Now that we’ve had a chance to play with the official release of Photos, I’d be interested in sharing first impressions.
Generally I prefer not to join the crowd bagging new Apple releases as they nearly always come good in the end and clearly their policy is to release things that are feature-light and build from there. That said, I have to say I find Photos quite disappointing.
Given the photo management and editing brain power and knowledge base the company has accumulated over the years, particularly around Aperture – not to mention the time taken for this first release to appear – Photos is just so light on the asset management side of things as to be almost useless for anyone but the most basic user. And even they are going to find Photos buggy and counterintuitive at times.
Yet they have included, under the bonnet, some more-than-basic editing tools that basic users won’t know how to use (but not enough to satisfy semi-advanced users). It’s hard to know who this first version is aimed at.
There are so many other apps out there that do even the most basic jobs better. Mylio is a prime example: it’s not over complicated but at the same time it does the basics well: ratings and geotagging, for instance. And it syncs pictures and their edits almost instantly.
I’m sure Photos will improve – I’m just not sure I understand why Apple wouldn’t have left iPhoto in place for a bit longer, or invested a bit more in Photos before releasing it into the wild.
Am I being unfair?
I think I will use Photos for my iPhoto pictures, and that will be about it for a good while to come. Even then I will end up duplicating those pictures in Lightroom so that I can group iPhoto and non-iPhoto pics from, say, the same holiday all in one place.
I too found Photos disappointing light. I expected more in terms of picture management and organization. Over the years I spent a lot of time and money learning the in and outs of Aperture. I was hoping some of the basic adjustment features would have been included. I dread the thought of trying to pick an alternative to Aperture and Photos. I timidly read about others experimenting with Lightroom and Capture One and the three or four other programs mentioned on this site as i don’t really want to experiment with my 30,000 photo Aperture library and see how they are mangled in any transition to alternate programs. I guess it is pretty clear from my readings on this site that Photos will never develop into anything close to Aperture, but i think i will stick with Aperture till I am forced to move to the next platform. Maybe the dust will settle in the next 6 months to a year and a clear alternate will rise from the ruins of my photo management program Aperture, but from my initial look it does not appear it will be “Photos”.
Joseph, thanks for the opportunity to vent
wrv
Its very very disappointing. Apple have decided photographers are not a target market. They will appeal to all the snapshot users with this app but there is no way this will become a heavyweight editing prog or even a database app in the Aperture class. Its apparent that even as a database app (basically what LR started out to be) its lightweight considering the import functions we had in Aperture. So if you want Bridge & Camera Raw rolled into one buy LR5 but if you want a pixel manipulator buy Photoshop.
What a pity - all that expertise & software thrown in the trash.
You never have enough gear!
As an enthusiastic older citizen amateur photographer who leant the basics of Aperture through Lynda.com, this excellent web site and a lot of suffering I am slightly frustrated by what has happened to me over the last few days. I received notification of the software update and did as told. After updating was surprised to see that I could not access my Aperture library via my Apple TV (we use Apple TV a lot - primarily for viewing our photos - 44,000 at last count). After basic research it became apparent that this function was no longer available and the only way to get to view the photos was to migrate my library to Photos. This I have done and am not happy so far. Spent two hours on the phone to Apple who were as much in the dark as I was (he was lovely but by his own admission his training hadn’t covered this aspect). I am now viewing some of my photos through iTunes but it will only handle single folders - if I leave the all folders box ticked with access to the full library the Apple Tv cannot handle it and just crashes.
Apart from this I do not understand why only 2,500 of my photos are in iCloud. Final point on first impressions that this appears to be another piece of software that is primarily designed for modern technology, iPhone, iPad photos etc and does little for the scanned in pre digital photos which have little metadata including date and location information - I was working my way through Aperture manually correcting this but not sure how Photos will handle this. Am looking forward to watching the training course but in the meantime don’t suppose anyone knows how I can go back to Wednesday do they ?
Since posting this iTunes now shows Aperture as being available for Home Sharing - it hasn’t been there for three days !Even more elderly and confused than I was !
Thanks for info… I also use Apple TV to show my photos to family and friends. This gets increasingly more disappointing the more we find out about the slow death of Aperture. I have not moved my 30,000 photos to the photos app yet. I probably won’t based on your experience. Can’t believe apple can’t support my Aperture library on Apple TV… Bummer.
