Chapter 7. Organizing and Editing Graphics

If there's one thing the Mac is famous for, it's graphics support. After all, it's hard to argue the qualifications of the original platform of Photoshop and QuarkXPress. And although you can use a different platform for graphics work, the Mac is one of the most popular aroundand for good reason:

• Virtually every Mac program lets you convert documents to PDF format (File Print Save As PDF), so you can be sure all your Mac- and PC-using friends can open your documents. The same system-wide PDF support would require Adobe Acrobat ($300) on Windows.

• Mac OS X comes with Preview, a simple program for opening and converting image files. Sure, Preview won't replace Photoshop's top-of-the-line image filtersbut if you just want to open images in a hurry, Preview's price (free) is hard to beat.

• Mac OS X supports tons of digital cameras, right out of the box. With iPhoto (Section 7.1), for example, you can plug your digital camera into your Mac and copy all your pictures with a single click of the Import button.

The best part of being a graphic artist on a Mac, though, is that you can automate most graphics programs from here to the moon. With a single AppleScript, for example, you could perform color correction, work some wild and crazy effects into an image, or even convert a batch of image files to another formatand still have enough time to read the latest edition of Photoshop User magazine before dinner.

The example scripts from this chapter can be found on the AppleScript Examples CD (see Sidebar 2.1 for instructions).