Apple for artists

Two top Mac pundits fly down with software and wit, and show Bangalore a new bag of tricks

Apple sent down two of its top men yesterday to show what its new operating system, the Leopard, could do for 'creative professionals'.

Alan and Rob (the company is shy about giving out their full names and designations) also demonstrated a host of other applications that excited the 200-strong crowd of Bangalore's artists, art students, art directors, and Mac buffs. The event mostly covered advertising territory, if you were wondering who 'creative professionals' were.

The presenters explained how Apple's diverse programs, such as Aperture (for photos), Final Cut Pro (for video) and Soundtrack (for music composing) were integrated, and showed how you could use them together and with relatively less high-end applications such as iChat and iTunes. (You could use iChat, for example, to get your client to preview a slide show, and then, once you've got an okay, email your work across with just another click).

Within minutes of starting his presentation, Alan had got the audience repeating "time is money" after him. That was his way of rubbing it in that Mac works faster and better than Windows. He took regular digs at programs such as Excel, and his humour and mock histrionics won him an appreciative audience. If Alan had been in Hollywood, he would have given Jim Carey sleepless nights.

Sitting across the room and using two Mac laptops, the experts took turns explaining programs and processes, while their screens were projected on to a huge screen. The section where they played art director and client trying to finalise a digital presentation was educative even to those not familiar with Photoshop and Aperture. It was a bit like watching a magician backstage, and actually getting to see how he pulls off all those dazzling optical illusions.

Rob took a series of tame photos provided by a cycle brand, and showed how, given limited raw material, artistic creativity and Apple tools could still combine to produce smart promotional material. It looked unbelievably simple, but remember, these tools aren't mastered in a day, and not everyone is a Rob!

The Mac has always been the art professional's favourite computer. But few start off on a Mac, and the transition from PC to Mac can be forbidding. Apple is taking its handholding duty seriously and encouraging people to make that switch. Conferences such as yesterday's must be a step in that direction.

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