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El Capitan might not be new now, but there’s still plenty left to explore. With Apple’s Keynotes getting increasingly busy, there is less and less time devoted to OS X, which means that there are still hidden features to find and tips and tricks to master, long after the dust has settled on the App Store. With so many headline features like Split View and Metal dedicated to the power users, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this update is designed to make your Mac more powerful than ever. Unfortunately, there are plenty of cases where the opposite is true. System Integrity Protection, a new security feature, is putting a stop to a number of hacks and customisation apps and even simple things like securely emptying the Trash are now…

Apple has a long history of taking the best third-party apps and turning them into OS X features, often making the originals redundant. With Split View, that hasn’t quite been the case. There are still plenty of App Store offerings giving Split View a run for its money, with far more advanced options for window management. Don’t switch just yet, though – we’ve got a few power tips up our sleeve that can help. For a start, not everything has to be an even split. You might be limited by vertical windows in Split View, but they can be any size you like. There’s plenty more where that came from, too. Fire up some Split View-compatible apps and we’ll reveal all. Step-by-step Set up Split View 01: Set your split…

Sort your results Heading to System Preferences>Spotlight will give you a checklist of all the search results you can currently draw from a Spotlight search and enable you to turn them off individually. Heading off-centre Click and drag in Spotlight’s search bar to move your results around so they don’t obscure your work. It’ll ‘snap’ back to the centre when you drag it towards the middle of your screen. Looking for video? One of the bigger features advertised by Apple for El Capitan was Spotlight’s ability to find videos online. If you can’t see one in your results, try searching with a more specific phrase. Extending your options Previously, third-party apps such as Flashlight did a great job at extending Spotlight’s functionality, but they’ve now been disabled by El Capitan’s…

If there’s one OS X essential that’s seen the most competition from third-party apps in the last year, it’s Mail. Whether it’s Dropbox’s Mailbox, Google’s Sparrow (which is no longer in development, but still a good alternative) or App Store favourite Airmail, there are plenty of alternatives to Apple’s email client. El Capitan’s upgrades to what is often OS X’s most criticised app really do help it keep up with the competition. From Mailbox-style swiping to trash and mark messages as read, to events and contacts picked out automatically by the app, there’s plenty to keep Mail up there with some of the best thirdparty apps. Whether you’re a die-hard Mail fan or you ditched it for an alternative, read on to find out what’s new. El Capitan You might…

Mission Control might have been around since 2003, when it was launched with OS 10.3 Panther as Exposé, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from refining it in El Capitan. Where Yosemite grouped windows from the same app together in Mission Control, El Capitan keeps them separate. It’s a simple change, but one that makes it far easier to find what you’re looking for if you’ve got multiple windows open. To make room for showing more windows, Apple has had to make a number of compromises. For a start, when there are lots of windows to display, placing them separately means they’ll show up smaller. El Capitan also drops the icons that used to appear underneath windows, replacing them with the app name that appears when you hover your mouse over…

It happens to even the most experienced of us – you absent-mindedly put something somewhere and the next thing you know you’re searching around wondering where you had it last. It happens to your car keys and it happens to the files and folders on your Mac. Luckily, your Mac makes it easy to save your stuff in the right place, quickly and often without having to think about it. The key to this is how your Mac handles Home folders, which are a special set of folders that are automatically created for each person that has a user account on your Mac. Know your way around here and you may never get lost on your Mac again. Find the right folder Finder sidebar Every Finder window has shortcuts to…

With the release of OS X El Capitan, Apple has consciously placed more emphasis on performance over obvious updates. So while revamps to features are not wholesale, this general streamlining does apply to aspects like app workflow. Mission Control remains central to the way you use your Mac, by providing rapid access to organising apps across a selection of ‘spaces’ or desktops. The latest iteration of the program makes fairly subtle but useful tweaks, such as placing your app windows together more relatively and giving you the opportunity to arrange them all within a single layer. The integration with new El Capitan features such as Split View, plus the ability to create new spaces by dragging your apps upwards, all help to maximise the usability experience. Read on for our…

The Notification Centre is a central focus for change on your Mac, recording new happenings and occurrences. It’s a place where you can find information regarding updates for your apps and you can also see information on new mail that has arrived. Reminders are another area that the Notification Centre handles, as well as information from the likes of FaceTime, Game Center, Calendar, plus messages from other third-party apps. The Notification Centre can be configured by yourself, however, so it’s not set in stone. You can tell the Mac just how you want to see your alerts, in what style and format and for how long you want these alerts to remain on the screen. This focuses on the visual end of the Centre, but you can also include sounds…

Many Mac users are happy to leave their Mac set up the same way it was the day they opened the box. That’s fair enough – after all, why fix what isn’t broken? However, if you’re prepared to take a few minutes to delve into the wealth of settings at your fingertips, you may just find a few that could change the way you work, make your Mac a safer place or just spruce the ol’ gal up a little. In the first of a four-part guide, we’re going to take you, icon by icon, through the top row of the System Preferences window: the Personal settings… Security Energy Saver By setting your Mac to require a password when waking it from sleep or screen saver, your Mac will automatically…

The System settings, like the Network settings above them, get deep down and dirty into the depths of OS X. Many of the changes affect all users of the Mac, and it’s here where you’ll discover the tools you need to control which users can do what. It’s also where you’ll find Accessibility, the first place you should go if you have physical difficulties that make it hard for you to enjoy using your Mac. Date & Time Always be sure that your Mac’s clock is bang on time by setting it to automatically stay synchronised with Apple’s time servers over the internet. Time Zone Let your Mac know where you are in the world by clicking the map near where you are, then choosing the closest city to you…

