Using iPhoto with Photoshop

The editing features in iPhoto can handle many image-tuning tasks, but at the end of the day, Adobe Photoshop is a better-equipped digital darkroom. Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, its lighter-weight, less-expensive cousin, provide far more sophisticated retouching tools and more ways to improve a photo’s lighting and exposure. And as I mention on the previous page, Photoshop is also a better tool for serious raw-format work.

Photoshop (and Elements—everything on these pages applies to both) has slick features that have no counterparts in iPhoto. A library of exotic visual effects lets you simulate pastels, watercolors, brush strokes, and more. You can cut out the subject of a photo and superimpose it over a different background. You can stitch photos together into dramatic panoramas.