Launching Slideshows

Those of us who store a lot of photographs on computers are familiar with running slideshows of those images. It’s a breeze to replicate the experience on the iPhone:

1. Choose your camera roll or another album from the Photo Albums list.

To do so, tap the Photos icon from the Home screen or tap the camera roll button in the Camera app.

2. Do one of the following:

• In the Photos app, select a picture and then tap the play icon at the bottom of the picture.

• In the Camera app, tap the image in the lower-left corner of the screen to display the most recent image in the camera roll, then tap the play icon at the bottom of the image. If you want to start the slideshow with a different image rather than the picture that is now visible, tap the camera roll button at the upper-left corner of the screen. You now see a thumbnails screen. Tap the play icon.

You are taken to the Slideshow Options screen.

3. Choose transition effects and the music (if any) that you’d like to accompany the slideshow.

You have five transitions choices (cube, dissolve, ripple, wipe across, wipe down). Why not try them all, to see what you like?

4. Tap Start Slideshow.

Unless you’ve set the slideshow to repeat, as explained in the next chapter, the slideshow ends automatically. Tap the screen to end it prematurely.

That’s it! Enjoy the show.

Special slideshow effects

You can alter the length of time each slide is shown, change the transition effects between pictures, and display images in random order.

From the Home screen, tap Settings and then scroll down and tap Photos & Camera. Then tap any of the following to make changes:

Play Each Slide For: You have five choices (2 seconds, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds). When you’re finished, tap the Photos button to return to the main Settings screen for Photos.

Repeat: If this option is turned on, the slideshow continues to loop until you stop it. If it’s turned off, the slideshow for your camera roll or album plays just once. The Repeat control may seem counterintuitive. If Off is showing, tap it to turn on the Repeat function. If On is showing, tap it to turn off the Repeat function.

Shuffle: Turning on this feature plays slides in random order. As with the Repeat feature, tap Off to turn on shuffle or tap On to turn off random playback.

Press the Home button to leave the settings and return to the Home screen.

Touching up photos

The iPhone is never going to serve as a substitute for a high-end photo-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. But you can do some relatively simple touch-ups, right from inside the Photos app.

Choose an image and tap Edit. At the bottom of the screen are four icons, shown in Figure 9-8 and described next:

Rotate: Rotate the image counterclockwise.

Auto-enhance: Let the iPhone take a stab at making your image look better. Apple lightens or darkens the picture, tweaks color saturation, and more. Tap Save if you like the result.

Remove red-eye: Get rid of that annoying red-eye. Tap each eye; tap again to undo.

Crop: Crop the image. By tapping the Constrain button, you can choose to crop the image through many different aspect ratio options.

Deleting pictures

We told a tiny fib by intimating that photographs are meant to be seen. We should have amended that statement by saying that some pictures are meant to be seen. Others you can’t get rid of fast enough. Fortunately, the iPhone makes it a cinch to bury the evidence:

1. From the camera roll, tap the objectionable photograph.

2. Tap to display the picture controls, if they’re not already displayed.

3. Tap the trash can icon.

4. Tap Delete Photo (or Cancel, if you change your mind).

The photo gets sucked into the trash can and mercifully disappears.