How to Touch Up Photos in iPhoto

Apple iPhoto comes with several handy editing tools for removing red eye or applying special effects. Using iPhoto’s full-screen viewing option, you can view large images and edit your photos in this mode, which makes touching up your photos even easier.

To enter the full-screen edit mode, select a photo from the main viewing area and click the full-screen button. When you roll your mouse at the top of the screen, a strip of thumbnails called the photo browser slides in and out of view. Roll your mouse to the bottom of the screen to slide the various editing tools into view.

You can compare between two and eight photos in the full-screen view by holding the Command key while clicking thumbnails in the photo browser. If you click the Compare button instead, the photo you choose is compared with the one to its immediate right. If you prefer the full-screen view all the time, go to iPhoto Preferences and click the General tab. Under the Edit Photo pop-up menu, select Using Full Screen. To exit the full-screen mode, press the Escape key on the keyboard.

If you want to edit photos from the conventional view instead, double-click a thumbnail in the viewing area, and the same editing tools you see in the full-screen view appear below the selected image. If they don’t appear, highlight a picture and click Edit in the menu bar.

In addition to cropping an image, you can do the following tasks in iPhoto:

Rotate an image. Sometimes the picture that turns up in the photo library is oriented incorrectly because of the way you rotated the camera when shooting the original. To fix the orientation in iPhoto, select the image and click Rotate on the editing toolbar, at the bottom of the screen. The image rotates counterclockwise by 90 degrees. Keep clicking until the picture is oriented properly. Press the Option key while clicking to make the picture flip the other way.
Repair blemishes. Click Retouch on the editing toolbar to turn on iPhoto’s high-tech spot remover or software airbrush. Drag the slider to select a brush size. Then hold down the mouse button as you brush over a freckle, blotch, or pimple. iPhoto paints over these spots using surrounding colors. Use short strokes to avoid smearing an image and making the picture appear even more ghoulish. Alternatively, click over a small spot you want to remove. Click Retouch again when you’re finished.
Straighten. If your photo appears crooked, click Straighten, which brings up a slider that lets you rotate a picture 10 degrees or less in either direction.
Enhance. The quick-fix Enhance tool automatically brightens a faded or too-dark image or adjusts one that’s too bright by correcting the image’s color saturation and tint. Click the Enhance button once, and iPhoto does the rest. The picture isn’t always enhanced, but as usual, you have a variety of undo options.
Adjust. While iPhoto does all the work for you inside Enhance, Adjust puts the onus on you. Clicking Adjust brings up a palette. Manually drag the sliders to adjust the exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, color saturation, and other elements. If you make a mistake, click Reset to start from scratch.
Reduce red-eye. Flash photography often results in red-eye. To remove red-eye, click the Red-Eye button and place the crosshairs pointer in the center of each red eye. Or use the size slider to zoom in on each reddened pupil and click. Click the Red-Eye button again.
Apply special effects. Clicking the Effects button brings up a tic-tac-toe style panel with eight one-click special effects (a ninth button, in the center, brings the photo back to its original state. Black & White, Sepia, and Antique (an aging effect) affect the actual image. So do Fade Color, which lessens the color intensity in a photo, and Boost Color, which has the opposite effect. You can repeatedly click the mouse to apply more effects. Clicking Matte, Vignette, and Edge Blur alter the edges of the picture.