Software Review: Apple iLife '11

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Software Review: Apple iLife '11

by Trevor Tan
05:54 AM Dec 17, 2010

APPLE'S consumer creative suite, iLife '09, is a superb entry-level photo, movie and music editing software (at least for Mac OS X). It's so good that Apple has skipped the traditional annual update and moved straight to iLife '11 ($78). So, what's new here?

In iPhoto '11, you can view, share and edit your photos with the new full screen mode. Editing tools are just a click away in full screen mode. You can choose quick fixes such as "Enhance", which automatically corrects the colour and exposure of your photo. I'm blown away by how accurate it is most of the time in making the photos better. You can choose effects such as adding a sepia tone or blurring the edges of your pictures. For those who prefer manual adjustments, you can easily tweak the contrast and saturation levels.

iPhoto '11 makes it a breeze for you to share photos through Facebook. You can create albums, tag faces and even edit Facebook photo albums straight from iPhoto '11 without accessing your Facebook page. But, it's not as fast as using Facebook's native photo uploader.

The enhanced user interface of iPhoto '11 streamlines your workflow. For instance, there is a carousel effect showcasing each book theme. Once you pick a theme, the Autoflow feature places photos for you, displaying higher-rated photos more prominently. Of course, you'll probably have to tweak the order but it does help to speed up the process.

iMovie '11 now sports 15 movie trailer templates, from romantic to drama, to help you make your vacation videos Hollywood-like. It even has new sports and news programme themes to make your videos look professional. It's easy to use and the end product is fun to watch.

The all-new audio editing is a significant improvement. You can now adjust audio levels of each video clip, or part of it, by simply dragging the slider with the detailed audio waveforms. Thus, you can ensure your movie has a uniform audio volume. In addition, you can control the volume of the background music and how it fades in or out. One-step effects such as instant replay, flash and hold, and jump cuts add more creative flexibility when you edit videos.

GarageBand '11 has two new features - Flex Time and Groove Matching. With Flex Time, you can move, stretch and shorten individual notes by selecting the audio waveform to change the timing of the beat or note. This allows you to correct your mistakes during recording. However, if you have a band recording with different instruments, it might get tiring to correct each track individually. That's where Groove Matching comes in. Simply make one of the tracks as the groove track and GarageBand will make the rest of the tracks match it.

Sadly, there are no significant updates to the accompanying web design and publishing software, iWeb, and the DVD creation software, iDVD, other than making them compatible with the updated suite. They could at least do with more themes and templates. Trevor Tan

Source: www.todayonline.com