New in iPhoto ’09.
Organize photos two new ways: Faces, based on who’s in your photos, and Places, based on where your photos were taken. Then share on Facebook or Flickr with a click.

Faces.
People are often your most important photo subjects. But it’s difficult to find every photo of Dad or the grandkids without combing through your entire library. That’s why iPhoto ’09 introduces Faces — a new feature that allows you to organize your photos based on who’s in them. iPhoto uses face detection to identify faces of people in your photos and face recognition to match faces that look like the same person. That makes it easy for you to add names to your photos. And it helps you find the people you’re looking for — even in the largest photo libraries.

Places.
iPhoto helps you explore your travel photos with a new feature called Places. This feature uses data from GPS-enabled cameras or the camera on iPhone to categorize photos by location and convert GPS location tags to common, user-friendly names. So without any effort, pictures you took of the Eiffel Tower are labeled with easily searchable names like “France,” “Paris,” and “Eiffel Tower.”

Themed Slideshows.
A great way to show off your photos onscreen is with a slideshow. iPhoto ’09 brings photos to life with six themes that let you create beautiful slideshows in seconds. Slideshow themes include Classic, Shatter, Snapshots, Scrapbook, Ken Burns, and Sliding Panels. Every slideshow uses face detection to position photos correctly and keep the faces onscreen.

Online Sharing.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could share your photos on Facebook in one step, without leaving iPhoto? iPhoto ’09 lets you publish photos directly to Facebook with just a few clicks. Select the photos you want to share and click the Facebook button.

Sharing on Flickr is just as easy: Just click the Flickr button. When you share your photos on Flickr, the locations you added using Places appear on Flickr photo maps.

Enhanced Photo Editing.
You don’t need expensive photo editing software to turn so-so shots into perfect pictures. iPhoto ’09 introduces a set of improved editing tools to make your photos look their best. A new checkbox in the Saturation slider makes the colors in your photos pop without affecting skin tones. The Definition slider improves clarity and brings out detail. The Retouch brush adds a Detect Edges feature that prevents blurring of detail when you remove spots or blemishes over solid edges. And the Auto Red-Eye tool works with face detection to remove red-eye with just one click.

Travel Maps.
If you’re an iPhoto fan, you already know how fun and easy it is to create professionally printed photo books to show off your vacation pictures. iPhoto ’09 makes your travel books even more special with custom maps that illustrate your journey. iPhoto uses the location data from your photos to generate a beautifully rendered map showing the countries and cities you visited. Or you can type in the names of places you’ve visited to create a travel map in any photo book theme. Every map is fully customizable. Show a point-to-point path of your travels, change the order of the cities, and mark points of interest.



Advanced Drag and Drop.
iMovie ’08 introduced drag-and-drop editing — a fun and easy way to make movies, even if you’ve never edited a single frame. iMovie ’09 takes drag-and-drop editing even further. For starters, it gives you more ways to add clips to your project: Now you can replace or insert clips using a single pop-up menu. Or edit just your audio. When you choose to show the Advanced Tools menu in iMovie preferences, drag-and-drop editing includes additional options such as cutaways, picture-in-picture, and green-screen effects.

Precision Editor.
Perfectionists, rejoice. iMovie ’09 introduces a new feature that makes it easy to fine-tune every edit. It’s called the Precision Editor, and it displays a magnified filmstrip that shows exactly where one clip ends and the next begins so you can precisely edit your video. Skim each clip up close and identify how much to keep and where to cut. Edit audio and video independently, so you can use the sound from one clip with the video from another. Reposition and adjust the duration of titles and transitions — without leaving the Precision Editor.

Dynamic Themes.
More of an instant-gratification type? Enhance your movie in minutes with new dynamic themes. Choose a theme such as Bulletin Board, Filmstrip, or Comic Book and apply it to your project instantly. iMovie ’09 does the rest, adding animated titles and sophisticated transitions automatically. Your themed project plays right away, so you don’t have to wait to see the results. Choose a theme at the start of a project or apply a theme to an existing project. iMovie themes look great without help, but you can easily add, swap, or delete elements to customize your project. Try a different transition. Swap a clip or two. Even change the theme altogether. iMovie remembers text you typed into title placeholders and changes only the theme.

Animated Travel Maps.
iMovie ’09 is ideal for making movies that document your vacations, holidays, and adventures. Enhance those video travelogues with eye-catching, animated travel maps. Choose from four different 3D globe or flat map styles and select your location (or locations) — from country to city to points of interest. iMovie builds an animated map that flies from point A to point B. If you want to change its look, drag another map on top of your current one to change the style without affecting your locations.

Video Stabilization.
Even the steadiest hand can jostle a camera. But now those perfect — if slightly wobbly — moments won’t be left on the cutting-room floor. New video stabilization in iMovie ’09 analyzes how much your camera was moving while you were recording, then automatically reduces camera shake. Stabilize on a clip-by-clip basis or analyze all your video for stabilization (the latter may take a while, but it’s worth it). The results look surprisingly smooth and professional.

