iPhoto Batch Enhancer 3 - Manual

iPhoto Batch Enhancer is designed to make your life with iPhoto even more comfortable. It helps you apply the built in iPhoto effects (enhance, black-white, sepia and more), changes to the Adjust palette (via Snapshots) as well as perform basic editing functions (scaling and rotating) with a few mouse clicks to a batch of photos.

Quick start
Snapshots (iPhoto Adjust palette)
iPhoto Full Screen Editing
Scripts
Preferences
Installing iPhoto Batch Enhancer

1. Quick start

Use the following steps to apply effects to a batch of photos:

Select the photos in iPhoto you wish to apply actions to.
Choose an action type (iPhoto effect, Snapshot or Script) and then the desired action from the list. To add or delete a row simply use the + and - buttons.
If you want to edit Snapshot or Script details, click on the tool icon.
Then click Apply to let iPhoto Batch Enhancer do the work for you.
If you are not satisfied with the resulting photo you can always revert to the original via the Photo-Menu within iPhoto.
You may want to try whether the current set of actions works as you want it to: Simply open one photo in iPhoto for editing in the main window, then click the Apply button of iPhoto Batch Enhancer. All actions will be applied to the current photo and no changes will be saved until you exit edit mode (Exception: If you include a Script action changes are being saved for technical reasons).
If you want to keep different sets of actions you can save the current one via File -> Save Actions... and open it again with File -> Open Actions....

Important: For some of the steps iPhoto needs to be the frontmost application. To avoid any problems please refrain from using your computer for other tasks during the conversion process.

2. Snapshots (iPhoto Adjust palette)

Starting with iPhoto 5 the Adjust palette offers a new way to fine tune your photos. Sliders allow to change the brightness, contrast, saturation and other properties of a photo. Please note: The availability depends on your computer and your version of iPhoto.

If you want to apply the same properties to several photos within iPhoto, you have to write down the slider positons of the first photo and then apply them manually to all other photos one by one. Begining with iPhoto 7 there are new Copy and Paste buttons in the Adjust palette, but management of different sets of the Adjust palette still isn't possible. iPhoto 9 only registers changes in its internal clipboard of adjust values when being restarted - that's the reason why iPhoto 9 restarts more often while iPhoto Batch Enhancer is applying Snapshots.

iPhoto Batch Enhancer allows you to take a Snapshot of a photo's slider positions and apply that to as many photos as you like.

Please note: When applying Snapshots to photos that have been edited externally or created by Scripts iPhoto saves the changes embedded in the photos and resets the sliders to their initial positions.

Create a Snapshot

To create a Snapshot of the current Adjust palette in iPhoto do one of the following:

Choose New in the Snapshot Menu or Press Command-N or
Click the left button in the Snapshots window or
Choose New Snapshot in the Snapshot Menu Item.

The name of the new Snapshot is taken from the current photo in iPhoto.

Apply a Snapshot

To apply a Snapshot to one or more photos either:

Choose Snapshot as action type in the iPhoto Batch Enhancer main window, then select the Snapshot from the list and then click the Apply button (more...) or
Choose Apply Snapshot from the Snapshot Menu Item (more...).

Managing Snapshots

To manage Snapshots simply open the Snapshots window via Command-L or Window -> Show Snapshots:
Click the left button to create a new Snapshot of the current Adjust palette.
Click the trash button to delete the selected Snapshots.
Click the tool button to edit or rename a Snapshot:

Tip: To copy your Snapshots to a different computer or user account simply use the Export Snapshots and Import Snapshots... commands of the File menu.

3. iPhoto Full Screen Editing

Full Screen Editing in iPhoto is a great way to use the complete space your screen provides. Except in iPhoto 7 and higher (where you can copy and paste the slider positions of the Adjust palette) applying the same Adjust palette values up to now meant entering them manually photo by photo.

Since changing the frontmost application also exits Full Screen Editing, using iPhoto Batch Enhancer wasn't an option. Now there is a solution to this dilemma with the new

Snapshot Menu Item of iPhoto Batch Enhancer. It's always available in the menu bar and lets you create and apply Snapshots while using iPhoto's Full Screen Editing mode:

After clicking on the

Snaphot Menu Icon you have the following options:

You can create a New Snapshot based on the current slider positions of the Adjust palette.
Choose Apply Snapshot -> All and select a Snapshot to apply from the complete list of your Snapshots.
Choose Apply Snapshot -> Recent and select a Snapshot to apply from up to five recently used Snapshots. The last used or created Snapshot is always first in the list, so applying the latest Snapshot you created couldn't be easier.

