Macs are renowned for graphic design and music recording. They offer professional quality features for the general user, and when combined with Apple’s prestigious image and audio software provide perfect results for industry experts.

iLife

Every Mac comes with iLife. This is the software that enables you to create films, produce music, construct websites, and organise and improve photos.

iLife has five components. iMovie and iDVD help you put together great-looking films, quickly and without fuss; GarageBand makes it easy for you to record and edit a song; iWeb gives you the tools to build a customised website; and iPhoto lets you edit, adjust and arrange your digital photographs. Between these, you have all the basics for graphic design and audio work.

Aperture

Aperture takes photo editing, enhancement, and publishing that bit further than iPhoto. With Aperture you can manage your photos in ways that suit you best, in folders, projects, and albums. You can also add text and data such as ratings and copyright.

Among the review functions of Aperture are a 1600 percent magnifier, and a comparison mode for checking one photo against another. Editing tools allow you to sharpen images, improve colour saturation, and crop and straighten. If you’re happy with the adjustments you make to an image, you can even transfer exactly the same changes to other photographs.

One of the most useful Aperture features, however, is the ability to improve photos that at first seem destined for deletion. The Highlight Recovery and Black Point tools help you to revamp images and make them worth keeping after all.

Final Cut Studio

If you’re serious about film-making, and want to match the standards of professional studios, you should consider Apple’s Final Cut Studio.

Final Cut Studio provides award-winning video and audio editing tools. Final Cut Studio’s Motion 3, for example, is unique because Apple has designed it specifically for video editors. Consequently, Motion 3 produces 3D graphics and animation of extraordinary quality.

Of the remaining Final Cut Studio applications, Soundtrack Pro 2 gives you superb post-production audio; Colour improves a film’s colour finishing and grading; and DVD Studio Pro 4 and Compressor 3 help you transfer your films to any digital media.

This leaves Final Cut Pro 6, Apple’s much praised film editing software. Final Cut Pro 6 is at the core of the post-production process. It’s precise and fast, and has effects that can significantly improve a film or video, should the need arise.

For a company working in the film or video fields, Final Cut Server provides an invaluable service. It reduces the time required to arrange large amounts of stock, and lets people concentrate on the creative side of their work.

Final Cut Express

Final Cut Studio remains the ideal purchase for a Mac owner who wants the best in film and video software, but Final Cut Express is an excellent, cheaper alternative.

You can, for instance, transfer a video from iMovie to Final Cut Express and enhance it with features such as professional editing and trimming tools, customised animated titles, and astonishing special effects. You can also improve the sound experience of a film or video by adding numerous audio tracks, adjusting the volume, filtering background noise, and creating a voiceover narrative.

Final Cut Express is easy to install and a pleasure to use. It may not have the advanced functions of Final Cut Studio, but it’s still a tremendous piece of film and video editing software.

Shake

Shake is the perfect complement to Final Cut Studio. It gives you the facilities to produce visual effects that rival anything seen on television or at the cinema.

This is hardly surprising because film and video effects specialists regularly use Shake for major projects. Shake is the only graphics software to have such a wide range of tools combined with faultless quality. Images blend seamlessly together and appear natural, sharp, and sophisticated. Furthermore, when you consider what Shake delivers, the price is surprisingly reasonable.

Logic Studio

Apple’s Logic Studio is the audio equivalent of Final Cut Studio. Put simply, Logic Studio contains all the technology you’ll ever require to make music and create soundtracks.

The six applications that make up Logic Studio are Logic Pro 8, MainStage, Soundtrack Pro 2, Studio Instruments, Studio Effects, and Studio Sound Library. The first of these, Logic Pro 8, is a highly advanced but easy to use piece of software that helps you write, edit, and record your music. It also has full surround sound support and professional mixing tools.

MainStage is the software for live music performances. It allows musicians to perform using software instruments via a special stage interface. Soundtrack Pro 2 connects with Final Cut Pro 6 to help you produce integrated music and effects for films and videos. Studio Instruments gives you an incredible range of software instruments for your musical compositions. Lastly, Studio Effects and Studio Sound Library provide the tools to get the best from your productions and ideas.

Logic Express

Logic Express 8 is a condensed version of Logic Studio. It incorporates the professional features of Logic Pro 8 together with 36 instrument plug-ins and 70 effects direct from Logic Studio.

With Logic Express you can write and record your music swiftly and simply, and then send it out to the world via DVDs or the Internet.

The role of Macs

With the right configuration, a Mac has the operating system and overall capability to do full justice to Apple’s design and audio software. A Mac can give you the best images, the highest quality films, and the precise sounds that you need. Whether you’re working on a home project or a commercial venture, a Mac plus Apple’s software is unbeatable.