Tutorials

MacMove reader **Isaac** asks:

>My mother just inherited my brother's old iBook, with a new hard drive. How do we go about moving all of her music from her desktop PC to the iBook?

That's a good question - one that lots of people ask. So, we're going to tackle it right here on the site!

##Basic Outline##
The process is pretty simple. In basic terms, all you are going to do is copy the folder containing the music from the PC to the iBook. Now, there are some details to take care of, but the process itself is straight-forward.

Let's deal with the actual transfer first. A music library is nothing more than a folder containing sub-folders which hold music. Now, there are probably a lot of songs in your Mom's music library, so we're talking about *a lot* of data; probably gigabytes. So, we're not going to just email these files or put them on a CD. But, not to worry: there are two different methods to move this much data between computers, and both are pretty simple.

##Options##
One choice is to create a network between the two machines (if you don't have one already) then use file-sharing to move the music. Another is to use an external hard drive as a temporary home for the music files.

The first solution takes some doing. It's not hard, but it is complex. Luckily, Apple has a walk-through available [here](http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107083). So, that's that. The other option, an external hard drive (which Isaac ended up using) is much simpler. Just place all of the music onto the drive from the PC then copy it onto the Mac (remembering to then remove it from the external drive once you verify it's all working on the iBook). You see, Macs can use the same external hard drives that Windows PCs do, so that's a piece of cake.

##Get Organized##
Now, there is a setting in iTunes that will make this all easier: In the Advanced tab of the iTunes Preferences window, select the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" checkbox. This is probably already checked, but make sure. This setting will automatically place all of the music files on your computer (Mac or PC) into a formal structure of folders and sub-folders for you. I can't think of any reason why this would be a bad thing, and it makes the migration of your music much easier.

##The Move##
Once you have verified that your music is all in once place, the transfer is a snap. Where is that "one place?" Well, your iTunes Music folder is a folder named "iTunes Music" in ~/Music/iTunes/ (where the tilde "~" represents your home directory). In Windows, the default location is: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes. Simply copy that folder ("iTunes Music") onto your external drive and then onto the second machine from there. Then, on the new computer, place it exactly where it used to be, so iTunes will know where to find it.

NOTE: if there is more than one folder with the name "iTunes Music" in that magic spot, your computer will balk. Like the Highlander, there can be only one... iTunes Music folder. So, before you blindly copy your music onto the second machine, make sure you have moved or renamed the folder that you're replacing. If you don't, it will be erased to make room for the new one.

Everything should be fine, as long as you haven't launched iTunes on the second machine anytime during the transfer. Once the files are in place, go ahead an launch the program; it should see the new iTunes Music folder at startup and –presto!– you've got your old music library on your new machine.

As always, if anything here is unclear or you run into problems, let us know, via email or in a comment. Good luck!

This is a new subject for me here. Last semester, I taught a course called Digital Art which was an in-depth look at Photoshop CS. The class went well and the students produced some amazing work. Both they and I enjoyed it, too. I can't wait until I teach it again.

###Introduction###
The photo seen here was taken on my recent trip to Israel. It's just a snapshot, taken outdoors with no flash. I found the contrast created by the dappled shadows to be interesting and decided to use it to experiment with various techniques for converting color photos to black and white.

My reasons for converting the photo are varied and not really worth going into here. Suffice it to say that, for many reasons, portraits are far more evocative in black and white than in color. I think that this photo, for example, is more interesting in black and white and I'd love to hear your thoughts in comments at the end of this post.

My research has identified several methods of converting color images to black and white and this experiment is my attempt to compare them. I don't expect that I will come out of this by indentifying one "best" method, but I hope to learn something about the differences between the methods that will help me understand when to use each one.

###The pictures###

The photo on the left is, again, the original color picture, as taken that day. On the right I've placed what I will call the "Simple B&W" image. In order to convert the picture to black and white, I opened it in Photoshop and selected Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This set the saturation value for all three color channels (RGB) to 0%, in essence converting the image to grayscale.

I think that even this simple edit changes the image considerably. The contrast between the shadows on the subject's hair and the light on her face, for example, as well as the contrast between the subject and the background, is far more striking on the right than it is on the left.