Let me know if you find an App that can show Aperture on my Apple TV. Does anyone out there have a solution for the problem?
wrv
Have just edited my post as iTunes now shows Aperture as available for Home Sharing !
Hi
I have NOT moved to Photos at all and did barely touch it (after moving to Yosemite 10.10.3). After reading about your problems with Apple TV I got a fright (as I use this frequently) and I just went to look at my TV. But I can not see any difference. It works well as before. What is different in your configuration? I run Aperture and I have about 30.000 photos referenced in Aperture and I have moved to 10.10.3 as you did. When staring Apple TV it just works as ever.
Best regards, Alex
My Aperture library also works on Apple TV, thanks for info or I might not have even tried to look at my Aperture library on Apple TV
wrv
I’ve just moved from iPhoto to Photos. I have a new Macbook Pro and not a particularly large photo library (about 50 000 photos). I can’t believe how slow Photos is or how many crashes I’ve reported in two days. I can’t remember ever being so disappointed in an Apple app … and I’ve been a Mac user for 20+ years. Faces seems particularly prone to drag and crash! And we’ve lost the capacity to put in the correct name when faces are suggested. Any idea what guides the order in which names appear when adding a face to a photo … alphabetical used to be a bit frustrating at times, some prioritisation according to usage would make sense, but this seems completely random? Appreciate any suggestions that might address the speed and crashing problems!!
And I hope they quickly reinstate some capacity to sort photos (I want the latest at the top most of the time!); and places (and when they do use places I’d prefer to revert to town, state, country format … not the state, town, country format that seems to be mandated); no doubt there’s more I’m missing but it is just sooooo slow ….
Am I missing something … what has happened to ‘batch change’? If I want to name a group of photos with the same title surely I don’t have to name each one individually???
I also like to be able to see in the information pane information about with whom, how and when I’d shared a particular photo.
Hard to believe that quite so many features are either missing or incredibly hard to find.
Question - are you using iCloud or local storage for you library?
You never have enough gear!
I’m using local storage - library is 233 GB on an i5QuadPro Macbook Pro Retina with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD (apparently!).
Lynne - same MBP as me. I have no trouble & use local storage not the iCloud for my library & its a good bit bigger than yours. I have a feeling that its an issue with your MBP because altho I do not like Photo’s it is certainly fast. I couldn’t begin to suggest what is slowing your machine down other than to run some cleanup.
In passing the 2 (for me) best programs ever for Apple is 1Password & CleanMyMac so the latter might be worth trying.
You never have enough gear!
Thanks Tom. I use CleanMyMac fairly regularly but haven’t done since I installed Photos so I’ll give that a go. I realised that I do have a folder of photos that I share over the Cloud so I’ll try disabling that too to see whether it makes a difference. If all else fails I’ll talk to Apple. Thanks for you help.
Ok - light those torches folks… I actually like Photos! Not for what it is, but for what it will become. Apple told us what to expect and we have seen plenty of pre-release reviews detailing just what we would see - so not too many surprises here.
There are certainly some painful gaps in this release, but I expect Photos to grow through time. That’s typical Apple so I’d be surprised if Photos doesn’t follow suit. Like I said - I like where Photos is going. It’s nimble, light, and ubiquitous. I like the concept of smart sliders with the availability of more granular controls. I like that you can show just the editing tools you need. I like that things like Skin Tone white balance and Aperture’s old segmented Levels control made it into Photos. Frankly I like the new paradigm - it’s time photo editing evolved forward.
Now, will I toss my Aperture Library into Photos? Not yet. Is it a worthy replacement for iPhoto - with a few exceptions, Yes! Photos still needs adjustment brushes or control points. It still needs some better rating system. The OSX version needs to have the extensions access opened up. I expect we will see all these things sooner rather than later. But I need to learn some new skills too. I need to learn to use keywording and smart albums more effectively. Every piece of software has a learning curve - for me, it’s time to start marching up that curve. Well - that’s what I think so thanks for letting me quack.