Split View is all about improving workflow and the sense of focus between two apps in a busy desktop. It works in conjunction with Mission Control too, to negotiate windows within multiple workspaces. As we’ve seen it’s easy to access, but also manipulate slightly once initiated. Chiefly you can then adjust the split point from halfway to give one app more screen estate over the other, while very easily dragging each app to swap positions. 01: Adjust the divider Rather nicely within Split View you aren’t forced to use an exact 50-50 split. With two apps sideby-side, hover the mouse over the black divider line. Click this line, hold and drag the divider either left or right to adjust. 02: Swapping sides In addition, you can very quickly switch the…

Transferring files had, for a long time, been an incredibly tedious process. Before Wi-Fi was commonplace, users were forced to save their files to floppy disks and USB Flash drives, unplug them, plug into another device, then drag the files onto their desktops. Even now, for many users the process involves creating an email and sending it to themselves, a process that not only takes time, but also inbox space. Since Lion, there’s been a much simpler solution to this problem, and it’s called AirDrop. When you open up the finder, you’ll notice that there are a number of icons in the sidebar on the left hand side. One of these is the AirDrop icon, which is in the shape of a radar mast. Clicking this icon will start AirDrop,…

The sharing facilities built into Yosemite are more extensive than in previous versions of OS X. In fact, the features that have been added are more like those available on iOS devices like the iPad and iPhone, so you may well be familiar with some of them already. However, while the sharing system is similar to the one used by iOS, it also offers more features than the latter. One feature with which iOS users will be familiar is the instant sharing of web pages. When you are browsing the web and you come across a page that has something funny, interesting or useful, you might want to share it with your friends. On an iPhone, you’d just click the Share button, and now there is a similar button in…

Mail is a typically ‘Apple’ product – sleek and uncluttered, but full of functionality. The latest version borrows from the Mail application found in iOS, and particularly on the iPad. To get the most out of Mail, it’s important to understand how to set up and customise it, since this will let you add important things like mail signatures and formatting, control junk mail filtering, and apply rules – which are really useful when you’re managing multiple accounts. The General tab holds a lot of the really important stuff, including how often Mail should automatically check for messages. Accounts lets you control and edit all the different email accounts you own. The Junk Mail option lets you control how Mail filters any mail it suspects to be spam. Check out…

Maps has been on iOS devices for some time and now it's available on Macs too. iPhone and iPad users will find many familiar features, but there are also new ones – and there's lots to discover in this fantastic app. From a large map of the country, you can smoothly zoom in right to your street, or whichever location you are interested in. There are three different views to select from and you can opt to view a standard map, a satellite photo image or a hybrid of the two. All three are useful and switching from one to the other is very easy and intuitive. You can find businesses around you or look up the attractions at a place you plan to visit. The information, reviews and collections…

iTunes is the place you go to for entertainment on your Mac, whatever it is you fancy doing. Movies and TV series, new songs and albums, smart playlists that are based on tracks you like, books that you can start reading on your Mac and carry on reading on your iPad, even a digital store full of educational courses, plus podcasts and apps for your iOS devices; iTunes has it all. While the App Store (with its own blue and white icon in your Applications folder) is the place you go to find apps like iPhoto, Pages and Numbers. iTunes is for everything else. The app comes in two, very big, halves: the Library and the iTunes Store. The front page of the Store has a carousel that you can…

As well as being one of the world’s largest digital music hubs, the iTunes Store is also home to great movies and TV programmes from all over the world. To access this incredible selection of brand new and classic films, you can either scroll down on the iTunes Store home page or select ‘Films’ from the tabs at the top of the screen instead. As well as being loaded with content, the Film marketplace is an easy place to navigate. In addition to searching through the Store with the search bar, you can also use the drop arrow in the right column to search by genres, like comedy, drama or sci-fi & fantasy. For some films, there’s also the option of iTunes Extras. Not entirely unlike bonus features on a…

Apple’s Calendar app is great for keeping track of your hectic schedule, adding events and inviting other people to attend them. When creating events that other users will be able to see, it is obviously a good idea to include as much detail as possible. However, you don’t want to pepper the main event window with too many words, so what can you do? Easy: add a note. Once you have added an event you can double-click on it to bring up a floating window of information, including the all-important start and finish times, and by clicking the various fields you can then start adding invitees, alerts and notes. Simply click on ‘note’ and you’ll be able to write as much text as you want into a dialog box and,…

The ability to build, design and order a stunning Photo Book is one of the best features in iPhoto’s Create menu. Thankfully Photos contains the exact same option. When you spend a bit of time carefully selecting the right pictures to choose, writing some personal text and customising each page with image filters, the end result can be something to be immensely proud of. If you’ve been on a special holiday, travelled the world for a year, maybe got married, and wondered what to do with all those treasured pictures you’ve collected, a Photo Book created in Photos can be a great product to own. It’ll sit there on your coffee table as a wonderful reminder of fun times. Obviously, you can create a similar book with an online company,…

Many of the features of the timeline changed with the latest release of iMovie. For a start, by default the timeline moved from the top-left of the interface to the bottom of the screen, making it similar to the design of Final Cut Pro X. However, there have been other changes and some new features that can help you edit movies more easily. Support for iPhone’s slow-motion video is now built directly into the timeline, and with customising tools you’ll have an interface that’s perfect for your workflow. Whether you’re a newcomer to the app or you have some experience of creating great home movies, we’ve got the tips and tricks you need to get started with iMovie. “You’ll be editing amazing creations in no time” iMovie Take control of…

