Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, iWork
Using iWork as an image editor
I recently noted the image-editing functionality of Preview.app, which can act as a "good enough" image editor for many that don't have access to Photoshop. While it's difficult to argue with the free price tag, Preview is not without its limitations. Fortunately, many of these limitations are unlocked if you happen to own Apple's iWork suite, which in its own right can serve as an image editor for the budget-minded.Read on to see how to use iWork in this unconventional way.
The three components of iWork -- Pages, Keynote and Numbers -- each serve different purposes. Pages is an alternative to Microsoft Word, and Keynote and Numbers can be seen as respective alternatives to Microsoft's PowerPoint and Excel. Despite their respective core competencies, each app has page layout functionality. And this page layout capability serves as canvas of sorts, providing you a space to edit your images. Among these editing features are the ability to add or manipulate:
- Text Boxes
- Shapes
- Shadows
- Angle-based image rotation
- Reflections
- Opacity
- Instant Alpha
Although Pages, Keynote and Numbers are separate apps, the image editing functionality within each is nearly identical; in fact, I haven't been able to spot the differences, if indeed they do exist. For the purpose of this demo, I'm going to choose the Page Layout template in Pages. However, if you choose Keynote, you'll want to delete the preset text boxes that will accompany the first slide. Likewise, if you choose Numbers, choose the blank spreadsheet, and then delete the table in the first spreadsheet.
Here I am in Pages's page layout view with a stock photo of Apple's MacBook Pro line taken from Apple's website. I'd like to add some copy to accompany the image. To do this, I'll need to click on the Text Box button on the menu bar; alternatively, I could add text within a shape via the Shapes button.
Perhaps this image would look a bit nicer with a shadow and reflection. To do this, I just need to select the image and enable Shadow and Reflection on the menu bar. But if I want more granular control of shadows and reflections, as well as other attributes (such as image opacity and the angle of the image), I can get to them by clicking on the Inspector button and clicking on the Graphic Inspector pane within it.
That's more like it. I think I'm done.
Like Preview and iPhoto, you can adjust other image attributes (such as saturation, contrast and exposure) via the Adjust Image palette. this is accessible on the menu via View > Adjust Image.
Now that I'm complete with my editing, I'll need to save it as an image. Since selecting Save within Pages, Keynote, or Numbers will result in the image getting saved in the respective native file formats of those apps, I'll need to move this image over to Preview. To do this, select all of the elements in the newly edited picture and click on copy. Then launch Preview and select New from Clipboard from the FIle menu. This will bring all of the elements over to Preview as a flattened image. Alternatively, one can choose to export the document as a PDF, cropping it in Preview, and saving it as your desired image format.
As with many Apple products, the UI plays a major role in making for a more pleasurable experience. This ethos is certainly evident across the iWork suite, resulting in a very similar and seamless workflow within all three apps. Hence, I was able to illustrate the image editing features just using Pages.
By no means is iWork a replacement for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator. But for the $79 price tag of iWork, you certainly get much more than just an office productivity suite.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ABCNEWSER said 1:44PM on 9-19-2009
Even better, do it the free way with iLife. iWeb has all of the same functionality for editing images as iLife.
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Chris said 3:27PM on 9-19-2009
You're 90% correct. But iWeb doesn't have custom shapes our grouping. Key to doing Illustrator style complex images. iWeb also won't export to image formats like Keynote.
I use Keynote as a Photoshop/Illustrator replacement all the time. Keynotes on limit is the slide (canvas) size. It won't do crazy proportions. But that's where opening an image up later in Preview to crop it.
Pixelmator helps round out my needs.
I hope to never need any Adobe creative product again.
narles11 said 2:03PM on 9-19-2009
It is embarrassing to think about how much work I have done Pages that should have been done in Photoshop/Illustrator. I have just never taken the time to try to learn the Adobe apps though.
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sam said 2:11PM on 9-19-2009
So use a paid application to do something it wasn't designed to do when so many free alternatives exist?
I don't understand why a suggestion would be made?
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KeynoteKen said 2:31PM on 9-19-2009
I think you should offer a list of free alternatives with a statement like that. I've tried some in the past and none have the ease of use of iWork, but I'm open to suggestions.
