Innehållsförteckning för 1 April 2015 från MacLife

LAST WEEK, I was in France judging the mobile game of the year with one of the men that developed Candy Crush. We booted up a story-based game to evaluate, and were treated to a beautiful opening animation. He squinted with disappointment. “I hate it when a game makes you sit through a long intro,” he scolded. “Just get to the gameplay! Users don’t want to wait!” As someone who got into game development to tell stories, my gut instinct was to argue that characterization takes time. Then I remembered that King has almost a billion dollars in the bank, and I decided to close my mouth and listen instead. I FIND MYSELF asking what the future of mobile games is. In 2011, when I founded Giant Spacekat, I felt…

> QUICKLY RENAME FILES In Yosemite, you can batch-rename files right in the Finder. Open a new Finder window and select all the files you want to rename by ß-clicking the first and last files (if they’re all together), or ç-clicking each one (if they’re not). Right-click on the files and choose “Rename x items,” where x is the number of selected items. In the window that pops up, you can choose how to format the filenames and whether to replace or add text, for example to number them. > DISCONNECT FROM A WI-FI NETWORK This is now quick and easy to do in Yosemite. Hold å and click the Wi-Fi menu. You’ll see a raft of options, along with data about your current connection. Underneath the current network is…

High-end film-making is easy with this high-quality setup 1 CANON 700D $615 usa.canon.com Canon’s 700D produces amazing video results for the price, allowing you to change lenses and get crisp shots with lovely depth of field thanks to its large sensor. 2 > RØDE VIDEOMIC PRO $260 rodemic.com Røde’s microphone for DSLR users uses a clever floating cradle system to ensure there is no pollution of the terrific broadcast-quality sound. 3 > LOWEL SLIMLIGHT RIFA PRO 2 $732 lowel.tiffen.com Perfect for interviews or small-scale productions where a three-point lighting set-up is all you’ll need, the Pro 2 has everything you’d want. 4 > MANFROTTO MVK502AM $450 manfrotto.us You can’t skimp on tripods – this model gives an excellent balance of value and stability. Consider a Glidetrack system for camera moves,…

NEAR THE START of 2007, the first issue of Mac|Life was sent to the printers. It was a fresh start for the magazine previously known as MacAddict – but Apple was about to change, and Mac|Life followed. Apple’s hardware had moved to Intel from its PowerPC origins, but outwardly the iMac, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and Mac Pro all looked like their previous incarnations – that would change. The iPod was pretty much the most popular gadget on the planet, and its sharp design and friendliness would inform Apple’s direction and ultimately make the iPod almost obsolete. The iPhone era was about to begin, making Apple more popular than ever, and heralding its most successful period. Since 2007, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in what tech we use most and…

THE HEADY DAYS of ’07 feel awfully recent to us, but the tech world has changed a lot since then. The Nintendo Wii had just been released, and its rocketing sales were embarrassing the more powerful but (then) comically expensive PlayStation 3. The HD disc wars were raging too – it was another few years before HD-DVD conceded. Windows Vista had just arrived on the scene, and people were hopeful about it. That didn’t last. Can you imagine having windows that look like frosted glass in your desktop OS!? Wait, no, hang on. That bit was fine. Definitely fine. Later in 2007, Eee PCs arrived, and netbooks took the world by storm over the next year or so. It possibly helped that they ran Linux or Windows XP, not Vista.…

Free (subscription required) Developer Readdle, readdle.com Platform iPad Requirements iOS 7 or later The term “desktop class” aptly describes the latest mobile solution from the creators of Documents and PDF Expert, which delivers the power of Adobe Acrobat document creation on the iPad. Although PDF Expert has always been a capable document reader with annotation tools bolted on, PDF Office adds the ability to actually create such files from the device camera, web pages, or by converting existing files. The app also features robust form-creation tools, including the seriously cool ability to detect form fields automatically from captured documents. But progress comes at the expense of earlier functionality. Documents can be imported from the likes of Dropbox or OneDrive, but PDF Office ditches the ability to sync with these services.…