When using the

Snapshot Menu Item the completion of the task is indicated with a sound, because no visual feedback is possible while using iPhoto's Full Screen mode.

4. Scripts

In adititon to automating the image editing capabilities within iPhoto itself iPhoto Batch Enhancer allso sports a few additional basic image editing capabilities available for you to choose from:

Free Rotate
Rotate or Flip
Scale by ratio
Scale to size
Crop to ratio
Crop percent
Crop pixels

Please note: Photos are being duplicated in iPhoto 9 prior to external editing. To aid in differentiating the two copies iPhoto Batch Enhancer assigns the following keywords:

Original (IBE) for the original photo
Copy (IBE) for the new copy

Since duplication in iPhoto also copies all assigned keywords the new copy may also have the keyword Original (IBE) assigned to it.

In addition iPhoto Batch Enhancer adds original and duplicate photo to the following albums (if activated in the preferences):

iPhoto Batch Enhancer - Originals
iPhoto Batch Enhancer - Copies

To apply a Script simply choose the action type Script and then select the desired Script from the list. To edit the Script parameters click onto the Tool button:

Important: iPhoto Batch Enhancer has to be set as external editor in iPhoto to make sure the photos stay integrated in the iPhoto library. In order to achieve this iPhoto is being restarted at the beginning and the end of a batch run including Script Actions.
If you encounter problems with that, please set iPhoto Batch Enhancer manually in iPhoto's preferences as external editor and try again.

Scripts require at least iPhoto 6.

5. Preferences

By choosing Preferences from the iPhoto Batch Enhancer menu or by pressing Command-Comma you can open the Preferences window with the following options:

General

Adding skipped photos means that any object that cannot be processed will be added to the iPhoto album iPhoto Batch Enhancer - Skipped. Skipping occurs when you try to process a movie, on a type mismatch for Snapshots (RAW or Standard) and if there are missing or unconnected data files within iPhoto.
When activated autochecking will connect once a week to the feroXsoft server to check whether a new version of iPhoto Batch Enhancer is available.
If you check 'Include anonymous profile' any time the application asks the server, whether a new version is available, some anonymous data about your machine (processor type, OS version, iPhoto version etc.) is being transmitted to the server. This helps us to keep the application tailored to your needs.

Snapshots

Preservation of the iPhoto clipboard means that the latest Adjust values that were copied within iPhoto will be preserved while using iPhoto Batch Enhancer. Activating this option will slow down iPhoto Batch Enhancer.
Furthermore you can determine how a type mismatch (RAW or standard) between a Snapshot and the current photo should be dealt with:
- Slider values with different ranges for RAW and standard photos are being converted into each other or
- Photos that don't match the type of the Snapshot are being skipped.

License

Here you can find information concerning the type of license:
- While you are checking out the application with a trial license you can find out when the trial phase will end. During the trial phase you can use iPhoto Batch Enhancer without any limitation.
- If you have bought a full license, you will see the registraton name and mail address.

6. Installing iPhoto Batch Enhancer

Open the downloaded disk image file by double clicking it.
Drag the application icon into the Applications directory on your disk.
If you haven't activated UI Scripting yet, you should do it now: Simply enable the checkbox Enable access for assistive devices in the Universal Access panel in the System Preferences application.
Please note: You will need admistrator privileges on the machine to do that.
Double click on the application icon to launch iPhoto Batch Enhancer.

Uninstalling iPhoto Batch Enhancer

Drag the application icon iPhoto Batch Enhancer to the trash.
Open your home directory by pressing Command-Shift-H. From here navigate to the Library and then Preferences directories and then locate the file de.feroxsoft.xIBE.plist and move it to the trash.

System requirements

iPhoto Batch Enhancer 3 has been tested with iPhoto 6.0.6 up to iPhoto 9.1.5. Please make sure you use the latest bugfix release of iPhoto.
iPhoto Batch Enhancer 3 requires Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" or Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion". Please note, that in case of problems only Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" are being supported.
As mentioned above you need to activate UI Scripting to let iPhoto Batch Enhancer control iPhoto.
iPhoto Batch Enhancer is compiled as Universal Binary to support Macintosh computers with PowerPC or Intel Processors.
Scripts require at least iPhoto 6.