That said, this is the most elementary way to convert to black and white. Other methods exist that can be used to far more dramatic effect. For example, in a [recent article](http://creativebits.org/photoshop/turn_color_photo_into_black_and_white ) at [creativebits](http://creativebits.org/), [dimitrije](http://creativebits.org/user/dimitrije) outlined a technique that I will call "White Hue Sharpening." In a nutshell, the WHS technique uses Photoshop's Layer Blending to merge a solid white layer into a color photo then sharpen the result using an Unsharp Mask. Here is the result, side by side with the "Simple B&W" image I posted above (WHS is on the right):

Notice the increased contrast between the whites and blacks? Notice also how the sharpening has affected the long hair? Also, in the WHS image, the background is cleaner and less distracting. All in all, of the two, I prefer the WHS technique for this particular photo.

But that's not all. The image here was converted to B&W using [iPhoto v5](http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/), Apple's image cataloging and editing application. I admit that the tools in iPhoto are basic when compared to something like Photoshop, but, for the non-professional user, they often yield spectacular results, which isn't bad for a free application. I converted this image by simple clicking the B&W effect in iPhoto then adjusting the Levels and and Exposure sliders by eye.

The result is, I think, a far more focused and compelling image. The conversion is much harsher than the previous versions, but I'll admit that that is what I was going for. By blowing so many of the image's highlights out into pure white, I've increased the photo's contrast to unnatural proportions, giving the image an almost-hand-drawn flavor. See how far away the background has moved? There is no longer any question about what the photo's primary focus is.

There is just one last version. I created in in Photoshop using a technique I learned from Scott Kelby's book, [Photoshop CS Down and Dirty Tricks](), which I recommend highly for Photoshop beginners. On Page 198, there's a technique called "Creating Gallery Prints" which, in a nutshell, utilizes the Channel Mixer to convert RGB color to B&W without giving up the control of each color channel neccesary to achieve the "Ansel Adams look." Here is the result:

This is the version I am the most happy with. Notice how the same contrast is present as is in the iPhoto image, but without blowing away all of the highlights.

The image might stand a little more sharpening, but I think that might come at the cost of realism. I like this version the most because it achieves my goals without looking too edited: I've got the contrast between lights and darks, I've moved the background back out of the way and I've managed to maintain the realism as well.

###Conclusion###

I hope that you've enjoyed this post - it's helped me to clarify some ideas about the B&W conversion process for myself and I expect I'll come back to it in the future, both for reference and to question my assumptions. Digital photo editing is a process that allows those of us without natural artistic skills, like drawing or painting, get our hands wet and express ourselves in another medium. I've never been able to draw or sculpt, so I enjoy the opportunities that this sort of work presents.

The tools available to use today, versus just three years ago, make it possible to achieve really remarkable results without a ton of specialized knowledge. While Photoshop is probably too complex for beginners to leap right into, applications like iPhoto and Photoshop Elements make it possible for "the rest of us" to apply some of the same principles the professionals use. And, with the extraordinary amount of information available in books and online (or, if you're lucky enough to attend my class ;) ), virtually anyone can begin to use more powerful tools to achieve spectacular results.

Just to review, here are the different versions of this image. In order, they are: the full color original, the desaturated version from Photoshop, the iPhoto levels/exposure version, the WHS technique from [creativebits](http://www.creativebits.org), and my favorite, the channel mixer technique in Photoshop:

I'd love to hear your comments.

Does it qualify as an "Ask MM" post if I'm asking myself the question?

As I explained back in [this post](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/apple/125) about iLife, I recently took an overseas trip with my students and came home with about 1,100 pictures from our 12 days together. Thanks to iPhoto's ease-of-use, I've been able to organize those pictures into albums –27 in total– and use them for various web posts, presentations and other displays.

Now some of the students and the other chaperone would like me to give them the photos themselves on CD so that they can look at them, print them, etc. The difficulty is that, while iPhoto has a "Burn to CD" option, it creates an iPhoto-specific folder structure. That's great for backing up pictures to CD, but if you want to share photos with someone who doesn't use iPhoto, that's not going to work, because what you get is a confusing nest of folders-within-folders with your photos buried at the bottom.

What I want is to export multiple albums from iPhoto and end up with a folder containing a group of other folders, one for each album. And, in a perfect world, each photo will be named with the name of the Album and a serial number, so the "Gardens" folder will contain photos called something like "Garden_001.JPG", "Garden_002.JPG" and so on.

Turns out that iPhoto can't do this on its own and I couldn't find a plug-in designed to help. But, fear not, I found a work-around that isn't too shabby.