There are many reasons why you might want to adjust a clip’s colours. For starters your camera/camcorder can find it a challenge to capture a scene’s true colours. Different light sources (such as natural daylight or artificial indoor light) produce different colour temperatures. This can cause outdoor footage to look too cold (blue) or indoor clips to look too warm (orange). You can set your camera to use a suitable white balance preset setting (such as a Daylight, Cloudy etc), which will cause the camera to create white-looking whites and counteract any warm or cool colour casts. However, due to other camera presets you may find that your footage’s colours look drab and desaturated. Thankfully iMovie can make these colours appear more vibrant, as you’ll discover in this walkthrough tutorial.…

Apple has spent a fair bit of time building a new Notes app that has a slightly different design but lots of new features. It is better than ever and certainly much more useful. Among the new features is support for almost every type of file and content you might want to store in a note. For example, you can add photos, videos, audio, maps, web links, sketches, PDFs and so on. When you click the Share button in an app you now have the option to store the content in a note. Many apps have sharing facilities and we look at a couple in the step-by-step guide. There are others and it makes it easy for you to build notes and store items that you need for a work…

At first sight, Pages looks just like a word processor and it’s true that it can create simple letters and documents. However, there is a lot more to this application, as it can create visually exciting publications such as flyers, posters, newsletters, brochures and much more. The app has been designed to make the task as easy as possible, and this edition has some great features. For example, there are some fantastic templates to get you started, as very often creating a publication is just a matter of selecting a template and replacing the text and images with your own. It’s brilliantly simple. Other new features in this latest version include interactive charts, sharing facilities on iCloud and a whole lot more. “This edition has some great features” Pages Create…

One of the best things about Numbers is that it’s a great place to manage all your data in a single area without having to use any third-party alternatives from the Mac App Store. Although having pages of data may be beneficial to you, it can be difficult to read and differentiate between when not labelled appropriately. However, Numbers includes some fantastic chart and graphical options that help add a visual aspect to your data. Each chart you choose to use to represent inputted data can be heavily customised to suit your specific tastes or the data it’s based on. Use the following steps to learn how to completely visualise from top to bottom and create the perfect accompanying charts. “Numbers includes some fantastic chart and graphical options” Understand your…

01: Plug in your gadget When you plug your iPhone (or iPad) into your Mac via a USB cable, click on the relevant icon under Devices. Click Summary. Tick ‘Open iTunes when this iPad (or iPhone) is connected’. Tick ‘Sync only checked songs and videos’. 02: Choose what to sync Click on the Music tab in the main window. Tick Sync Music to see songs on your Mac. Tick Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres. Tick the playlists or albums that you want to sync onto your iPad/iPhone. 03: Sync You can also tick boxes to sync apps, movies, TV shows and photos. Use the Info tab to sync Contacts and even Safari bookmarks. Click Apply to start syncing. This will transfer content from your iTunes Library onto your mobile…

If you really want to know what’s new (but not necessarily obvious) in El Capitan, the best place to start is System Preferences. It’s every self-respecting power user’s go-to for those times when a new feature gets in the way of a tried and tested workflow. With every new OS X release, it’s always worth having a look around System Preferences to see what’s changed, especially if it means you can tweak, enable or disable new features. If you haven’t done this already, don’t worry. Follow our guided tour below and we’ll show you exactly what’s new in System Preferences. Whether it’s restoring the old behaviour of Mission Control or killing that annoying enlarging mouse, we’ve got you covered. Best of all, there’s no daunting coding to do! Missing a…

To many power users, losing Aperture in favour of the lesspowerful Photos app was a compromise too far. But in the long-term, editing extensions for Apple’s catch-all photo editor look to strengthen up that offering again. From singlefeature options to powerful Pixelmator, here’s our pick of the best. Pixelmator Pixelmator is an iCreate favourite, and the Photos extension does nothing to change this. The offering, built entirely in Apple’s Swift language, is a powerful way to distort images – for better or for worse! Tonality MacPhun was one of the first out the gate with extensions. Its Tonality app offers in-depth black-and-white photo editing and all-important RAW file type processing. Noiseless Noiseless beats Photos at its own game, providing a more powerful and customisable noise removal tool that ranges from…

It might seem simple, but natural language search in Spotlight is one of the most powerful new features in El Capitan. Using it regularly will save time searching through Finder for old files or digging through Mail for that allimportant message. Here’s how to make the most of it. 01: Find emails fast Searching for things like “Emails from Amazon last month” will bring up all of your order confirmations for items that you bought in a recent time frame, to make for a quick review. 02: Digging out documents You can be specific with Spotlight and ask it to show you document types such as “Presentations I worked on in December” for any Keynote projects. 03: Search by content Can’t remember when you created a document? No problem. Simply…

Innovative programming language makes app creation more democratic Swift 2, Apple’s soonto-be open-source programming language announced at this year’s WWDC, is packed with features that produce safe, fast applications for OS X, iOS and watchOS. It’s now easier to write better code, including advanced error handling, availability checking and lots of enhancements to syntax. Because Swift is compatible with Objective-C, developers can use Swift code to implement new features in their apps. When Swift becomes open source, full creative control will be back in the developer’s hand. So what does this mean for the average Mac user? Well, your apps are bound to get better and better.…

To get the most out of your new iMac or MacBook, you will want to connect it to the internet. Luckily, this is a simple process regardless of whether you choose to use either a wired or wireless connection to your router. If you wish to connect your Mac to the internet with a wired connection, all you need to do is plug one end of an Ethernet cable into your Mac, and the other into your router. If you plan to go wireless, then you don’t need any more equipment than your Mac and a wireless-enabled router. Follow the four simple steps outlined below and you’ll soon be able to access a whole host of content: you’ll be able to browse the web with Safari, stay in touch with…

