Chapter 1. The Tiger Finder

Any artist can tell you that without the right inks, paints, brushes, or pencils, your ability to express yourself creatively is greatly hampered. The same holds true for graphic designers, although their inks, paints, and brushes are represented by applications like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and QuarkXPress. Along with these applications sits one other vitally important piece: Mac OS X 10.4, or Tiger.

Tiger can be an amazingly powerful ally in helping you get your job done better, faster, and more creatively. It's the part that binds everything together: Without it, the applications you rely on to get your job done won't run, and you can't save or find documents. Tiger is a big enough beast that it can be easy to miss some of the tools you need as a designer, or get lost trying to find your files. Luckily, a little knowledge goes a long way. That's why in this chapter we'll take a look at the Finder and other system components that you can use to improve your design workflow.

This chapter is exactly what it says it is: an overview. If you are an experienced Mac user and feel this is a little too elementary for you, feel free to move on and dig into Tiger specifics elsewhere in the book. But if you aren't yet comfortable with the way Mac OS X works or want to see what's new in Mac OS X 10.4 compared with earlier versions, read on. Along the way you'll pick up some tips and tricks for using the Finder more efficiently.