Chris McVeigh

Pages '09. Image from iTunes.Custom greeting cards are great way to show friends and family that you care (and that you're creative). They're also a snap to put together with Pages '09. With spring birthdays, not to mention Mother's Day, Father's Day, and graduations on the horizon, here's how you can create an original photo greeting card for an inkjet printer in less than 20 minutes.

Step 1: Prepare your file

Assembling a photo collage is often a complicated task that requires you to carefully crop, resize, and reposition each photo on your canvas. cf/x software seeks to simplify this protracted process with cf/x collage 1.2.4, a utility that lets you create slick, stunning collages using any number of photos.

Getting started with cf/x collage is relatively straightforward; you simply drag a set of high-resolution photos into the new document window. In somewhat of an oversight, the application doesn't include a media browser that lets you import photos or photo albums directly from Apple's iPhoto ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ) or Aperture ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ), or Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom ( Macworld rated 4.5 out of 5 mice ), so you'll have to choose your photos, export them to disk, and then drag them into cf/x collage. (Alternatively, you can drag them directly from your photo library onto the cf/x collage window.)

Collage construction isn't well-suited to most image editors. Sure, you can resize and reposition a dozen photos yourself, but what if you want to create a collage using hundreds of photos? cf/x software's alpha 1.2.5 is designed specifically for this task, helping you to create attractive photo collages in a number of clever styles. (The software is available in additional configurations: alpha home, an entry-level edition sells for $89; the upcoming alpha pro, a scriptable edition that includes templates, will sell for $389.)

cf/x alpha handles photos much like an illustration application. All edits are non-destructive, meaning that the fidelity of the original photo is maintained no matter how often it is mutated. You can crop, scale, rotate, and reposition the photo however you wish; you can also group together photos just as you would group objects in most applications.

After awhile, Mac OS X's alert sounds can be downright grating, as can many of the sounds you hear in Mail, iCal, and iChat. Happily, creating a custom alert sound and adding it to your system isn't complicated--you just need to know what you're doing.

Recording new sounds

A panoramic photo, printed and framed, can be the ultimate memory of a far-flung journey or can simply re-create something interesting that you see every day. All you need is a digital camera and some creative vision. Here's how to make panoramas using Adobe Photoshop CS4 or CS5 or Photoshop Elements 8 or 9. If you don't have any of those programs, you can also create panoramic photos with shareware such as DoubleTake ($25) or freeware like Hugin.

Start with a photo series

Puppet Warp is a one of Photoshop CS5's coolest new features that-as you may have guessed-allows you to twist and bend an object into new positions just as though it were a puppet. In this tutorial, I'll explain how it works and show you how to make the most of the feature.

Understanding Puppet Warp

One of the most personalized gifts you can give this holiday is a photo mosaic. A photo mosaic is a large image constructed from hundreds of smaller photos; in effect, each of the smaller photos functions as a single pixel in the overall image. Although it sounds complicated, creating a mosaic is quite easy. You start by feeding a source image (perhaps a photo of a pet, but any subject will do) to a specialized utility; it then pores over your photo library, collects appropriate images, and then constructs a unique mosaic.

To construct the mosaic below, I used a utility called Mazaika ($50). It's a bit costly, but you can use it on a trail basis for a full month. The most notable limitation of the trial version is that it restricts output to a maximum of 2000-by-2000 pixels. That resolution is sufficient for making prints up to 8-by-8 inches, but at larger sizes, you're likely to see pixelation.

Wracking your brain to come up with a fun present for a family member? A photo collage, printed and framed, might be the perfect solution. Here, I'll show you how to take a collection of your favorite photos and turn them into artwork using Shape Collage. Note that you can download and use the app for free, but unless you pay $25 for the pro version, a watermark appears on all collages. The pro version also offers other advantages, such as the ability to save your collage in Photoshop PSD format, edit your collage in either Photoshop or GIMP, and save your workspace and settings. The $45 commercial version is targeted to businesses.

Plan ahead

Making a holiday gift by hand is often hit-and-miss; if you don't have the skills to create a good-quality item, the person to whom you give the gift may not like or value it as much as you hoped. One thing you can rarely go wrong with, though, is a custom t-shirt design, and it's now easier than ever to do so without resorting to tacky iron-on transfers. Services such as Zazzle, RedBubble, and Printfection (and many others) let you upload artwork, choose a design and color, and place an order for delivery by Christmas.

Designing your tee

Thinking of making a comic book out of your artwork (or even photos), and want to give each piece a genuine comic book look-and-feel? Or maybe you'd like make a calendar with a gritty or grunge vibe? Using a few simple steps below you can approximate the print style of old comic books. The steps are derived from Adobe Photoshop CS5, but are similar for earlier versions.

That's it! Once you've found just the right look for your photo, flatten the image by choosing Layer -> Flatten Image. Now just save your file and pop it into a calendar you're constructing in iPhoto, or a comic book you're creating with Plasq's Comic Life!

Plug-ins are a great way to extend the functionality of Photoshop, adding fun filters and fresh features to the application. Although most plug-ins are modestly priced, there are a number of cool plug-ins available completely free. Here's a round-up of some of the most compelling freeware plug-ins currently available for Photoshop CS3, CS4, and CS5, and Photoshop Elements 8.

You can install plug-ins by dragging the plug-in file into the application's plug-in folder, found at Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Adobe Photoshop -> Plug-ins. Many plug-ins now include their own installer, however, and some newer plug-ins must be installed via the Adobe Extension Manager. Once installed, you can usually find the plug-in under the Filter menu in Photoshop, though some must be accessed through Window -> Extensions.

iWeb '09, whether or not it is your Web builder of choice, has a terrific hidden talent: it can make quick work of graphics that are often cumbersome to create in Photoshop. It's particularly adept at placing pictures within odd shapes, ranging from squares with rounded corners to speech bubbles with brush-stroked borders. All you have to do is put together a graphic in iWeb, publish the site to your hard drive, and then pluck the polished graphic out of the site folder.

Prepare a site