$2.99 Developer Daniel Wilson/Iron Cloud Entertainment, maydayapps.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 6.1 or later There are more ways to play a video game than you might think, so good on developer Iron Cloud for defying convention and refusing to simply accept the standard inputs that we’ve grown used to. Instead, it has decided that you’re going to control Mayday a very different way: with only your voice. It’s intriguing, but imperfect. Guiding the survivor of a mysterious spaceship disaster via only voice commands can be something of an unpredictable affair. Your charge, who navigates through a bare-bones map and embellishes his journey by talking back to you, can occasionally mishear even the clearest of instructions. Sometimes he has to be prompted to turn corners or follow routes that other times…

$199.99 Developer Apple, apple.com Requirements OS X 10.9 or later, 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM Apple’s professional music package is a familiar sight in commercial recording studios and on arena stages. It offers multi-track recording, great MIDI features, effortless loop-based music creation and stacks of virtual instruments. With the Logic Pro X release it gained tools for fixing timing and tuning, a vastly improved interface, better MIDI handling and the jaw-dropping Drummer, which produces incredibly realistic “live” drumming. Drummer wasn’t perfect though: in Logic Pro X the available drummers were fine if you wanted to make rock, folk, country or metal, but if you wanted to make dubstep, EDM or hip-hop you’d need to turn to your loop library or create the beats by hand. When even the most traditional musicians…

HOW TO DO ANYTHING ON YOUR MAC, IPHONE & IPAD REQUIRES > OS X 10.10 or later LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TA KE > 15 minutes PREVIEW IS ONE of the unsung heroes of OS X, but its status as the default app for opening images and PDFs means it’s often not taken as seriously as it should be. Preview is fast, powerful and very versatile, and this tutorial will give you some idea of what it’s capable of. For example, when you open a PDF form, Preview automatically detects the fields you need to fill in, and you even have the ability to add a digital version of your signature if you want to. To do this, sign a piece of white paper in black ink, open a…

1 Flexible templates Pages has a selection of templates you can work on in tandem with others. To find a suitable template, open Pages and browse the designs by document type. You can customize the templates, too. The latest version of Pages for iCloud added 50 new fonts. As long as you’re working with a Pages document in iCloud, all the elements will available to other Pages users. 2 Editing photos Photos you import into Pages docs can be directly edited from within Pages. To do so, right-click the photo then choose from the editing options including crop, rotate and resize. The area you’re editing is shown as a mask. You can also change the transparency in the Arrange section of the photo editor; adjust which layer it’s on and…

1 Set up your Medical ID In the Health app, tap Medical ID in the bottom toolbar, then tap Create Medical ID on the page that appears. This displays a form for you to detail your age, facts and stats about your body, medical conditions, medications, and whether you are an organ donor. Fill in the form, and leave Show When Locked on if you want the information to be accessible from the Lock Screen. 2 Emergency contacts As well as providing medical details, your Medical ID can display contact info for anyone who you want to be informed about your situation. You can add many contacts from the people in your Contacts app. You can also define their relationship with you‚ such as parent, sibling, child, friend, colleague, and…

IN FEBRUARY 2007, nobody owned an iPhone or Apple TV, all the iPods had scroll wheels, and Macs were midway through the feline family, with Mac OS X Tiger. Oh, and a little publication called Mac|Life debuted on newsstands. I wrote for another Future magazine back then, but everyone at the company was impressed by Mac|Life’s clear, clean design, premium format, and easygoing attitude. I loved the book from the start, and thankfully, lots of readers agreed. In that first year, Leslie Ayers’s incredible team – including longtime Mac|Life superstars Susie Ochs, Mark Rosenthal, and Robin Dick – established something special that was strong enough to last. Now, eight years later, here we are at issue 100. What a wild, wonderful ride it’s been. We’ve been privileged to cover the…