Hi Philip, it is the first time for long that someone tells us such positive news. I am sure that you are aware that the disapointment is so big that I have huge difficulties to believe you. Why do you know more than I do? Why does Apple not issue a press release and inform the whole professinal community? Why do they tell you?? I am sorry, but as I do not know you, you sound like a troll. Can you please be more precise? That would help a lot. I am in the process to order Lr6 that will be announced within a few weeks
Best regards, Alex
Troll - now that’s funny! What exactly am I trolling? I’m giving my opinion - just because you see the world differently doesn’t make me a troll so how about you keep a civil tong in your head?
I have been around Apple computers since I bought one of the first Macs in 1984. I bought their stock at $14 a share when everyone else was writing their obituary. I don’t “know” any more than you do - but I know Apple’s track record. They tend to evolve software forward.
You are welcome to your glass is half empty view of Apple - for me the glass is half full.
BTW - Lightroom is a good product, I’m sure you will be happy with it.
So you know nothing. Thank you. Thats all.
Best regards, Alex
Gosh - I guess I didn’t realize hating Photos was a prerequisite to posting to this opinion thread.
Silly me, I should have known better.
My point was that with your post you give all the readers the impression that you know something that nobody else knows. As a matter of fact you’ re just guessing. To me that is fine. It is just good to know if you have facts of if you guess. By no means I wanted to be unfriendly to you. I am sorry but english is not my mother tongue.
Best regards, Alex
No problem Alex - these are trying times. But let me review what I said in my post… I talked about the editing tools that I liked that are currently IN Photos… Namely: smart sliders with sub controls to refine the adjustments… Next - the fact that you can show or hide which editing tools you want to use - making a custom edit pallet… Finally - I talked about two features from Aperture that were now in Photos, first Skin Tone White Balance and second, Aperutre’s segmented Levels adjustment. BTW both of these features are still in Aperture now.
Next I talked about the things I would like to see in Photos namely: Adjustment brushes or control points. Along with that I’d like to see the “star rating system” be added back to what is already there namely: Folders, Smart Albums, Albums, and Keywords. Finally I want them to open up raw workflow extensions. I know that is coming because I watch hours of videos from last year’s WWDC - where Apple spoke extensively on the topic. I guess they want to keep that blocked off until they get Photos and the iCloud Photo Library working consistently.
No where did I ever claim to have insider information. I have, however, been reading the experts reports extensively so I’m not some wild eyed lunatic promising anyone anything. I even said I would not currently trust my Aperture Library to Photos as it exists today. I will end with where the other post began. I like Photos - not for what it currently is - but for what it is likely to become.
Be well.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree with you.
Best regards, Alex
If you are an iPhone photographer its a natural upgrade from iPhoto. If you are a serious Amateur or Pro its not in the class of LR/PSE/Perfect Photo suite et al and never will be now you have scrapped all the Aperture expertise.
My beef is - to scrap Aperture, which did compete in that space, for this is NUTS!! When did Adobe last completely scrap a photo prog?
They have decided the major market for them is phone device snapshots - and who can blame them if its a numbers game. I think building it into an OS which is free speaks volumes about the concept.
I too am an old Apple hand but recently I find its not the company that suits my needs for anything other than Iphone. They are not leading design by just scrapping stuff to start again. I mean I have a MBP that does not have an ethernet connection without an adaptor now the new one is going to have USB3 - more adaptors. How is that leading edge?
You never have enough gear!
I’m actually in the process of moving my 50k photos (400 GB) Aperture library into Photos.app (and iCloud for that matter) at the moment. I can’t really disagree with what all the disappointed folks have posted here, but you know what? I don’t care about any of the points they made.
Last year I downgraded from a heavy, bulky semi-pro Canon and L lenses to an Olympus OMD system. And photography is fun again! I’m positive Photos.app will do the same for photo editing. I can’t wait to sit on the couch, flick through the latest photos on my iPad and delete the bad ones – maybe even edit one or two.
Am I missing things in Photos.app? Sure! Those two times a year, that I want to edit a photo in the NIK suite or in Pixelmator are gonna be a lot less convenient. But hey, you win some, you lose some.
