of either program...click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

3 ways a $70 scanner can change your life

Graphic geeks love to scan things. There’s something satisfying about capturing an archival quality image of a printed photo, newspaper clipping, fabric or other cherished keepsake. These days it may seem quaint to use a desktop scanner to capture images, but there’s many creative and archival tasks that only a desktop scanner can perform well. And thanks to recent advances in optics and electronics, you don’t need an expensive desktop-hogging monolith to get great results.

How Lightroom works: Where it keeps your images and presets, and how to back up

Lots of people are leaping onto the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom bandwagon. One reason is licensing and pricing—for $150 you get a stand-alone copy with a perpetual license or you can subscribe to it, along with Photoshop, for a slick $10/month. Another reason for Lightroom’s popularity is that it’s a superb alternative to the soon-to-be-dead Aperture. While Lightroom is light years easier to use than most editors, it works in a unique way and, as such, has several pieces and parts.

The ultimate guide to finding free, legal images online

You may not realize it, but if you use Google to find an image and then use it in a project, you’re likely breaking the law. Unless you’ve been given permission to use the image by its creator, then you cannot legally or ethically use it. Happily, there’s an easy way to find images on Google that you can use, plus a slew of other sources for high-quality images that won’t cost you a dime—either up front or later on in a lawsuit.

Think fast: How to add motion blur in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

To add extra visual interest to a photo, try using a blur filter to simulate motion. Even though your subject is stationary in the picture, the viewer’s brain will experience the movement, which adds an element of excitement. In fact, this technique is a great way to turn a snapshot into something more artistic.Happily, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements make the process a piece of cake (you can do it in Pixelmator, too).

4 things iPhoto can do that Photos can't (yet)

While it’s true that Apple is phasing out iPhoto in favor of its new Photos app, iPhoto is still an incredibly powerful program and includes many features you likely know nothing about. If you don’t plan on moving to Yosemite 10.10.3, or if you elect to keep using iPhoto when you do—yep, it’ll still work!—here are four useful things that iPhoto can do that even the new Photos app currently cannot...click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

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