The Big Picture: Full-Screen Editing

When you're editing and enhancing a photo, it's often helpful to see the big picturethat is, to display your photo at as large a size as possible. When you go big, it's easier to perform color and exposure adjustments and to find flaws that need retouching.

iPhoto's full-screen editing view gives you a picture window into your pictures. Click the Full Screen button, and your Source list and most of iPhoto's other buttons and controls step aside to make room for your photos. You can free up even more screen space by hiding the toolbar at the bottom of the screen and the small photo thumbnails along the top.

If you prefer to use full-screen view for all your editing tasks, use iPhoto's Preferences command to always have photos open in full-screen view; see page 152.

Full-screen view teams up nicely with another iPhoto feature: the ability to compare two or more photos in order to find the best shot in a series. You can display two or more photos side-by-side and even edit them.

It's worth noting that you can also compare photos in iPhoto's standard edit view and in the editing window (see page 152). But, because full-screen view maximizes your screen space, it's the best place for your photo-comparison sessions.

Comparing Photos

It's always smart to take more than one version of an important shotto experiment with different exposure settings or to simply increase your chances of capturing that perfect smile.

After you've imported those multiple variations into iPhoto, compare the photos to find the best one of the bunch.

To compare photos

In edit view. If you're already working in full-screen edit view (opposite page), click the Compare button ( ). iPhoto loads the next photo and displays both side-by-side.

When browsing. You can also set up a comparison before entering edit view. Select the photos first, then click the Full Screen button ( ). For a review of ways to select photos, see page 131.

Full-Screen Editing

Use full-screen view to compare photos or scrutinize a photo for editing (or just when you want to show it off).

As the sidebar below describes, you can customize the full-screen view to free up even more precious pixels for your pictures.

Switching to full-screen view

To edit a photo in full-screen view, select the photo and then click the Full Screen button ( ).

Similarly, if you're already in the standard edit view, you can switch to full-screen view by clicking the same button.

Tips for Comparing Photos and Full-screen Editing

Comparing Photos

You can compare up to eight photos. Select the photos and then click the Full Screen button, or, if you're already in edit view, -click on the thumbnail image of each photo that you want to add to the comparison.

The more photos you compare, the smaller each one appears, so you may not want to compare eight nearly identical photos on a Mac with a small screen.

To remove a photo from a comparison, deselect the photo by -clicking on its thumbnail image.

All of iPhoto's editing features are available when you're comparing photos.

Full-Screen View

To free up more screen space, hide the thumbnails that iPhoto normally displays along the top of the screen. Choose View > Hide Thumbnails or press Option- -T.

To see the thumbnails again, move the mouse pointer toward the top of your screen, and they'll glide down into view. Or, restore the thumbnail display by using the View menu or Option- -T.

Want to free up every bit of screen space? Hide the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, too: choose View > Hide Toolbar.

To have the toolbar pop back into view, move the mouse pointer near the bottom of your screen.

Don't forget the shortcut menu. You're in full-screen view and you've hidden the toolbar. You can still access most editing functions by using the shortcut menu: Control-click anywhere within the photo, then choose a command from the shortcut menu.

By hiding both the thumbnails and the toolbar and then using the shortcut menu, you can take full advantage of every pixel on your display.