iLife '04 All-in-One Desk Reference

About This Book

We designed this book as a reference. You can find the information you need when you need it easily — this book even has thumbtabs to locate subjects quickly. We organize the information in a linear fashion into seven minibooks. You can read each minibook from beginning to end to find out how to use the software from scratch. You can also dive in anywhere and begin reading, because you find all the info you need to know for each task in each section or step list.

We don’t cover every detail of every function of the software, and we inten¬tionally leave out some detail so that we don’t spook you with technospeak when it’s not necessary. (Really, engineers can sometimes provide too many obscure choices that no one ever uses.) For this book, we wrote brief but comprehensive descriptions and included lots of cool tips on how to be pro¬ductive with iLife.

How This Book Is Organized

We organized this tome into seven minibooks. The first five minibooks repre¬sent the five parts of iLife (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand); the sixth minibook covers the iPod, and the last minibook delves into extra iLife information.

Book I: iTunes

This minibook begins with the revolution in digital music and what iTunes does. You find out how to play music CDs like a professional DJ, buy music online from the Apple Music Store, rip CDs and import music from many sources, and organize your music library. The minibook covers everything you need to know about sound quality and hard drive space trade-offs, as well as how to get the best sound from your computer or CDs you burn yourself.

Book II: iPhoto

This minibook provides all you need to know about using digital cameras and organizing your photos to produce prints, photo albums, and even professional-looking photo books. It shows you how to improve and retouch digital photos, create slideshows, and share photos online and by e-mail.

Book III: iMovie

This minibook introduces digital video and tells you everything you need to know about using digital camcorders with your Mac to create videos of all kinds, even professional videos. This minibook shows you how to manage video clips, create movies with photos and clips, and even edit soundtracks and special effects. It also covers sharing movies online and saving movies in professional formats.

Book IV: iDVD

This minibook describes how to bring all your digital assets together to create exciting DVDs that can play in DVD players as well as computers. You find out how to create interactive menus and buttons and special effects, such as video backgrounds. Burn DVDs like the pros and back up all your precious digital assets — photos, music, movies, slideshows — at their high¬est quality.

Book V: GarageBand

This minibook describes how to create your own music by building songs with prerecorded loops, recording a performance using your Mac as a syn¬thesizer that can simulate musical instruments, and recording performances with real musical instruments (such as guitars) or live singing with vocal microphones. You find out how to create and edit separate tracks, mix the tracks with volume and panning controls to create stereo sound, employ sound effects and simulated amplifiers, and export the finished song to iTunes.

Book VI: iPod

This minibook tells how to take your entire music library with you on the road with an iPod. You also discover how to use the iPod to look up contacts (addresses and phone numbers) and your calendar and to-do lists, as well as how to use the iPod as a portable hard drive.

Book VII: iLife Extras

This minibook talks about integrating the various components of iLife and includes some helpful third-party stuff.
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