The process breaks down as follows:

1. If you haven't already, organize your images into albums. If you're using iPhoto v5 or later, you can place those albums into folders, making it *much* easier to manage your large collection.

2. Once all of your photos are organized, take a minute to be sure that you've included everything you want to and culled out the garbage. You're going to be producing an exported version of your collection and, once you do, you can't easily add to it or change it without re-exporting the entire thing. So double-check.

3. You will need to rename the photos in each album to reflect the album name.

4. Once that is done, you simply export the contents of all of the albums to a single folder and, using the new album names, organize them as you see fit.

It's a pretty simple process.

Let's take a closer look at Step #3.

Choose an album in iPhoto and select all of the images in it, using command-A or by choosing Select All from the Edit Menu. Then, choose Batch Change... from the Photos Menu (as above) and set the options as shown in the screenshot on the right. This will reset the title of each picture in the album to whatever you set in the dialog sheet. So, since I made a typo in the example image, all of the photos in this album will be renamed to "Gardena" and each will have a number after the name, like "Gardena 1", "Gardena 2", etc.

Once you've completed Step 3 for each album (which doesn't take as long as you think it will), you can simple select all of the albums and export the photos in them to a folder somewhere on your hard drive using the Export... option in the Share Menu. I would recommend exporting them as JPEG images just in case you're going to share them with a Windows user.

What you're left with is a single folder containing all of your images, but they are labelled, by album and numbered within each album. All you need to do now is view them in the Finder and sort by filename... then you can easily move them into folders or simply burn them to disk as-is. Either way, they will be *much* easier for whomever you're sharing them with to deal with.

It's not a perfect solution, but you're much better off then exporting each album individually.

On a message board I frequent, a user named Doug asked me the following question:

>How do I get iCal to quit bugging my wife?

>I've got a PDA that has 18 bazillion appointment reminders in it for me during my work day. I sync it to iSync, and then I sort all the events into various calendars, so there is one particular calendar that contains all my work crap. I can easily hide that calendar, but the alarms still go off all day long, so my wife sees things like "Meeting with Bob", "Status report due" etc.

>I'd like to tell iCal not to alert me about anything in the Doug Work calendar, but keep the alerts on so that my PDA still warns me.

This is a good question for a number of reasons. First, it will allow me to talk about a neat piece of OS X technology that every user should know about. Second, the question comes from a user who obviously wants to *use* his Mac and is frustrated by what seems like a silly limitation. I like that the ease-of-use his Mac has given him leads him to believe that there must be a solution... He's right of course: there is.

Finally, this is a great question because it allows me to remind everyone of you that you should be recommending MacMove to all of your Mac-using friends. There is something here for everyone!

Now, Doug's answer: There is, in fact, a great way to allow both Doug and his wife to use their Mac together in peace without treading on each others' files or being bothered by each others' calendars. It's a core piece of OS X and has been around since Panther (the version of the OS previous to Tiger, the current version). It will solve this problem, as well as others that Doug may not even know he has, plus it's just plain fun to use.

I'm referring, of course, to [Fast User Switching](http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/fastuserswitching/). You see, OS X is a multi-user OS. This means that every single person who interacts with the computer can (and *should*) have their own User Account. You add Accounts in the Accounts pane of the System Preferences. Each new user gets his or her own login name and password, user image and, in essence, their own computer, *inside your Mac.*

Remember that, on a Mac, you don't just turn your computer on; you log in, too. Once you do that, you've created a "login session" for yourself. And OS X can handle more than one login session at a time. So, if Billy is using the Mac to burn a mix-CD for his girlfriend and you just want to check your email, you can log in to your own session, without disturbing Billy's, quickly check your mail, then log back out.

Fast User Switching is the magic that lets you get in and out without disturbing other users. Once Billy's login session is pushed to the background, he can no longer interact with the computer. But, when he gets his grubby hands back on the keyboard and mouse, all will be just as he left it; his applications will still be running, his web pages will still be open and he will be able to pick right back up where he left off.

Plus, applications with settings particular to a single user, like Mail accounts or Doug's calendar appointments in iCal, will, in essence, run as separate copies for each user. That's Doug's solution: once he and his wife have different User Accounts, she will never again be bothered by his iCal reminders. Plus, she can have her own Bookmarks in Safari, email accounts in Mail... she can even choose to arrange the toolbars in Microsoft Word just the way she wants and the computer will remember her preferences for her and Doug's for Doug.