Not a troll, just a different opinion. I’m sure all the serious folks here need trees of keywords and stuff. I don’t. I’m glad they’re gone…
Peace ;-)
Good for you just as long as your Oly is not a M5 MKII. Photo’s does not support the raw files from it! Whats galling is that Perfect Photo Suite has just released their latest version WITH support for all Oly raw of files but our supposed leading edge Apple with their ‘release’ does not & its been in beta for months.
Conclusion - one of these companies is interested in photographers…..
You never have enough gear!
Well, I guess by the same token ”supposed leading edge” Adobe with their “professional” Adobe Camera Raw isn’t “interested in photographers” either.
Come on!
Way to many people here are sooooo negative. Nobody forces anybody to use Photos.app. I think we all got the message: it’s not Aperture. We get it. For some that’s bad. For some it’s good. I happen to see myself in the “good” category. And guess what: the only thing that’s gonna change that is, if Photos.app ends up not working for me. Not those weird, crooked comparisons.
Can I get an amen ;-)
I hear you. My last DSLR (of many) was a 1D MkII N, and I eventually traded it for a NEX-5N. I gave up a lot, but I gained much more. Shortly after, I decided to ditch LR, and try Aperture. ”This isn’t professional enough!” kept ringing in the back of my head, but I was having fun again, so I stayed.
With the demise of Aperture, I’ve spent earnest time back in LR and Capture One Pro. They’re more professional, but they’re not as much fun. I like being able to text a photo–from my real camera–to someone from my comp without having to think about it. Dipping back into the Export to Jpg pool felt old school, and not in a good way. I also felt this way during the FCP 7 to FCP X transition. I’d get frustrated in X, return to 7, but it just felt “old.” It took a little while, but FCP X is wonderful now. Even if Photos.app doesn’t get there, the promise of the extensions could still be revolutionary. Of course I miss brushes, stars, etc–but the more I use it, the more it feels like the way forward. I’ve stopped worrying, I’m on board.
So far, I like the speed of browsing and the overall feel of the program that makes me want to use it. This I compare to Lightroom where I usually have the urge to close out of the program as quickly as I can. I also like the idea that I can edit photos or organize the library from multiple computers and have the changes updated on the other devices (no Smart Albums on the iOS app yet but hopefully someday).
All in all, I like the feel of it… in spite of the massive simplification. Well, maybe actually because of the simplification. Makes me focus more on the photographs: composition, exposure, and emotion. Our best photos probably don’t care what program they live in.
So I’m all in. We’ll see how it goes.
For anyone who uses the MPro iOS app, in the most recent update, your changes in iOS Photos sync to OS X Photos. I think this is pretty interesting since there is no OSX MPro app. I’d say bodes well for extensions sooner rather than later.
JAL
http://www.robotnerve.com
Seems this is the way with any external editor, even those without extensions, which is pretty neat. I just edited a picture in Snapseed for iOS and saved the edited version back to the camera roll. It quickly synced to iCloud. Back in Photos on my Mac, I opened the image and the opportunity to ‘revert to original’ was still there.
David Brewster
davidbrewster.photography
I just tested with Snapseed, too. It’s really pretty cool.
JAL
http://www.robotnerve.com
There never used to be such obnoxious posters on this forum. Discussion & disagreement is how we learn, at least some of us. BTW your out of date with Camera Raw - but then I shouldn’t really educate you should I ??
Camera Raw 8.8 now available
Camera Raw 8.8 is now available as a final release for Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC. DNG Converter 8.8 is provided for all Lightroom customers and Photoshop customers using versions of Photoshop older than Photoshop CS6.
New Camera Support in Camera Raw 8.8
You never have enough gear!
sorry man, I guess I learned something. I actually googled it and could not find the new Olympus on Adobe’s own website, where it lists Adobe Camera Raw compatibility. Since I don’t use Adobe products it couldn’t verify on my own computer.
I actually wasn’t trying to be obnoxious. It was just an overreaction:
Since this is the only good source on the Photos.app, I was excited to come here and learn. I was very disappointed, that almost everybody here is like: “it’s not Aperture!!!” and the only guy who seems to share some excitement with me gets shouted down and called a troll for daring to say something positive.
I promise to be civil now, even if I read the 20th post, that’s like: ”it’s not Aperture!!!”
It’s not Aperture. ;)
Sorry couldn’t resist. But seriously I didn’t expect it to be Aperture. And that’s why I adopted a new DAM workflow that does not include Aperture. I hope that Photos can be part of that new workflow.