When you hear people talking about the cloud, what they mean is using the web to provide various services for computers and internet-connected devices, wherever you may be. iCloud is Apple’s online hub for all its devices. Some companies provide general services that anyone can use, but iCloud has been optimised for Apple devices. It is primarily a syncing service, but it also provides an online storage facility for all of your files, apps and music. The greatest benefit of using iCloud is that it enables email, contacts, calendar appointments, reminders, photos, notes and more to be synced across all your devices, and made available to you no matter where you are or which device you’re currently using. You can create a document on your Mac and access it via…

Launchpad is another great feature, introduced by Mac OS X Lion, mirroring the functionality of Springboard on iOS. Springboard is the app launcher that you’ll find on your iPhone or iPad, which allows you to arrange icons for each of your apps across many Home screens and, if desired, nested into folders. Every app you install appears automatically on your Home screen, and the same applies for apps installed on your Mac, with each finding its way onto your Launchpad. However, unlike the iPhone, the Mac App Store isn’t the only means of getting apps onto your Mac, so how do you add, remove and control these non-App Store apps? We’ve collected together a series of hints and tips to help you get the most out of Launchpad, including taking…

Notification Centre was introduced to Macs back in Mountain Lion and for the past couple of years has served as an at-a-glance method of viewing everything that’s going on in your world. It gives you direct access to all your social interactions and business appointments. One major change in OS X Yosemite 10.10 was the introduction of the Today view, which – just like in iOS – gives you a run-down of your day’s events from Calendar entries, Reminders, weather forecast and so on. Your entire day is laid out for you. What’s even better is that you can add widgets to your Today view by hitting Edit, for a fully customisable and personal Notification Centre. There are widgets to suit any interest or need, so you can modify the…

The simplicity of Mac OS X means that you don’t have to become an expert on computer hardware to enjoy using your Mac. For most peripherals, you can just plug in and play; at the worst, you may have to install the occasional driver. However, with the improvements made in recent version of Mac OS X, even these installations are becoming fewer and farther between. This ease of use doesn’t mean there aren’t any settings to fiddle with, though – System Preferences has a whole row of icons dedicated to fine-tuning the hardware settings of your Mac, and a few well-chosen tweaks could vastly improve the way you work. Displays Make sure you’re using the optimum viewing settings to get the most from your monitor Display Everything seem a little…

If multi-touch gestures, introduced with Snow Leopard, are the cornerstone of the OS X experience, then the trackpad can certainly be seen as the bricks and mortar that holds it all together. Without the built-in multitouch trackpad on the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, or the amazing wireless Magic Trackpad, OS X and its myriad new features wouldn’t run half as smoothly. The trackpad settings pane in System Preferences helps to make that experience even better by allowing you to decide which gestures perform what action, as well as playing you a handy video of exactly how to perform them. It means you can make the trackpad work exactly how you want it to and tailor it to your needs. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to get the…

A lot of the files on your Mac will no doubt be quite valuable. There are videos, music, photos, personal and work-related documents, and much more on the disk drive. How would you cope if you lost them? Fortunately, Time Machine aims to solve the problem by making backups – copies – of files, and storing them elsewhere in a safe place. If you lose a file for whatever reason, be it an accidental deletion or a disk fault, then Time Machine lets you recover it. It is called ’Time Machine’ because that’s what it is. For all intents and purposes, it effectively allows you to go back in time, and if a folder contained a file last week that you can no longer find, then you simply turn back…

iDisk was Apple’s previous virtual disk drive, but with iOS 8 came a reinvention and a new name – iCloud Drive – and a whole host of new features to boot. Not only does iCloud Drive enable you to store any type of file up to 15GB in size, it syncs the documents created in your favourite Apple apps such as Pages and Keynote so they’re ready for editing on all of your other Apple devices – just like the Documents in the Cloud functionality. In this tutorial we’re going to walk you through the process of getting iCloud Drive set up and ready to use (don’t worry, it’s really easy). All you need to do is upgrade your Mac’s OS to OS X El Capitan, which is available from…

The amount of memory in the Mac has an affect on its performance; the more you have, the better OS X runs. Upgrade the memory if you can, but if not, try a memory manager like Memory Clean. OS X does a great job of managing memory, but under some circumstances, it may be useful to force a clear out using this free app from the Mac App Store. It works by forcing OS X to compress unused memory and reduce the file cache. On the one hand it makes switching to apps in the background slower, but it also frees up a lot of space so you can run a large memory-hungry new app. This may help the Mac to run faster. “OS X does a great job of…

Safari is Apple’s own web browser and it’s tightly integrated into the operating system. Although for most of its previous life it was much more stripped down than other browsers, largely for the sake of speed, it has more recently taken on more features such as Extensions that will enable you to customise it, in addition to a range of things you can change in its preferences. Perhaps unsurprisingly it is the most Mac-like of any browser – it’s sleek, polished and easy to use. Most of its options are accessed through the Preferences section and it is here that you can, for example, change the default search engine and the location for downloaded files. There are also some great security applications, such as the ability to block the annoying…

When you need to plan a long journey and you aren’t sure which route to take, the Maps app will provide all the answers. It can work out your current location, which means you only need to enter the destination and click the Directions button to see a complete turn-by-turn breakdown of the route to take. You can also manually enter start and end points, so you could plan several trips before even setting off. With OS X El Capitan, this service has been enhanced with the addition of public transport information. You have the ability to zoom into every turn and see it in detail on the map. Another handy trick is the live traffic information and notifications of road works, closed roads and other problems. You won’t always…