You access the different accounts from the Fast User Switching Menu (or, as I've said [before](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/macmove-recommends/mm-recs-winswitch) by using the remarkable utility [WinSwitch](http://wincent.com/a/products/winswitch/) instead). Once you do, OS X gives you the treat of a totally-cool rotating-cube transition to move from one login session to another.

There are [other reasons](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/ask-macmove/ask-mm-to-administer-or-not-to-administer) why Fast User Switching is a good thing to know about, too. So, give it a try... you'll like it.

UPDATE: Here's a postscript: my pal Doug responds:

>Holy crap, this fast-user switching rocks. It's nearly instant, and works flawlessly. I love it, it's about 80 gazillion times cleaner than the Windows version.

'Nuff said.

Whether you know what the Services Menu is or not, you're going to like this post.

A while back, I posted an [article](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/apple/another-switch) about how I made the switch from Safari to FireFox. I talked about how FireFox can do just about everything that Safari can... and I caught some heat for that generalization. You see, in the discussion which followed the post, **brett** said that FireFox...

>lacks support for OSX Services

which is a deal-breaker for him. He was backed up by **ajit**, who said:

>If firefox used services, the browsing percentage would shift to 80 to 20 in favor of firefox.

Now, them's fighting words. And, it prompts the question: What are "services"? (And, if I was a more clever writer, it might prompt the question: "Seth, are you aware of a new, super-cool freeware application that lets me manhandle the items in my Services menu in useful ways?" But, I'm not and it doesn't.... but I will answer that question, too.)

Look up at the Application Menu – it's the one named the name of the application you're currently running – and you'll see a menu item (and sub-menus) labeled "Services." This is one of those cool little pieces of OS X that you probably don't know about yet because Apple is so busy bragging about Spotlight, Dashboard and back-episodes of *[Knight Rider](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/apple/more-itms-tv)* that they haven't gotten to it yet. Services are, in effect, pieces of applications that you can run from inside other applications, without launching the application itself.

Confused? How about an example:

Let's say you want to share an article you read online with your Aunt Sally. You could just send her the URL, but you would like to be more helpful, so you just highlight the text of the article, copy it and paste it into a fresh, new email. If you do that, you might find that the text of the email itself comes with line breaks at the end of each line, making the email difficult to read. You could just erase them yourself, but if it's a long article, that would be a pain.

Now, if you read my [last article](http://www.macmove.com/mm/archives/heads-up/a-remarkable-deal-on-something-you-probably-didnt-even-know-you-wanted) and became a user of BBEdit, then you know you can easily eliminate line breaks in a block of text using BBEdit (or almost any other text editor). But, that would mean launching another application.

Enter [SmartWrap](http://www.selznick.com/products/smartwrap/index.htm), a nifty little shareware application written by Sanford Selznick and available for only $18. What does it do? It:

>...analyzes your text, detects paragraphs and lists within your text, and re-wraps your text so it wraps naturally within your document or message.

Cool, no? But that's just half the story. You see, in our example, Windows users would need to copy and paste the text into the SmartWrap application to let it do its magic. But those of us lucky enough to use OS X can simply access the SmartWrap capabilities from within their email program via the Services menu! Then, right there within your email, SmartWrap does its magic.

That's how services work. And, though it's far from true that *every* Mac application uses Services, *many* of them do; enough to be useful. Some applications allow Services to work within their environment, and others actually include Services to be used in other applications. Apple doesn't require it, but most good Mac apps include at least *some* support for Services. (And, no, FireFox does not provide Services, nor does it allow Services from other applications to work.)

Now, what about that neat application I promised to tell you about? Here it is: It's called [Service Scrubber](http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?section=servicescrubber&layout=default) and, once you get into using Services, you're going to *love* it (and its nifty icon). In a nutshell, it allows you to clean up and re-order items in the Services menu, assign and change keyboard shortcuts and – most importantly – disable the ones you don't ever want to use. So, even though some application programmer thought you would want the capability to search the Wikipedia in [Azərbaycan](http://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/) from within any application, if you don't want it in your Services menu, you can eliminate it.

And *that*, dear readers, is the sort of OS configurability that makes a computer a real pleasure to use. So, get to it! Configure that durn' menu to your heart's content... then come back here and comment about what Services you use the most!