New Titles, Transitions, and Effects.
Put the finishing touches on your movie with new titles, transitions, and video effects. iMovie ’09 introduces 18 new animated titles, and the Title Browser gives you a sneak peek at every one. Find a title you like and drag it onto any video clip. Or drag a title to an empty spot in your movie to open the Preview Palette and choose an animated background.




Basic Lessons.
GarageBand ’09 introduces Basic Lessons: the easiest way to learn piano and guitar, right on your Mac. Follow along at your own pace with interactive lessons that teach you the fundamentals through HD video instruction, synchronized notation, and animated onscreen instruments.

Play your way through a series of nine piano or guitar lessons that get you ready to play an entire song. Learn by repetition. Slow things down or repeat any part to get it right. Basic Lessons give you complete control over how you learn. And when you’re more comfortable, you can practice your new skills with a complete backing band.

Artist Lessons.
Sure, music video games are fun. But nothing is more authentic than learning to play a real song on a real instrument. And who better to teach you that song than the artist who made it famous? Introducing Artist Lessons in GarageBand ’09 (sold separately). Have Sting teach you how to play “Roxanne,” Colbie Caillat teach you how to play “Bubbly,” Fall Out Boy teach you how to play “I Don’t Care,” and many more. Browse, preview, and purchase Artist Lessons from the Lesson Store inside GarageBand. Then get step-by-step instructions for chords, finger positions, and techniques from the people who know your favorite songs best.

New Guitar Features.
GarageBand ’09 puts rock history on display with new amps and stompbox effects that re-create the sound of legendary guitar rigs — right on your Mac. Just plug in an electric guitar and play through five new amps modeled after the most revered in the world. Choose from over 30 complete rigs, including Brit Pop, Honky Tonk, Lowdown Blues, Seattle Sound, Stadium Solo, and Woodstock Fuzz. Add virtual stompboxes that reproduce classic foot pedals, including Fuzz Machine, Blue Echo, and Auto-Funk. Then get a 3D view of your rig — complete with amp, speaker cabinet, and stompboxes.

Design the website you’ve always wanted.
A Mac and iWeb ’09. That’s all you need to design and publish your own personal website. Start by picking an Apple-designed theme. Each theme comes with coordinated fonts, backgrounds, and colors to give your site a consistent look throughout.

Next choose a page template. iWeb features ready-made templates for welcome, about me, photo album, movie, blog, and podcast pages. Create as many pages as you like.

Then it’s time to customize your layout with easy-to-use iWeb tools. Drag in photos or movies or type text into placeholders. Resize and rotate photos. Create overlays. There’s no coding required. No complicated design programs to buy. No obstacles between you and a great-looking website.

Add your photos, movies, and more.
You keep photos in iPhoto. You edit movies in iMovie. You create songs in GarageBand. iWeb ’09 gives you great ways to share those photos, movies, and songs on your own website.

Give your website some widgets.
Create a site that’s fun to visit by adding a few interactive widgets. iWeb ’09 makes it drag-and-drop easy to add RSS feeds, iSight photos and videos, a countdown timer, YouTube videos, HTML snippets, and other dynamic features. The iWeb Widget Browser puts every widget within reach. All you do is drop the widget you want anywhere on your page.

Manage and publish your way.
It’s so easy to create new photo and movie pages using iWeb that you’ll probably create quite a few. But don’t worry about your site’s navigation growing too cluttered as a result. My Albums will keep things perfectly organized and easy to find.

Keep Facebook friends in the loop.
iWeb ’09 uploads only your changes when you publish, so you’ll enjoy quick site updates. iWeb will even notify your Facebook friends when you update your site. Simply link any iWeb site to your Facebook account. Following an update, iWeb adds the changes to your profile, alerting your friends and providing them with a handy link.

Work some DVD magic.
Take Magic iDVD, for example. Open iDVD and choose Magic iDVD. Then pick a theme and select the movies and photos you want to feature from the iLife Media Browser. Magic iDVD automatically creates a complete project — including main menu, buttons, scene selection menus, and slideshow menus — from start to finish. All you do is burn your DVD.

The theme’s the thing.
iDVD also lets you customize your DVDs by starting with themes. Choose from more than 150 Apple-designed themes in widescreen and standard format, each providing a family of coordinated screens including main menu, chapters menu, and extras menu for content like slideshows. Many themes feature attractive animations, and every theme offers drop zones that make it easy to personalize your menus by dragging in photos and movie clips from the iLife Media Browser.

Go from camera to DVD in OneStep.
Have footage in your video camera that you can’t wait to see or share? Create your own “digital dailies” with OneStep DVD. Plug in your camcorder and iDVD opens, offering you the option of creating a OneStep DVD. Click the OneStep button, and iDVD takes all the footage on your camcorder and burns it to DVD. As you burn your disc, iDVD informs you of its progress, providing stage-by-stage indicators with detailed progress bars — even live video thumbnails.

Burn to Share.
Once you finish your DVD masterpiece, only one step remains: burning it. With iDVD, you can burn to single- or double-layer DVDs. And the people you share your DVDs with can watch them anywhere they want: on a standard TV, a widescreen TV, a Mac, or a PC.