Stage 3: The Under Layers Choose a dominant color where all secondary effects can relate to without losing basic contrast. The purpose of this is to avoid getting lost in details, especially when designer is working on a picture with so many characters and elaborate scenery.

Look at masses of color in drawing. Apply darkest tone on entire surface with Paint Bucket tool. Afterwhich, designers can immediately add an overall grain to under layer by going to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. This tool, according to designer, produces a kind of visual vibration that gives image more surface texture.

However, noise can produce conflict with drawing, making it harder to view. As remedy, designer suggests going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften noise to about 1.0 pixels. This process makes drawing immediately reappear. He further adds that this process also allows designers to play with some grain as they build illustration.

The next level would be to generate a mass of colors by going from biggest to smallest objects. Material under sepia layer can be set on several layers and adjusted separately. The designer reminds others to always work underneath drawing as they refine and edit details.

The masses of color are laid down with extremely simple brushes. As with a large-format oil painting, designers also should place colors same way. Movements must be broad and dynamic when working on an enormous surface. Just like in a painting, designers could also synthesize and blend masses of colors with a computer. Just provide enough definition for broad strokes.

Stage 4: The Over Layer The over layer is part where you can adjust, correct, and refine lines of drawing. When it's super-imposed on under layers, density of lines can be pasty and hard to read. This is time to lay down lightest colors, letting highlights spill over some of lines of drawing. According to designer, this will help smooth out shapes.

When drawing is complete and has been colored, this is where designers can soften or eliminate lines that they think are too heavy or repeat colored shapes. At this final stage, effects are usually made manually. They often come from pen strokes on pad.

With these stages, designer hopes to achieve a harmonious combination of traditional process and present technology. Great artwork can be achieved with a successful fusion of two worlds.

Lastly, one of many features that iPhoto 5 prides itself of is intelligent and advanced slideshow feature. First off, slideshows are separate from albums. Therefore, you can modify contents of one slideshow, like maybe add a few images from another album, without affecting albums themselves. And since iPhoto 5 supports MPEG-4, you can create slideshows consisting of both still images and video clips. It also has a lot of fantastic transitions, which you can control speed and direction of, and even allows you to adjust slide duration on a per-image basis. You might be thinking, a good soundtrack would be lovely too – but setting perfect timing may be difficult to achieve. With iPhoto 5, you wouldn’t have to worry about that as it has a tight integration with iTunes. Simply select a song or an entire playlist from your iTunes library and iPhoto will do math for you and synchronize your music with your slideshow! Now how’s that for a total viewing experience? Your family and friends might think that you had a professional do all these creative work for you!