JUST A FEW years ago, we were waiting for Thunderbolt to arrive, getting much more excited than we like to publicly admit about the connections speeds it promised. But it all just goes to show how our satisfaction doesn’t last very long, because here we are willing the third version of the technology to appear. There’s a very good reason for that, though, and it’s not about transferring files faster. Well, it’s not entirely about that. Thunderbolt 3 will include DisplayPort 1.3 as part of its spec – a big boost over the DisplayPort 1.2 spec used in Thunderbolt 2. DisplayPort 1.2 maxes out at running a 4K display at 60Hz – not too bad by any means, but not enough for a 5K screen. The Retina iMac actually uses…

The way we get software isn’t changing just with the rise of a centralized, one-click App Store. There is a fundamental shift from paying a lot up front to a little over time, and it’s probably for the better. THE APP STORE increased competition and turned many, many more people onto the idea of seeking out apps to solve particular problems. As prices began falling, the sheer number and variety of apps erupted. The app economy is changing in radical ways, but it’s still just as difficult – and in some cases even tougher – to make a living or run a software business, whether you’re an indie operating from a garage, or Microsoft. At the same time, more of us now want to work and play across multiple devices,…

1 HP Z34c www.hp.com $999 >>> People often make fun of curved displays as being pointless gimmicks, but they miss one very important fact: they look so cool. This new 34-inch screen from HP is awesome in many other ways too, particularly its ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio (cinema widescreen) and detailed 3440x1440 resolution. HP also announced a 27-inch 5K display to match the Retina iMacs, but since no other Macs support 5K displays yet, it doesn’t do that much for us. Also, it isn’t curved. 2 Mercedes-Benz F 105 www.daimler.com $Quite a lot >>> Self-driving cars are coming, and the roads will likely be a lot safer for it. But they’ll also be a lot more comfortable – at least, if we all buy our new autonomous cars from Mercedes.…

1 CHOOSE THE PRINTER TO SHARE Launch System Preferences then go to the Printers & Scanners pane (it’s on the second row, second from the right). Click any installed printer you want to share and check the box marked “Share this printer on the network.” 2 SET SHARING PREFERENCES Click the button marked Sharing Preferences. You’ll be taken to the Sharing Preferences pane with your printer selected to be shared. Under “Users” you can specify who can print by adding users individually and then setting permissions for them. 3 ADD PRINTER When you come to print from another Mac on the network, select Print (or hit ç+P). In the dialog box click Printer drop-down menu and then select the shared printer. If it’s not there, choose “Add Printer” and select…

Just getting into audio production? Try this selection 1 > M-AUDIO KEYSTATI ON MINI 32 $100 m-audio.com This is a great MIDI controller with velocity-sensitive keys, on-board controls and iOS connection (using the Camera Kit). 2 M-AUDIO AV 30 $130 m-audio.com These 30-watt speakers use the same core technology as M-Audio’s professional monitors, but they’re an awful lot cheaper. Just keep the bass boost turned off… 3 > FOCUS RITE ITRACK SOLO $200 focusrite.com This fantastic little device has a mic input and instrument input, a built-in mic pre-amp, phantom power for serious microphones and iPad compatibility. 4 > MAC MINI $499 apple.com You don’t need a massively powerful Mac to make music. Apple’s littlest Mac is great, although we’d recommend upping the standard RAM. Pair with any monitor. 5…

JUNE 2007 – iPhone launches. It’s limited, there’s no 3G, it’s crazy expensive at first, but it hits the dinosaurs of the phone market like a meteor. JULY 2008 – MobileMe shape of things to come. launches. It should be Apple’s foray into a cloud-like future, but major problems eventually cause Steve Jobs to apologize publicly for it. APRIL 2010 – The iPad launches. At first nobody (including Apple, it felt at the time) knows exactly what it’s for. That later turns out to be the entire point, once developers start turning it into everything from a fancy synthesizer to a notebook to a sky map to an arcade cabi AUGUST 2011 – Steve Jobs resigns as CEO, due to his deteriorating health, promoting Tim Cook to the role. Jobs…

