iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

The Photo Info Window

The small Information pane below the Source list displays only the most basic information about your photos: title, date, and size. For more detailed information, you need the Get Info command. It opens the Photo Info window, where iPhoto displays a surprisingly broad dossier of details about your photo: the make and model of the digital camera used to take it, for example, and even exposure details like the f-stop, shutter speed, and flash settings.

To open the Photo Info window (Figure 5-20), select a thumbnail and then choose Photos → Get Info (or press ⌘-I). (If more than one photo is selected, you’ll get only a bunch of dashes in the info window.)

In addition to the Keywords tab described above, the Photo Info window contains Photo and Exposure tabs. The Photo panel contains information about the image file itself—when it was originally created, when it was first imported, and when it was last modified. If the image was shot with a digital camera (as opposed to being scanned or imported from disk), the make and model of the camera appear at the bottom of the window (see Figure 5-20).

Tip

Comparing the details on the Exposure panel with the advice in Chapters 2 and 3 can be eye-opening. For example, if you put your camera into its automatic mode and snap a few pictures, you can find out—and learn from—the shutter and lighting settings the camera used.

How on earth does iPhoto know so much about how your photos were taken? Most digital cameras embed a wealth ...