When it launched at the beginning of 2011, the Mac App Store offered Mac users an entirely new way to browse and download apps that had never been seen before. There was widespread shock at Apple’s decision to do this because it was a move based on the success of the iPhone App Store, and one not guaranteed to work on the Mac platform. As has been the case for many a year now, Apple was right and the Mac App Store became an instant success. These days, a lot of people take the Store for granted, while others don’t even know it exists and have never even opened it up. If this is you, you’re missing out on a huge amount of incredible content. In this tutorial, we’ll start…

iTunes was born to help people manage their digital music, and over time it has grown to offer all of the entertainment you could possibly want to carry with you. The iTunes library is huge, and all of the major new releases are available to download as quickly as they are on competing services. It has reached the point where almost every artist you like will have a large selection of content on offer. You can quickly search for individual songs, albums and tracks via the search bar, and also dig down deeper within an artist’s catalogue. There are multiple ways to browse music, and once you have an account set up with a valid credit card or gift card code, the process is as simple as choosing what you…

For all your good intentions of adding events to your Calendars, they don’t mean a thing if you fail to take notice and forget about them. Thankfully, to prevent this happening, you can set yourself handy alerts so that the app will inform you on the day, hours or minutes before or at a precise time and date that you determine. These alerts can consist of a message, a message with a sound, an email sent to yourself, the automatic opening of an application or, if you use AppleScript, you can set up a specific script, or action, that your Mac will perform when it needs to alert you at the specified time. You have full freedom to determine the time and date of the alert, and you can even…

Preview is a powerful and flexible general purpose utility that is designed for viewing and editing a wide range of different file types. However, it is mainly used for viewing PDFs and images. Since Mountain Lion, it has come with additional features that make it even more useful, such as the button and menus for sharing files. It is possible to share files directly from Preview using Twitter, AirDrop, Messages and so on. Sending a file to a friend or work colleague via Preview has never been easier. There are now more PDF editing tools and it is also possible to insert pages from other files, as well as images directly from a scanner. Notes can be added throughout a document, but they are hidden. There is a new panel…

iCloud Photo Library is Photos’ biggest and best feature, syncing all your photos across all your devices. Everything you import to Photos and shoot with your iPhone is backed up to iCloud, meaning you have access to your entire library everywhere you go, using whatever device you want. It replaces your Photo Stream, which was limited, but it may come at a price. Only 5GB comes for free, so you may want to read more across the page for more info. Import your existing images to Photos The switch from iPhoto and Aperture to Photos should be seamless. Apple has made the process very simple. All you need is a trip to the Import menu, as we show you here. All the data from your old libraries transfers across, including…

Editing your favourite pictures in Photos is more intuitive than ever thanks to the new timeline sliders, which offer precise adjustments and real-time previews. All you need to do is select an image and click Edit in the top-right. In the next four steps we’ll walk you through the most common adjustments you can make, showing you just how powerful these tools are. Transform your picture 01: Light Unless you’re snapping with a high-end DSLR and appropriate lens, you’re not always going to get the lighting right. This is where Photos’ Light adjustment tool comes into its own. 02: Color If you can’t get enough natural light into a shot, colours will appear gloomy and washed out. Open up the offending image in Edit’s Adjust menu and move the Color…

The Photos app will spark a new generation of photo organising and editing for Mac users. Although many have questioned Photos replacing both iPhoto and Aperture, the process of importing all your images across isn’t a difficult one. Not only is this import process easy, all your attached image data will also transfer across. That means all your tagged faces, camera details and descriptions will import without any issues. Anything that is missing can be quickly added and any gaps filled in. Once you’ve then imported your image library across, you’re set to begin exploring some of the fantastic new organisational and editing tools readily available in the Photos app. “Begin exploring some of the fantastic new organisational and editing tools” Photos Import image library into Photos 01: Select and…

iMovie is a core part of your Mac’s creative software. The most up-to-date version of iMovie makes so many different functions and tools available to you that you’d be hard pressed to find any limitations to what you can achieve. A huge benefit to iMovie is the ability to add multiple tracks to your timelines. Doing this enables you to stack your clips above one another, and by assigning your primary video track for your main clips, you can use the secondary track for your cutaways, which also makes editing a much faster process. iMovie also offers a series of tools when using multiple tracks, including Green/Blue Screen, Side by Side and Picture in Picture. You can also set up multiple audio tracks. Follow along with these six simple steps…

GarageBand is a loop-based audio editor by definition. It simplifies the process of composition and digital music arrangement by building up tracks in this way. Smaller modular regions of audio are replicated as ‘loops’ over defined bars based on tempo and time signature. The suite includes preset drum, bass, piano and many more loops – ideal for creating tracks rapidly. However, as you progress and lay on real audio recordings and input MIDI-based software instruments, you’ll inevitably form your own. Luckily, GarageBand makes this so easy you might not realise it, but there are best practice techniques. We’ll go through those here, from identifying suitable regions to cutting them down to size and expanding. To finish, we’ll look at adding new loops to your library for repeated use. Identify essential…

Often overlooked, the Contacts app (previously known as Address Book) is an important element of OS X. While it might not be the first thing you open in your dock, it’s the hub for all your contacts and makes sure that apps like Mail run a lot more smoothly. It seems only fair, then, that the address book has been given a Yosemite overhaul, too. It now sports a cleaner, simpler interface that before. It is easy to create and edit contacts and you can also share them effortlessly. Managing your database is easy too as the app can sniff out duplicates and merge them with existing contacts in a single click. You can also create Smart Groups by entering what criteria to include and omit. Read on to find…