My hope for Photos is it will (1) provide a place where I can put images and they will appear on all my Apple devices, (2) allow me to work in it on my Mac as well as the iOS devices, (3) give me a place where I can share chosen images with friends both inside and out of the Apple ecosystem.
One and two seem to be working, but not sure of 3 yet. There are questions, for example, suppose I create and share Album X with friends Matt and Joe, and I decide “hey I want to add Suzi to that list” how do I do that? Maybe there is a way but other than creating a new share album. I haven’t figured how to do that and yet it is a common feature of sharing sites. So that’s why I say i’m not sure of 3 yet.
After the negative tone of my initial post, a few days later I’m finding things in Photos that do stand out. Cloud sync was a bit slow at first but is now very fast, and the ability to edit in one place and seamlessly continue elsewhere is very neat. Beats LR sync for speed and efficiency hands down. Also, once I discovered the extent of the adjustment tools available, there’s actually quite a lot there – and I think it is clever the way those tools have been kept hidden from the majority of users who will never want to touch things like sharpening or even levels. For most the basic Light/Color/B&W sliders will be plenty, and they do work quite well. On this note Photos is much simpler than many of the alternatives. I also have some sympathy for the point of view that if Photos helps you minimise the time spent editing, that’s a good thing.
I still need ratings, and I’m sure they will come. In the meantime I’m going to trust Photos with all my iPhonography and see how we go.
David Brewster
davidbrewster.photography
Hi, its the first time I would like to make a positive statement re Photos. As I have reported above I sit in front of my Mac and have the Camera in my hand and just shoot objects on my desk and import that to Photos AND into Aperture. This gives me a very good feeling how to use the tools/sliders in order to have the same picture on the screen as in the reality in front of my eyes. And the result is amazing. Very efficient and easy to adapt colors, white balance, contrast etc. Within very short time I get an image on my screen that looks “exactly” like the image that I see in fron of me on my desk (artificial light mixed with daylight). Of course with Aperture I can do the same. But it takes much longer; its more difficult to get there. When testing C1 a few months ago I got the same impression with C1. This might be the result of the outdated Aperture software. There are evidently todays more efficient algorithms for doing the job. I found that it is worth posting this.
Then I miss is the indication of the fully white and fully black areas as we have in Aperture. That has to come too
Best regards, Alex
I used the weekend to finally update to 10.10.3 and see what we got with Photos here, because I need to update my parents’ iMac soon and I will have to learn them to use it.
After migrating my iPhoto library (which consists mainly of older snapshots from my point and shoot cameras and iPhones) I played around with it for a few hours and checked all the options and views.
I have to say, I was in the end pleasantly surprised that it is indeed a big step up from iPhoto in terms of usability and editing. It is a LOT faster than iPhoto on my Mac Pro (startup time is practically zero, almost as quick as launching the finder). The interface makes a lot more sense. The print products look great ( but I did not check these recently, so maybe this was there all along). Sure, some missing functions like all the DAM stuff (ratings, sorting etc,) absolutely need to be brought back, but I would say the basics for a solid tool for managing your snapshots are there.
Hi everyone,
I knew when Apple mentioned help transitioning Aperture users to Lightroom that the new Photos app certainly wouldn’t be as feature packed as Aperture. I wasn’t expecting Photos to be Aperture, but I also didn’t expect it to be this bad and buggy.
First impressions?
First, I don’t like that because of Photos I wasn’t able to access my iPhoto library with Aperture (I left my library as iPhoto because of an issue with Aperture libraries being viewed on Apple TV). When I launched Aperture, a message said that I could only access my photos if I opened my library in Photos first. I opened my library in Photos and it took over 11 hours to convert the library. I don’t like that just because the Photos app was on my OS that I had to convert my library, whether I intended to use Photos or not.
Second, I don’t like that once I spent the time to open my library in Photos, that when I tried to use Aperture again, only then did it tell me that any edits or imports that I did in Aperture would not be saved. I understand that Apple is no longer going to support Aperture, but I didn’t expect that opening my library in Photos would mean that imports and edits in Aperture would no longer be saved to my library.
