![]() My mini runs headless, so I use Screens and a Luna Display dongle and app to access it. The HDHomeRun transcodes the TV signal it receives and transports it across my network to the mini, which serves live TV and recorded shows through Plex. I have an HDHomeRun Extend that sits in a room on the second floor of my house connected to a TV antenna. When the mini isn’t being used for testing though, it runs Time Machine backups, some automation, but most importantly, my Plex server and video library. Over the summer as I worked on my Mojave review, I relocated the mini, which usually sits in the corner of the room, to my desk, installed Mojave and most of the apps I use every day, and made it my primary computer, switching back to the MacBook primarily for recording and editing AppStories. First, it’s my macOS beta testing machine. In the meantime, I still have a late 2014 Mac mini that works perfectly well. That purchase might happen eventually, but for now, I’m going to stick with the MacBook Pro. My MacBook Pro made more sense when I was commuting every day, and with the right specs, I could get a mini that would approach the power of an iMac Pro, but for a lot less money. I almost bought a new Mac mini when they were announced in October. For those times, I always turn to xScope. Every now and then, I find myself doing some sort of layout where the tools in whatever app I’m using aren’t capable of measuring some aspect that I want to get just right. The app is a suite of tools for measuring screen distances and inspecting layouts. xScope from The Iconfactory is another tool that I don’t use every day but is necessary several times per year. ![]() The icons were all different sizes, but with Retrobatch, I created a uniformly-sized set in a matter of seconds. I don’t batch process images often, but Retrobatch was a big time-saver when I was working with those icons for Club MacStories that I mention in the Pixelmator Pro section above. Each node is customizable with different properties that can be adjusted to fit your needs too. It’s a powerful approach that abstracts away a lot of the complexity. You connect nodes of functionality that can run sequentially or in parallel on folders of images. The app works a little like Audio Hijack does with audio. Retrobatch, as the name suggests, can batch-process photos. Retrobatch is a photo utility from Flying Meat, the maker of image editor Acorn. Pixelmator Pro is also a paid-up-front app, which makes it an excellent choice if you don’t want to commit to a subscription from Adobe. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it’s a fantastic start that can be tweaked manually once applied. Laying out must-have icons in Pixelmator Pro.ĭuring 2018, probably no bigger change has been made to Pixelmator Pro than the addition of machine learning-based auto-enhancement of photos. For instance, I found it was the perfect tool for lining up and evenly spacing dozens of app icons for our Club MacStories anniversary member perks in September. Often, I use Pixelmator Pro for simple tasks like combining multiple screenshots for a story I’m writing, but I also use it for photo editing and more complex layouts. It became one of my favorite image editors almost immediately. Pixelmator Pro has gotten significant updates since its launch right before my last roundup of must-have Mac apps. I prefer to import them so that only my best shots are stored in Lightroom and Adobe’s Creative Cloud online service. I also like that my photos aren’t ingested automatically by Lightroom. I’m by no means an expert with Lightroom’s tools, but I’ve found it to be a good playground to edit my best iPhone and DSLR shots. Lightroom’s set of photo management and editing tools is robust without being overwhelming. Also, my wife works at a high school now, which means we can get an even better deal with her educational discount. ![]() That’s begun to change with more affordable pricing tiers. I’ve resisted Adobe’s subscription model for a long time primarily because the only options were expensive bundles that make sense for designers and pro photographers, but not someone who dipped in and out of photography periodically.
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