One of the reasons many people will use Pages as their primary app for creating documents is the vast selection of templates that can be used. The templates are a great way of getting a starting point of what you want your document to look like, before you go ahead and add your own twists. However, on occasion it’s not uncommon to be unable to find a template that really suits your needs, but thankfully Pages still has you covered. Users are able to create their own custom template, save it and then use it whenever they see fit. Plus if you’re really proud of it, then Pages also has a share feature where you can distribute your new template to friends and family. Here’s how to go about it.…

Keynote makes it simple to create fantastic presentations, thanks to its easy-to-use but surprisingly powerful tools. Whether you want to create a simple textbased presentation or you need something a little more creative, with images, videos and animations, Keynote gives you all the tools you could possibly need, all with just a couple of clicks. But once you’ve created your presentation, Keynote doesn’t just stop helping you. When you stand up in front of a group of people and give your presentation, it can still help you. You can use the Notes tool to write down important points that will display on your Mac’s screen, so only you see them. It not only makes presenting easier, it will also make you look incredibly professional, and preparing your notes doesn’t take…

Templates for MS Office Price: Free Developer: UAB “Graphic Node” If you are a regular user of Microsoft’s Office suite then this collection of templates is a great way to revitalise your work. The bulk of the templates provided here are for Microsoft Word – 50 in total – and include a wealth of personal and business designs, including letters, brochures, books and menus. For Excel, there are 15 diverse and practical templates to make everyday tasks more manageable and for Powerpoint there are seven high-quality slide designs to make your slides instantly more eyecatching and captivating. App for Dropbox Price: Free Developer: Joachim Stahl With App for Dropbox you get instant access to the world's most popular cloud file sharing service. No longer do you need to have to…

MathStudio Price: £29.99/$39.99 Developer: Pomegranate Apps If you need a robustfeature-packed calculator to help from anything to managing your finances to assisting with your 2D or 3D graphing then this free offering is a musthave. Featuring over 200 functions, it is capable of handling anything you’d care to throw at it and features a built-in tutorial to help you every step of the way. Check it out and be amazed. A to Z – Mrs Owl’s Learning Tree Price: £3.99/$5.99 Developer: Wayne Smith This is a good app to aid pre-school learning and entails bright pictures and attentiongrabbing sound effects – pretty much all the stuff that young children are into. You join Mrs Owl in the Learning Tree’s treehouse classroom as she takes you through the complete alphabet with…

01: Natural language Apple has made a big deal about searching in Spotlight with natural language, but you can also do it in Mail’s search box. In fact, it’s even more useful here. 02: Free apps password Under System Preferences> App Store, there’s now an option to save your Apple ID password for free app purchases, so you don’t have to enter it every time. 03: Copy file pathnames Right-click any file on your desktop or Finder window and hold Alt for an option to copy the file’s pathname. Great for pasting to your next Terminal command. 04: Skip the trash By including Alt when you hit Cmd+Backspace to delete a file, you can delete it immediately and skip the Trash can altogether (this can’t be undone).…

Struggling to see? The option to change the size of fonts has always been a feature of Safari Reader, but now it’s especially important as different fonts look better at different sizes. Find your font There’s now eight fonts to choose from. Generally speaking, Serif fonts are easier to read, but Apple’s new Sans-Serif – San Francisco – does look great at larger sizes. Open your options Safari Reader might have been around since 2010, but now there are a few more options to explore. To start, enter Reader mode on any article and click the Aa icon. Pick a theme The new Sepia and Night themes make Safari reduce brightness, increase contrast and ensure things are a little easier on the eyes if you’re reading late into the night.…

Dictation isn’t new, but in the past it’s proved most useful for its intended use – helping with accessibility issues. Now Apple has added new commands that make it convenient to look up films, music or load a website using your voice. They’re incredibly useful and there’s no reason why you can’t make the most of them with a little planning. If you’re sitting particularly far away from your Mac, using a Mac mini or an external display, you may want to grab a pair of headphones with a built-in mic for best results. Otherwise, follow the instructions below, and we’ll show you how to bring up a website by voice command. Custom commands Rather than open Apple’s website on demand, you can fire up Automator and tweak dictation to…

What’s attached? The attachments button in the top menu will show you an overview of all the attachments you’ve added to Notes in one place. It’s a great way to get an overview without searching too hard A quick preview Add an image into any of your notes, and you’ll see a small preview next to a note’s title in the list view. It’s a great way to quickly scan for a particular note Checking it out By clicking on the tick icon in the top menu, you can turn any list into a checklist. While there is a Reminders app, Checklists in notes can make a lot more sense Share a site From the Share menu in Safari, you can send any website to Notes as a small preview…

Your brand new Mac is packed with so many great features, both in its software and hardware, that it begs to be used by the whole family. However, you may not want each member changing the computer’s settings or having access to your personal files every time they wish to use it. This is where multiple accounts come in. Not only does having multiple accounts enable you to protect your private data, it also lets you protect children. It’s simple to set up an account with Parental Controls, which enable you to limit access to apps and websites, as well as set usage time limits. There’s also a degree of customisation available. Not only can you set your own picture using the iSight camera (so you don’t need to settle…

It’s easy to think of your Mac as a wonderfully creative toolbox, packed to the brim with inspirational tools to finely hone your projects. Those tools are the software saved on your hard drive, the applications. Software, for the most part, is kept in the Applications folder – a shared folder that any user of the Mac can see and open applications from. The beauty of Mac OS X is that each user’s version of an application can behave differently and use different files, the same way that each user can have an individual iTunes library. Of course, before you start learning how to use specific applications, it’s worth taking a moment to look at how you open, close and switch between them, which is just what we’re going to…