WE TALK OF SOME companies like people, spinning behavior and quirks into personalities. Many business do behave in a distinctive way, but personality doesn’t come from nowhere – it comes from those who steer these companies. In 2007, Apple’s personality felt indistinguishable from Steve Jobs’. He was at his finest launching the iPhone – predicting the future and bashing the competition for its failure to innovate. Growing Mac sales and the dominance of the iPod and iTunes created confidence in Jobs, and that meant Apple itself became a company exuding certainty. But consider the changes that have come to Apple since then. The most obvious change was Tim Cook becoming CEO. Many reports have described him building an Apple that’s softer and more friendly. Tony Fadell, creator of the iPod,…

99c Developer Wanman Inc, colorscamera.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 7 or later We’ll level with you: we have not tried all 1,000 filters available in this app. We test things rigorously here, but there are only so many hours in the… year. The sheer number of photo filters available in Colors is its selling point, but it’s not the most impressive part: it applies them in real time when you’re lining up to take your photo, and you can just flick through from filter to filter with a swipe, or tap a button that brings up six filters simultaneously across the viewfinder, with the entire range of filters there to scroll through, all moving across the image live. It’s totally slick on the iPhone 6, with almost no obvious slowdown,…

1.99 Developer Gionathan Pesaresi, neutronized.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 4.3 or later Drop Wizard looks like it has waved a magic wand and beamed onto your device from a 1980s arcade. It’s a single-screen platformer, where you progress by beating up cute critters roaming about, who then transform into fruit bonuses to grab. Rinse and repeat as necessary. It’s visually charming, like its ancestors, but Drop Wizard is no throwback. Levels are in bite-sized blocks, culminating in boss fights – well-suited for mobile play. The controls, too, are perfect: you auto-run left or right, and fire a foe-stunning wand blast only on landing. This transforms Drop Wizard into a combination of frenetic arcade fare and constantly evolving puzzler, where you must continually figure out the best route to success –…

$320 Manufacturer Buffalo, buffalotech.com Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet, 1x USB 2.0 Formats RAID 0, 1, JBOD Dimensions 5x3.4x8.4in Weight 5.3lb Buffalo’s dual-bay drive supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 modes. We tested a model with two separate 1TB drives that retails at $320, but if you need more storage there’s $600 model with two 4TB drives. There’s also a USB 2.0 port for an external drive, along with Gigabit Ethernet for connecting to your home or office network. Installation is straightforward: Buffalo’s Navigator software detects the TeraStation, and configuration is handled in a web browser. Buffalo supports Mac users well, explaining how to set up Time Machine backups or iTunes Server. The drive is formatted using RAID 1 – “mirrored” to provide duplicate backups – and when backing up a 20GB…

1 Monitor options The Health toolbar can be used to record and review your well-being. Tap Health Data to see items that can be recorded. They include attributes such as weight; others that your doctor may want to record because of your age, such as blood pressure and heart rate; and yet more that are used to monitor long-term medical conditions, such as blood glucose levels and how often you use an inhaler. 2 Record some data Tap an item to track and you’ll see a graph that’s empty for now. Below that, Add Data Point enables you to manually record a reading. Depending on the item type, the form for doing this may indicate an expected scale. The time and date are automatically set to when you’re adding the…

1Make it mono Open Photoshop and get your image, whether from Adobe Creative Cloud or stored on your device. Go to the Layers Panel and duplicate the layer using the + icon. Tap the Adjustments menu (the icon that looks like control sliders) and select Black & White. This will remove all color information, but there are no controls for tonality or contrast. 2 Tweak the tones To boost the tonality, tap Adjustments and choose Curves. Touch the Curve to make an anchor point and move it up to make the image lighter and down to make it darker; you can add multiple points by tapping again. The upper part of the line will affect lighter tones, the lower section will affect the dark tones. To boost the contrast make…

I just finished reading Luke Dormehl’s article on slumping tablet sales (The Lifer, Jan 2015). Luke and Apple may see this as a bump in the road, but we may finally be seeing evidence that the honeymoon is over, and forced obsolescence is becoming a bigger concern than whether or not a device is prettier, lighter, or has a new bell or whistle. I own an iPad 1, which was supposed to be a device that replaced my computer. Three years later, Safari barely works on it, let alone other apps. This smartphone-style upgrade/abandonment pace is absurd and decadent. I won’t buy another iPad no matter how fancy they make it; I’d rather buy a small, dull laptop because it will last longer. Longevity trumps shiny objects and overblown conveniences…