Third, once I clicked ok that I understood that any edits or imports in Aperture would not be saved to my library, Aperture then tells me that my library needs to be opened in Photos again. I opened it in Photos again and I waited for another 11 hours for the conversion. When I tried to open my library in Aperture, it again tells me that I must first open it in Photos. I’m in a continuous loop of errors with no way out. I currently have no way to use Aperture. This is something that I haven’t been able to resolve and is very frustrating.
As for the application itself, I don’t like that the way that photos are organized like they are on my iPhone and iPad. For my purposes, events and folders in Aperture work much better for me. I don’t see a simple way to edit location metadata. It runs much slower than iPhoto on my 2011 iMac with a lot of beachballs and the drive is constantly spinning and not rendering thumbnails of some of my photos. Many of the poster frames for videos did not transfer over and need to be redone. Some of my RAW photos converted as the infamous triangle with the exclamation point. When uploading photos to websites, Finder can’t access my Photos library under Media or anywhere else and I have to export photos from the Photos app to my desktop to upload them. This is a significant bug for me.
These are just first impressions. I currently have a list of about a dozen issues that I can’t resolve with my Apple products and it just seems that Photos has its bugs too. Maybe eventually things will improve but the transition has been frustrating and painful for me. I’m not a professional or advanced enough of a user to jump ship to Lightroom yet and I’m concerned about managing my photo library with third party software and losing iCloud and other features in the Apple ecosystem. For now I’m staying put and will see what the coming months will bring.
After your Aperture library has been assimilated by Photos, then any changes made in photos will not be reflected in the Aperture library. Any changes made in Aperture will not be reflected in Photos library. However If you are using referenced libraries, then in theory, (I have not tested this) you can still edit non-destructively in both programs but those changes remain with that program.
Under the hood, Photos and Aperture/iPhoto are very different, so edits from one program are not going to show up in the other.
Interesting. Thanks.
According to Apple’s documentation - you are right. Photo’s and Aperture’s libraries reference the same master files but have no connection to each other. Edits can be made in either program non-destructively but those changes cannot be seen by the other program. That is the main reason that adding a Photos library does not double your photographs footprint on your computer.
Hi Keith
Just a quick note to correct one thing from your very detailed post. Apple never offered to help anyone transition from Aperture to Lightroom. That was an early reporting error from a writer not affiliated with Apple. If I remember right - that error was corrected both by Apple and the writer who make the inaccurate claim within 24 hours of it being made. Adobe did write their own script to make transferring into Lightroom easier - but that was about it.
Obviously that has no real impact on your post here - but I wanted to correct the record vis-a-vi Apple.
Thanks, Phillip. I had read that Apple was helping transition Aperture users multiple times when the news broke and I was convinced at the time. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember where I read it, although I thought (apparently in error) that it was an Apple communication. I’m sure you have more accurate information regarding that than me. That was what influenced me to expect Photos would be similar to iPhoto.
Hi Keith
Frankly it may be a distinction without a difference - currently Photos is no Aperture. For some it will fit the bill, for others not so much. I just wanted to share what I remember about the correction since it was issued swiftly and with finality.
Be well.
Now that I’ve had more of an opportunity to explore photos I want to correct one thing that I posted: I am now researching Lightroom and other alternatives and will move if I can do so.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to add location metadata to our photos in the Photos App. I’ve read in other forums that this isn’t possible in Photos. This is a deal breaker for me. I’m not a professional but I do have a need to organize my photos by location and browse by location. I use an Canon 70D for the majority of my photos, so I need to add location data manually. Even with my iPhone 6, I sometimes miss location data being added to those photos because I’m saving battery and forget to change a mode and enable location services again.
I’m sorry, I do see some things that I like about the app. I can wait until they work out bugs like allowing photos received as email attachments to be saved to the Photos app (doesn’t work for me) and such, but I need to be able to edit all of my metadata, including location.
Hello Keith
I am a bit more optimistic (before changing to something else). I cannot imagine that adding location data won’t be fixed in near future. Hopefully around the WWDC we will see an update with lot of fixes. In the meantime I am looking for alternatives. I already can Batch-change Description and Naming (including adding subs. numbers), by using Automator and applescript directly from within Photos. Still searching for adding the location.