The Dashboard has been present in Mac OS X for several years now, but recently it has seen a lot of changes. At its most basic, the Dashboard is a place in which you can put widgets – which are small, always-on apps that can only be used when in the Dashboard. Mac OS X has always included some useful widgets that you can use straight out of the box, but independent developers have spent hours creating hundreds more that you can easily install for free from Apple’s website. The Dashboard has recently changed from a screen that overlays your desktop (so that you can see parts of it underneath, but never use it) to a fully separate section to the left of the main Desktop screen. Click on the…

When you need to find an app, document or other file, Spotlight has long been the go-to tool for Mac users. An updated version of this essential feature is in OS X El Capitan, boasting some great new aspects and even better searches than before. For example, Spotlight can be resized and moved around the screen almost like any other regular window, which prevents it from getting in the way of other apps on the screen and shows more search results. The range of Spotlight’s searches is wider than before and it can find even more content on the web than ever. There is no need to fire up Safari when performing a web search, when you can hit Cmd+Space and enter a Spotlight search (which will now search the…

There’s one aspect that sets the computers of today far apart from those we were using just ten years ago: networks. Back in 2000, the internet was only just starting to become commonplace, and if you did have it then you probably only had it on one computer in the house (which wasn’t really a problem, as most houses only had one computer). Now, with the advent of easy Wi-Fi and cheaper computers (plus iPods and iPhones), many houses have a handful of connected devices sharing the airwaves and, with a little setup, sharing their connections, files and data too. The Internet & Wireless row of icons in System Preferences is all about your Networks – local and worldwide – how you interact with them and how you choose to…

One of the many new features in OS X is Split View, a subtle tweak that is useful for streamlining the way you use more than one app at a time. Until now, any apps that were maximised to full screen dominated the desktop space individually, making it impossible to work across two side-by-side. Split View rectifies this, enabling you to choose a pair of supporting apps that will share the current desktop space. Working hand-in-hand with a revamped Mission Control, Split View can be easily initiated using each app’s green maximise button in the top-left corner. Hold this down and a blue overlay toggles the left and right sides of the screen, snapping current and neighbouring apps to the desired areas. It’s a neat trick and one to take…

It can become pretty scary when your Mac starts to show tell-tale signs of wear and tear. As well built as they are, like everything else on the planet, they are susceptible to the pitfalls of ageing. Prolonged use and writing and rewriting of data can cause things to slow down, and in some cases cause errors. Luckily, Apple has made it very easy for you to check on the health of your hard drive. Using an application called Disk Utility, users can very easily check disks, repair damage and even erase free space to keep the volume healthy and happy. If used on a regular basis you can quite easily keep your hard drive from slowing down and retain that great snappy feeling you had when you first bought…

Does your household have more than one Mac? One for you, of course, but also others for partners, children, grandfathers and parents? With Apple’s new Family Sharing option integrated into OS X Yosemite, you are able to link these accounts to one credit or debit card. So when an app is bought on one Mac, it will become available on another and the same goes for iTunes and iBooks purchases. That way, individual Family members don’t have to splash out more than once. You can add up to five family members to your Family Sharing account. Children under 13 can have their own Apple IDs and they can make purchases using it as long as they have your approval (or not – you can decide on this). You can also…

It’s easy to overlook Mail on the Mac when we’re accustomed to browsing emails on the web. And with social networking becoming ever more popular, many people will communicate solely through the likes of Facebook and Twitter. However, if we’re lucky enough to own an iMac or MacBook, we really should make use of our sophisticated machines and allow them to do what they do best: make life a whole lot easier! Mail on the Mac is a smart way to manage your emails as you work and play. Now, the beauty of your Mac is of course its simplicity. But when that simplicity is a new application staring at you expectantly, it can feel a little intimidating. Pushing buttons at random in the hope you will eventually work it…

El Capitan brings many new features to OS X on the Mac and there are some welcome enhancements to Safari that make browsing easier, more convenient and enjoyable. Along with new sharing options and a brilliant new Search bar that offers results from places like the App Store and iTunes, there is also an all-new tab view that offers you an overview of all your open tabs on one screen. Tabs are one of the most useful features of modern web browsers. When you are browsing websites and searching for information, instead of going back and forth between sites and pages, or managing multiple windows, you can open them in a new tab. This makes it easier to return if you need to refer to information on them and it…

The Mac App Store first appeared in Mac OS X 10.6.6 and is home to a diverse range of apps aimed at enhancing the functionality of a Mac computer. As a bonus, the majority of apps are either reasonably priced or free. As we have come to expect from Apple, the interface is intuitive, and finding and acquiring apps is a breeze. This is largely because the store has adopted a very similar look, feel and process to shopping to that used by the iTunes App Store. When you want to buy an app, simply enter your iTunes ID and password, and it’s purchased. It really is as simple as that. The app is automatically downloaded and installed in the Applications folder, and can be accessed via Launchpad when required.…

Uninstalling apps has always been a whole lot easier on a Mac than on a Windows PC, and you’ll be pleased to learn that the most recent versions of OS X make the process even easier. Don’t go looking for an ’Uninstall Programs’ setting, as you won’t find one! The latest versions of the OS have adopted the automated click-and-hold method used by devices such as the iPhone and iPad. This means that deleting any apps downloaded from the Mac App Store is an absolute breeze. In fact, if you’ve ever used an iOS device such as an iPhone to remove apps downloaded from the iTunes App Store, then you’ll instantly feel familiar with the process. Read on and we’ll show you how to use Launchpad to delete an app…