CHAOS REBORN $19.99 This turn-based strategy battle game pits wizards in a duel by casting spells to summon creatures or directly attack each other. It’s all about the risk/reward here, with everything you do having a percentage chance of success. It feels like there’s a lot of balancing to be done before it’s ready, but it’s fun even now. VERSION TESTED: 0.23 THE LONG DARK $19.99 This survival game puts you alone against the cruel Canadian wilds. Dumped in the forest, you’re cold, tired and hungry. Find shelter and supplies quickly else you’ll up frozen stiff or eaten by wolves. It’s already compelling, but only the sandbox mode is available, which can feel aimless at times. A story mode is planned for later. VERSION TESTED: 0.183…

PEOPLE OFTEN THINK we must sit on thrones made entirely of MacBook Pros and iPads here at Mac|Life, but while that, sadly, isn’t true, we could fashion a chair from all the iPhone cases kicking around the office that would put the Iron Throne to shame. It’s not hard to see why there are so many iPhone cases in the world – they’re cheap to make and there are now more than a billion iOS devices out there that need protecting. And that’s before you get to the speaker docks, batteries, Bluetooth thermometers and the like. The next gold rush is for Apple Watch accessories. Here are a few of the ones that we know are coming; predictably, many are focused on charging, but there are some more innovative ideas…

1 Breathing Machine Leigh Alexander $4.99 This memoir from video games and culture writer Alexander is a warm, honest look back at growing up in the early days of home computers. It’s her story, but the truths will resonate with anyone. Stories of things like struggling with the language of computers – the friction between our natural choice of phrasing and what a command line or a text adventure expected – are familiar in a way that brings the blocky text and beige plastic rushing back. If you enjoy the book, check out Alexander’s YouTube channel, where she revisits games from the Apple ][e and Commodore 64 era. 2 12 MONKEYS Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull $24.99 HD Season Pass Coming firmly from the “Crazy enough to apparently work, somehow” school…

> USE ENHANCED DICTATION You’ll usually need an internet connection to use Dictation, since the processing is done on Apple’s servers. To use Dictation offline, you need to enable Enhanced Dictation. Go to System Preferences > Dictation & Speech > Dictation tab and check the box marked Use Enhanced Dictation. Your Mac will download a file so it can do the processing and provide you with live feedback. > ADVANCED DICTATION COMMANDS In Yosemite, Speakable Items have been renamed and have changed location. You need to turn on Enhanced Dictation first. When your Mac has downloaded the additional data, go to the Accessibility pane in System Preferences. Scroll to Dictation, select it and click Dictation Commands. Check “Enable advanced commands.” > DISPLAY DICTATION COMMANDS To display a list of commands…

Go a bit further to achieve that pro sound Podcasting is easier than ever – try these for starters 1 > GARAGEBAND FREE apple.com It may come free with your Mac, but this is still a powerful tool and recommended by podcasters across the industry, from amateurs to pros with thousands of listeners. 2 > BLUE SNOWBAL $60 bluemic.com This is a great starter microphone, giving you vastly better recording quality than your Mac’s built-in mic. Your listeners will thank you for the clearer, richer sound. 3 > 11-INCH MACB OOK AIR $899 apple.com You don’t need a ton of power to record and edit these days – an Air offers all you need, and makes for a highly portable podcast workstation. 4 > RØDE PODCASTER $230 rodemic.com This dynamic…

REMEMBER AQUA? In 2007, we were still swimming in it. Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) was a big deal for Apple – it marked real maturity for OS X as an operating system, moving past almost all the doubts about utility or stability. It was shiny, rounded and full of 3D effects – all elements that we would come to see in the iPhone OS, released later that year. Shadows, highlights and textures gave everything a physical feel – compounded by the way on-screen buttons visibly pressed in when clicked or tapped. This made extra sense on the iPhone when coupled with the idea that the phone “turned” into whatever device the app emulated – the iPhone had “almost buttons”, but it could have an infinite variety of switches, knobs…

