Friday, March 29, 2024

How To Use Brushes In iPhoto

In the last two articles we’ve talked about how to use effects in the iOS version of iPhoto, while in the following two articles we will explain how you can use brushes in this application. After you enter the Edit mode of the application you will have to tap on the Brushes icon which you can find on the bottom left-hand side of the screen. Once you do this 8 big paintbrushes are going to pop up: Soften, Sharpen, Darken, Lighten, Saturate, Desaturate, Red Eye and Repair.

As you would expect, this group of available tools makes the most of the touch interface of your iOS device so it will be quite easy to tweak small portions of the picture. We should note that these effects are intuitive as all you have to do is brush the section of the photo that you would like to enhance. If you do not notice the difference right away you might want to tap on the button called “Show Original” to switch between the edited and original version of your photos.

After selecting the desired brush you have the possibility to apply the effect to the entire photo if you tap on the Gear icon which sits on the bottom right corner and after that tap on the “Entire Image” option. Needless to say, you can also apply the effect that you want to only a section of the photo by simply dragging your finger over the section of the photo that you would like to modify. Some of the tools available in iPhoto have a “Show Strokes” feature that can highlight the section of the picture that you are modifying. For erasing the brush strokes you have to tap on the Gear icon and after that select to erase the strokes from the chosen brush or you can erase the strokes from all of the brushes that you have used for modifying the photo. Now, let’s talk about all of the brush available in the iOS version of iPhoto and we shall start with the first one on the left which is called Repair. It looks pretty much like a magic wand and features a star animation. By using this brush you can patch up sections of the picture which do not look bright by using the pixels which are surrounding that section in order to blend it more naturally. We should mention that you cannot use this brush technique on the entire photo so you’re limited to certain sections. If you tap on the Gear icon you will turn on this Show Strokes feature and you can undo your modifications by using the Gear icon once again in case you have overbrushed.

Sitting next to the Repair brush is the one called Red Eye that has the design of a red felt-tip marker. As you would expect, this can remove the unwanted red eyes from the subjects in your pictures. In order to apply this technique you will have to tap & brush and after that highlight the eyes which you would like to fix. Don’t forget that you can pinch open and close by using the regular iOS zoom in order to zoom in for extra precision. You will have to keep tapping right until there isn’t any more redness. In the second part of the article we will talk about the rest of the brushes. Stay tuned.