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Get an Early Look with “Photos for Mac: A Take Control Crash Course”

The ten-month limbo Apple left us in after announcing that the forthcoming Photos for Mac would replace both iPhoto and Aperture is nearly over. Photos has finally showed its face in OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite, now in public beta, and we expect it to be released within weeks. But should you trust your irreplaceable photo library to Photos right away? And what capabilities might you lose if you do? We have some early answers in our new “Photos for Mac: A Take Control Crash Course,” penned by Jason Snell, formerly lead editor of Macworld and now at Six Colors.

Based on the public beta, this early-bird version of “Photos for Mac: A Take Control Crash Course” helps you start thinking about making the transition and offers advice to anyone who is already running the beta or who plans to switch once Photos 1.0 ships. Right now, the tightly packed 30-page book assists you with:

  • Deciding whether to transition to Photos right away
  • Importing iPhoto and Aperture photo libraries
  • Getting around in the Photos interface
  • Keywording, favoriting, organizing, and finding photos
  • Dealing with Photos quirks

Once Photos 1.0 ships and we’ve had time to test it thoroughly and extract its secrets, we’ll release a free update — probably in May — that will more than double the size of the book. Topics it will add include:

  • Using iCloud Photo Library
  • Editing photos
  • Sharing photos with other people
  • Viewing photos on an Apple TV
  • Having prints made
  • Creating projects, such as calendars and cards
  • …and much more!

Like our other Crash Courses, this book has concise chunks of content so you can read quickly, all wrapped up in a modern, magazine-like layout in PDF that morphs to a reflowable design for EPUB and Mobipocket. Each chapter ends with discussion and sharing buttons, making it easy to ask a question (and please do ask questions that you want to see answered in the 1.1 update!) or share a chapter with Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and others.

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