NOT TO GET ALL “Hey, remember the noughties?” (and not just because noughties is such a horrible word), but a lot of pop culture stuff happened in 2007. The Sopranos ended with its infamous cut to black, while Stargate SG-1 bowed out as the longest consecutive running sci-fi TV show after 10 years. The Big Bang Theory started in ’07, with few people predicting its popularity. Damages and Gossip Girl arrived too, along with Mad Men, which somehow made being a detached alcoholic cool. Spider-Man 3 and the third Pirates of the Caribbean film gave us major threequel fatigue. The Simpsons Movie hit the big screen, getting back many of the writers from the series’ heyday amid rumblings that the show was past its prime. Meanwhile, in 2015, the show…

$2.99 Developer Savage Interactive, procreate.si Platform iPhone, iPod touch Requirements iPhone, iOS 8.1 or later Thanks to an emphasis on usability instead of complex functionality, Procreate Pocket is incredibly easy and fun to use. With the screen uncluttered by tools you can focus on the simple pleasure of drawing and painting. The interface remains largely the same as the iPad app, with brush, eraser and smudge tools along the top, and if you are using an iPhone 5 or later, the Layers tool as well (on an iPhone 4S or iPod touch 5th gen, it’s in the menu). Sliders on the side of the screen enable you to alter brush size and opacity with ease, and although brush size is shown as a percentage of the screen rather than pixel…

$2.99 Developer Nitrome, gunbrick.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 4.3 or later In a dystopian future seemingly populated by highly intelligent cuboid birds, the car is obsolete. In this radiation-tinged world of mutants and mad scientists, the Gunbrick reigns supreme. The device is a gun on one side and a shield on the other, and trundles about by “rolling” in a manner a cube probably shouldn’t. As for Gunbrick the game, you work your way through over 30 levels, swiping to roll and tapping to blast. At first, the game’s speed makes it feel like a breezy platform title, but it settles down to become more of a puzzler, with you having to figure out precision sequences of moves to get your cuboid vehicle through hostile terrain. A few later puzzles…

$620 Manufacturer ViewSonic, viewsonic.com Screen 28 inches Aspect ratio 16:9 Resolution 3840x2160 Panel type TN 4K monitors are coming in all shapes and sizes, but none looks quite like the 28-inch VX2880ml. It’s distinctive, for sure, thanks to a two-part stand that makes it look like it’s rearing up on its hind legs. ViewSonic recently said that it wanted to “bring 4K to the mainstream” with the VX2880ml, which is keenly priced at $620, and you can find it for less on various online retailers’ websites. Set up isn’t difficult, but it’s not quick either. Once put together, the monitor feels fairly sturdy, though the stand’s three-pronged design makes it susceptible to being knocked over from the sides. There’s also no way of adjusting height, nor can it pivot up…

$340 Manufacturer QNAP, qnap.com Connectivity 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI Compatibility 2.5in/3.5in HDD & SDD Dimensions 6.6x4x8.9in This two-bay TS-251 drive unit is sold “unpopulated”, so it’s up to you to provide your own drives. Installing them is easy enough, as the two drive bays pop open with a flick of a switch. Tucked around the back you’ll find two Gigabit Ethernet ports for network connection, two USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port. There’s another USB 3.0 socket on the front as well. It even includes an HDMI port so you can plug it straight into an HDTV and play videos without having to use a computer. In fact, the TS-251 includes built-in apps for playing music, photos and videos, as well…

REQUIRES > OS X 10.10, web connection, an iCloud account, someone to work on documents with you LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 15 minutes WORKING ON A DOCUMENT with someone else can play to your respective strengths. One of you might be good at graphs, the other strong at headlines. However, sharing documents can be confusing if you don’t know which version is the most recent or which changes have been applied to which copy. Thankfully, there are tools to keep track of changes built into both Microsoft Word and Pages. In the former you can turn on Track Changes in Review; Pages offers an equivalent setting as soon as you start typing text. Collaborative working using Pages is easy – it’s managed by iCloud. Pages is free…