As for the email attachments. With me it works, though they don’t appear in “latest import” (or is it “recent import” ?) nor will it fire-up Photos. However in the “sets” or “moments” view they are visible in “today”. Buggy yes, things to improve yep.
Will I consider to move to Lightroom ?: never. There are better alternatives in my opinion (and for my usage).
BenB
http://www.videoidee.nl
http://www.benssite.nl
Good points, Ben. I hope that you are right about upcoming fixes and improvements for Photos. The more that I look at Lightroom, the more I see that the monthly fees will add up over time and the software may be a little too feature-rich for my purposes. I’m afraid that I might get bogged down in all of the features that are appropriate for the professionals but not so much for me. I’m on the fence and waiting another couple of months may be the prudent thing to do.
I’m currently on a trip to Europe (England and Romania). This is the first test of using Photos (instead of iPhoto) on my MacBook Air to store the images from my two Nikon D750s, Nikon Coolpix S6800 and iPhone 5 and then backing them up by exporting them to folders on a Toshiba 500GB HD (I’ve been using this method successfully for six or seven years now in places like Mongolia where I really have to depend on stuff to work in remote places. And I always want my images stored in two locations).
Don’t know if this helps, but I also want to keep track of locations and browse my photos that way and have been able to do what I always did in iPhoto: Create a folder labeled “England 2015” and then Albums within it by location- “Stonehenge”, “Stockbridge”, etc.. Once I’ve done a download from the camera I just select, drag and drop the images into their respective Albums. I don’t use metadata much, but do title individual images for export to Facebook, my blog, etc.
As far as what I think of Photos to this point: When I get home I’ll still import all the images from the hard drive into Aperture as I always have since I’m not ready to make the switch to Photos (I’ll be moving over 90,000 images and want to wait to see what gets announced and updated after the WWDC). Not interested in enabling Adobe’s subscription model by using Lightroom. Don’t much like the look and feel of C1 with the thin white type on black, and really didn’t care for the DAM design. Corel’s product did not impress me. I’m stuck at PS CS4, so that will go away once I replace my seven year old iMac and the next OSx release comes along. Didn’t think much of Photos at first, but after watching the first four of Joseph’s tutorial videos and now using it in “real life”, I think it will do what I want as an artist who is shooting reference for paintings and documenting my trips for use on social media. I already feel like the adjustments are more solid and trustworthy than in Aperture (which was why I’ve kept using CS4). Hoping that a Photos update will include star ratings and Curves.
Reynard
Great to read of your experience, esp. since right now I am using Photos to clean up and resort all my photos of my last few trips to England and Scotland.
Like you, I am much more positive about Photos since watching most of Josephs’ videos, he explains things well.
I’m getting more impressed with Photos, I’m finding it quote easy to sort a really messed up library.
Enjoy your holiday.
Taking Pics in Tassie
Waste of time! After upgrading and migrating, against my better judgement, only half of my library came across. I spoke to AppleCare their advice was to stick with iPhoto, and they helped me restore it. I didn’t know that photos ADDS a seperate library, good in one way, I didn’t loose my photos …but… It doubles the space on the hard drive (or would if it worked). Back to iPhoto for me. What a muck up this app is. Apple used to do things
right the first time, not any more, they have lost the plot. Maybe Tim is more concerned about selling expensive watches now.
Taking Pics in Tassie
Nope, it does not double the hard drive space but uses hard links for the photos. So the photos are actually on the hard drive only once, but every library thinks the photos are “in it”. Why am I so sure? There was 350 GB free on my hard drive and my Aperture library is more than 400 GB. After I imported my Aperture library into Photos I had two libraries at more than 400 GB each and still over 300 GB free disk space. So the math doesn’t add up. Obviously each library has its own meta data and previews, but the pictures themselves are there only once.
So if you delete the Aperture libary and the Photos library is still there, so are the photos and vice versa. If you delete photo A in the Aperture library and photo B in the Photos library, they are both still there. Only if you delete a photo from BOTH libraries, it’s gone. And if you delete both libraries, all the photos are gone.
Thats interesting, thanks. It would seem that Apple tech told me the wrong thing, good news - but not good enough to interest me in Photos just yet. I think I will wait and see if it improves.
Taking Pics in Tassie
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