Photos for Mac & iOS

My book The Skinny on Holiday Photo Gifts is now available on Apple's iBooks Store, as well as in PDF and EPUB format! Click here for sample pages, a detailed description, or to buy the book.

With rapidly expanding image and video collections, three things are hot on everyone’s wish list: constant and automatic backups to an offsite location, having your entire image and video library available on all your devices, and having the edits you make to an image on one device show up on your other devices. Both Apple Photos and Google Photos offer these insanely great, sanity-saving features, but how do the apps really stack up?

Nothing feels more futuristic and Star Trek than using AirDrop to instantly beam pictures and videos to others while you’re out and about. There’s no file size limit, no setup, no software to install, and no password to memorize. And since AirDrop uses Bluetooth, you don’t even need an Internet connection or a Wi-Fi network to make it work, though you can use a Wi-Fi network if you want. That means you can use AirDrop to fling files to and fro in places that you normally can’t—airplanes, cruise ships, and camping trips, to mention a few. In this column, you’ll learn how to use AirDrop inside Apple’s Photos app, plus get some ideas for using AirDrop in other apps…click here to read the full story on Macworld.com

Sometimes a perfectly good portrait is marred by small yet annoying stuff like a zit, makeup smudge, or a stray hairs. Or maybe you captured an object in the frame you wish you hadn’t, or you scanned the image and introduced dust specks, or perhaps your camera’s sensor is a little dirty. Happily, the Retouch tool in Photos for OS X can come to your rescue. As you’re about to learn, Photos’ Retouch tool is more powerful than the one in iPhoto…click here to read the full story on Macworld.com