Rob said 7:47PM on 9-19-2009
The GIMP. It's far more suited to general image manipulation, and completely free. I find it's quite easy to use, and it's more powerful than iWork's image manipulation, although things like reflections are more complicated to do. You also don't have to copy to preview and save as something; you can save in just about any file format. I haven't gotten any part of iLife since iPhoto was first released (1.0 was free, things have changed ):), but I assume that iPhoto has plenty of image fixing tools for photos, and Apple ships out iLife with every mac. Many don't purchase iWork, although it's my favorite office system; I keep my old, g4 mac just for iWork and Xcode. Also, why do the instructions say to copy into preview? The only 10.x feature I really miss from mostly moving to Windows is the ability to 'print' to pdfs, which everyone can open, and general purpose image editors can edit.
Greg Peterson said 8:22PM on 9-19-2009
Congratulations on completely missing the point on the article. It's meant for people who ALREADY OWN iWork but not Photoshop.
julian said 9:21PM on 9-19-2009
I have actually had GIMP for quite a while and... its just painfully hard to understand and to work with
It is like Photoshop's long lost twice removed cousin.
LAGal said 7:11PM on 10-11-2009
sometimes when you just need to fix something quick it's not worth the time to go hunt for a free program. like if all you need is to kill a background on an image
grifmusic said 2:13PM on 9-19-2009
I do most of my simple graphic work in Keynote and Pages. Keynote is nice because you can immediately export is as a PNG or jpeg (which I hate that Pages doesn't do).
I think if Apple added a few more functions, they would actually have a competitive product to Photoshop. Even though it's a little like comparing iMovie to Final Cut Pro, usually I would much rather use Pages because I'm normally half-way done editing by the time it would take to wait for photoshop to even open!
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Caliber Stone said 2:14PM on 9-19-2009
You can get iWork '09 for $59.99 for Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MB942Z-A-iWork-09/dp/B0014X2UAK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1253383947&sr=8-1
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Caliber Stone said 2:16PM on 9-19-2009
I mean "from" Amazon. Sorry. :-)
Ben said 2:18PM on 9-19-2009
When I'm without my Adobe apps, but do have access to the web I just go and use http://aviary.com/tools. It's an amazing suite of flash based web apps for media editing. Lifehacker did a review of Phoenix (Photoshop Replacement) http://lifehacker.com/5102188/phoenix-offers-powerful-image-editing-in-your-browser
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deluded spider said 3:59AM on 9-21-2009
Hey, thanks for the reminder! A friend of mine was in the beta for that and was gushing about it to me. I'll have to bookmark the site til I can afford Photoshop (poor college student here). Thanks again!
Joanna D said 2:40PM on 9-19-2009
It never ceases to amaze me that it is 2009 and the latest version of OS X still lacks basic image editing features which have been standard in other operating systems for years.
The good news is that Windows 7 ships with a much improved version of Paint which has a bunch of new features and a new interface.
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DaftGuy said 4:01PM on 9-19-2009
/facepalm
How sad you are. OzSCX dun't haz teh Peint OMG WTF.
JAQ said 4:27PM on 9-19-2009
So what you're saying is that Microsoft is finally replacing the worthless Paint app that has barely been improved since Windows 1.0, with something useful. Good for them. But yet you want to give them credit for 20+ years of the worthless one?
Joanna D said 4:47PM on 9-19-2009
We use paint at work all the time. It's a great application, most notably because it is very lightweight and launches INSTANTLY. For quick image edits you really cannot beat it.
Tacoman said 5:21PM on 9-19-2009
Please answer this question!
"Why do you visit TUAW?"
I have never seen a productive comment from you. They are all hate comments. I mean OS X has it's flaws just like every other operating system, but would it kill you to say something nice. Face it, Microsoft Paint is not that great, and neither are these work around editing features. If they were then Adobe would be a lot less rich.
Rob said 8:07PM on 9-19-2009
It is true that OS X really lacks ANY image editing software, but Apple ships out iLife with macs, which is better than what most people will ever need for editing photos. More puzzling is Microsoft's omission of a PDF viewer from Windows. My guess is antitrust fears, although having a fantastic PDF viewer (preview) preinstalled is a feature I miss from migrating to Windows, and not having a PDF printer is a feature I really miss. As to the OP, paint is basically worthless as an image editor, although it is less worthless than preview as an image editor, but that really isn't saying anything. Also, paint doesn't do anything well, but preview is a great (I'd say the best) PDF viewer and an OK image viewer; the Windows image viewer is better at viewing image files, but lacks PDF reading and any editing features.