REQUIRES > iPhone, iOS 8, accessories; apps that can connect to the Health app LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 20 minutes to get started IOS 8 OFFERS a new app that gathers health stats from various sources – so you don’t have to open one app for your digital scales, a different app for your fitness band, another that tracks your cycling and so on. Apple’s Health app pulls this data together so you can easily check how you’re doing, rather than correlating statistics from various sources and trying to analyze them. Even if you’re uninterested in the gamification of health, or if you feel you’re managing to do just fine without the involvement of technology, Health has another feature… It can create a Medical ID that’s accessible…

REQUIRES > iPhone/iPad, Photoshop Touch LEVEL > Hard IT WILL TAKE > 20 minutes PHOTOSHOP IS WITHOUT doubt the most world’s most versatile and widely used image-editing software. Adobe has also introduced Photoshop Touch, a mobile version that’s available for the iPhone, iPad and Android tablet devices. While it’s only fraction of the price of the desktop tool, it’s a powerful piece of image-editing software in its own right. It includes a wide range of tools, and features and functions. Naturally, an iPad will be a bit slower processing high-res raw files directly out of a pro-level SLR than a powerful Mac or PC, but it’s the perfect accompaniment for photographers and image makers wanting to sketch out ideas, make quick edits, assemble basic composites and more while on the…

1 Convert to mono After opening your image, duplicate the background layer using the + icon in the layers panels and make the image black and white using the walkthrough above. Try to ensure that the combination of tweaks to the curve and adjustments to the dodging and burning result in detail in both the highlights and shadow areas. Duplicate the black and white layer. 2 Map the tones Go to the FX tab on the main menu bar, select Stylize and choose Multi Gradient Map. The idea is to map colors to the tones in the image. The four Colors represent tones; dark on the left to light on the right. Choose a color for each of the tones, in this case dark blues for the darker tones and…

REQUIRES > OS X 10.10 or later LEVEL > Easy IT WILL TAKE > 15 minutes APPLE DID AWAY with recovery disks when it brought out OS X 10.7 Lion. These days, Apple provides a built-in recovery system within Yosemite. Start your Mac and hold command+r to go into recovery mode. Here you can start Disk Utilities, restore from a Time Machine backup or perform a clean install. This recovery system is stored on a hidden partition on your Mac’s hard drive – so what if something happens to your hard drive? Well, if your Mac can’t find the recovery partition but it’s connected to the internet via either Wi-Fi or a network cable, it’ll start the OS X Internet Recovery Feature. However, if your Mac is not online, or…

1 Get the Assistant If the Recovery Disk Assistant isn’t already in your Applications/Utilities folder, download it from http://support. apple.com/kb/dl1433. Once the download is complete, double-click the file called “RecoveryDiskAssistant.dmg” in your Downloads folder, then drag the resultant Recovery Disk Assistant.app into your Applications folder. 2 Select drive Insert a USB drive or attach an external hard drive, launch Recovery Disk Assistant (yes, it still has the OS X Lion image), agree to the terms and wait while external drives are detected. Select the USB or external drive, then click Continue. Note that all data on this drive will be erased so that the assistant can install the files to make a recovery disk. 3 Eject and keep When the process is complete and you see the appropriate message that…

1 HOMEKIT IS HAPPENING It’s been a long time since HomeKit was announced back at WWDC 2014, but after a hefty range of compatible products was revealed at CES in January, maybe the connected home is finally ready to go mainstream. HomeKit support in “smart” gadgets will mean that they all tie into a framework in iOS, so you can control things from different manufacturers at once without them all having had to be made compatible with one another. And then there’s Siri support – with just a word to your virtual assistant, you can have the lights turned on, the temperature turned up and the door unlocked. Information can flow the other way, too – HomeKit sensors could tell you if you left a window open, or if a…