Apple Music is Apple’s brand new music streaming service. This is Apple’s equivalent to Spotify and it lives on your Mac in the iTunes app. Apple Music gives you access to virtually the whole of the iTunes library (that’s a staggering 30 million tracks in case you were wondering) and a 24/7 radio station called Beats One. You can also find out what your favourite artists are up to in Connect, Apple Music’s dedicated social network. Apple Music gets more powerful the more you use it, and the For You tab gives you personalised playlists to enjoy. You can also download tracks and whole albums to your Mac to listen to even when you’re not connected to the internet. Apple has priced Apple Music competitively, so much so that every…

Messages is an instant messaging application that is built into Yosemite, and iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users will find it familiar. That is because it is the same messaging facility that is part of iOS. You can chat with your friends and relatives using your Mac as well as your iOS devices. In fact, you can start a conversation on your Mac and then pick up where you left off on your iPhone or iPad because they are automatically kept in sync through iCloud. The app looks a lot like SMS messaging and at the top you specify who to send the message to. As you start typing, matching contacts are displayed and you can select someone by their email address or phone number. Down at the bottom of…

The iOS version of Game Center has been live for a few years now, allowing users with an Apple ID to connect to their friends, compare high scores and earn achievements. Apple also includes a Game Center app on the Mac, so that scores from all of your games can be stored and shared in one place. Scores from both iOS and Mac games are displayed alongside each other, so achievements can be earned for the same profile on either device, and the social features of the app allow you not only to share scores but send challenges to friends with customised messages. You’ll also get friend recommendations for those you might know, and a tally of your current score from achievements, enabling you to quickly see how you rank…

So we’ve shown how to import your iPhoto library, set up iCloud Photo Library and edit all your images. But there’s no point having all these amazing pictures sitting in Photos gathering digital dust. Photos, just like iPhoto, provides you with a set of creative projects to get your teeth into, ranging from a photo slideshow to creating a photo book, card or calendar. Photos has plenty of built-in templates for you to get inspiration from, but there are a plethora of customisation options too. Let’s take a look. Create your own slideshow If you’ve just come back from your holidays, you’re going to have a lot of photos imported into Photos. You’ve got guests coming round and they’re desperate to see the photos. Creating a slideshow is a quick…

One way to make a stimulating video sequence is to play multiple clips simultaneously, courtesy of iMovie’s Side by Side video overlay setting. This enables you to share a montage of clips in a more interesting way than by simply cutting from one shot to the next. The Side by Side command is perfect for creating slick title sequences, or for enhancing dramas by showing the action unfold from different camera angles. Here, we’ll demonstrate how to modify the Side by Side command to make clips slide in and out as they share the screen. You’ll also learn how to swap the position of clips so that you can see the appropriate half of each inserted shot. For further guidance, you can download files to use in the tutorial online…

Due to the high quality of video that can now be recorded on iPads and iPhones as well as digital cameras, it’s now possible to work with green/blue-screen effects in iMovie. A green/blue screen can be used to superimpose a subject or object onto a new background. This is done by shooting a subject with a green or blue backdrop behind them – often something as simple as a green sheet – and throwing light on it. iMovie can then remove all the green from the shot leaving just the subject. You can then add whatever background you want, whether it is moving footage or still. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to use iMovie’s intuitive green/blue screen effect on your shots. ”iMovie removes all the green from the shot”…

As you progress with GarageBand and your compositions become more ambitious, you’ll hit a wall. This tends to happen most around drums because this is the hardest real instrumentation to capture. You need a big expensive kit and a seriously good microphone setup to get natural beats, when loops won’t cut it anymore. Help is at hand, though, as Apple has introduced a dedicated feature to assist here, known simply as Drummer. Taken from sister music-maker Logic, composers will find a collection of 18 session player ‘characters’ across four popular genres. Each is fully customisable and accepts direction to fit your style, resulting in a much more dynamic and ‘human’ feel. Learn more online by following this URL: http://www.filesilo.co.uk/bks-857. “Get a perfect kick start with Drummer!” From dumb to Drummer…

When Apple introduced Siri on iPhone and iPad back in iOS 5, it was expected that the system would soon be making its way over to the Mac. While we’re still yet to see the full version of Siri make its way to OS X, you do have the ability to speak to your Mac and have it understand exactly what you mean. Dictation enables you to tap a key on the keyboard and then speak to your Mac. The Mac will listen to what you say until you click Done, and then transcribe your words onto a page or into another app on your Mac. The system needs an internet connection to work normally but you can change this with a download. Read on to find out how to…

Spreadsheets may scare you, and with good reason – they are not always easy to use. Microsoft Excel is a very powerful spreadsheet program, but it’s complex. So is Numbers, but it delivers all of the functions you need in the simplest way possible and it even offers up explanations to help you out. With a range of templates and the ability to add tables, resize them, calculate and choose from a range of maths options, you will soon be populating your tables with reams of data. You aren’t confined to one sheet either, as you can edit multiple ones at once by selecting the Sheet button in the toolbar. Numbers makes it easy to work with each one, providing you with a tabbed options pane. “It delivers all of…

The Lost Watch 3D Price: £1.49/$2.99 Developer: Igor Panichev Not all wallpapers are the same, and The Lost Watch 3D proves that. Besides looking beautiful, it will show you the current date and time, and also lets you personalise it in a rather creative way. It can work as a wallpaper or a screensaver, and there are multiple themes to choose from. If you want to add a personal touch, then simply choose a photo, and it will be shown inside the pendant displaying the time. However, an app like this isn’t about the features, but how good it looks and how well it works, and it succeeds in both areas. Go for YouTube Price: Free Developer: FIPLAB Ltd Another app that sits powerfully in your Mac's menubar providing a…