Slide Show : I've talked to a number of PC users about making slide shows and they always say that they use PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a good program but, for creating slide shows easily, iPhoto has it beaten hands down. The slide show feature can use selected pictures or entire albums.

Next, click on the Slide Show button (image right). This will bring up the Slide Show Preference Panel (image below). Here you will select the duration that each slide will play for. The default is 2 seconds. You can use the up and down arrows or you can type in a specific number of seconds (1.33 for example).

You will then select whether you want the slide show to repeat itself by checking the Repeat Slideshow check box (will be checked by default).

Finally, select the music that you want to play during the slide show, if any. There are two music files available by default (Minuet in G and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring). You can also use your own music by selecting Edit… from the Music menu. Once you select Edit, you will need to point your computer to the music file of your choice

Once you are done making your selections, click OK. The slide show will begin to play full screen. To pause the slide show, hit the space bar. Once paused, you can move back and forth throughout the pictures by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard. To play your slide show (if paused) hit the spacebar again.

Mail : Emailing photos is a snap with iPhoto. You no longer have to create an email, find the pictures and add them as attachments. This is done for you, using iPhoto and the Mac Mail application.

Like all of the other tools discussed here, you need to select the images that you want to send. You may want to consider how many you are going to send at one time. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, the image size of the pictures and the speed of your computer, I would recommend sending between 5 and 10 images per email.

After you have selected the images, click on the Mail button in iPhoto (image above right). This will bring up a Mail Photo dialog box where you will select the size of the images (small, medium, large or full size). You will also see how much memory the pictures will take (this will impact the transfer time: larger file - longer transfer time). You can also select whether you want the titles and/or comments added to the email message.

Once you have made your selections, click Compose and the Mail application will open with a new email message (images attached). All you have to supply is the email address of the person you are sending it to, any comments in the body of the message and then click Send.

If you would like to use iPhoto to send images via email but do not use Apple's Mail program, download the free utility iPhoto Mail Patcher. This allows you to use iPhoto with other email programs like Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, PowerMail and QuickMail Pro.

Click here to go to lesson 6C, Ordering Prints, Creating and Ordering a Book and Making a Homepage out of your photos.