I just discovered a neat little program that can work as a great little companion to iPhoto. While the basic tools in iPhoto are great for simple touchup, I know that I sometimes want to adjust brightness, contrast, color balance and all those good things.
PixelNhance from Caffeine software lets you open an image and make those adjustments with a neat difference. There is a bar that splits the picture, that is movable and rotatable, so you can see a "Before and After" view of the changes you have made. I set it as my editor for pictures when I double click on them in the iPhoto preferences.
And one of the best things is it's FREE. And, I'm not the only one who thinks it's neat because Apple is including it with the new G4s they just announced.
Check it out!
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Editor's note: Based on a five-minute trial, this is an impressive piece of freeware! In addition to the adjustments listed above, you can also tweak levels, sharpness, noise, and saturation. Well worth a download!]