First Impressions of Photos for OS X: 'Vast Improvement' Over iPhoto

[DerMario]

Short Question. I installed the beta and imported my iPhoto library. When I now activate iCloud Photo library, wich I did on all my iOS devices, does it upload EVEY photo from my iphoto import to the cloud? Or can I select, wich photos will be uploaded???

 

[numlock]

How is Photos worse than iPhoto? That's what I was talking about. Most hands on reviews are quite positive about this new app because they're looking at it as an iPhoto replacement not an Aperture replacement. If you expected the first version to be the latter then expect to be disappointed.

its much faster. what else makes it undeniably greater? (iphoto of course has been neglected for such a long time that its hardly a fair comparison). i personally am always hopeful for new apple software.

i personally havent seen if it handles having the library being stored on a nas or if its more space conscious when you make edits.

but you ask if apple specifically said it was a aperture replacement. did they specifically say it wasnt?


craig said the following last summer

new grounds up photo solution for the mac

this is a response from apple to mashable last summer

"With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X."

i dont think its unrealistic to expect photos to go some way to replace aperture (given both iphoto and aperture were getting discontinued) but given apples history (my first post) i think thats unrealistically optimistic.

 

[aristobrat]

Yeah postal is the wrong state - nuking apple would be right for this joke they give us as replacement for Aperture...

FWIW, David Pogue, who apparently has been using Photos since before it came out in the 10.10.3 beta, specifically quotes Apple as saying that Photos is not a replacement for Aperture yet.

However, Apple stresses that Photos is not really meant to be a replacement for the professional photo app, Aperture. At least not yet.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/everything-worth-knowing-about-switching-to-os-x-110129491789.html

 

[aristobrat]

One question for everyone: has anyone figured out how to find the photo files in Finder? When using my rMBP I prefer to upload photos to Facebook via the fb website since Apple apps never carry over my custom fb privacy settings. I also occasionally need to insert a photo into an MS Word 2011 document.

FWIW, in case Photos obscures files in the same way that Aperture/iPhoto do, ... when you go to upload a file to Facebook (or any website) or are in Word and click Insert > Photo > Picture from File, it should pop up the Finder Open window on your Mac, which has a special section on the sidebar for browsing your media (including Photos).

You should be able to see your media in the same format you see it in the usual programs (iTunes, iPhoto/Aperture, iMovie), so you can more quickly find/attach the file you're looking for without having to go through the various folders.

 

[Dranix]

FWIW, David Pogue, who apparently has been using Photos since before it came out in the 10.10.3 beta, specifically quotes Apple as saying that Photos is not a replacement for Aperture yet.


https://www.yahoo.com/tech/everything-worth-knowing-about-switching-to-os-x-110129491789.html

Wrong.

FCPX was powerfull in what is was doing right from the start. Just some niche features where missing. Photos is missing ALL advanced adjustments and ALL RAW parameters. In short it is useless to work with RAWs...

 

[johngordon]

It's more that it doesn't even provide all of the already tiny feature-set of iPhoto. Aperture has defined this whole application family and we get THAT as a replacement?

But what are the things that are missing?

The (non professional) essentials are there:

- ability to organise photos into albums, as well as the app determined moments / collections
- ability to edit photos
- photo syncing across all devices
- make photo books, cards, slideshows

Does iPhoto really do any of that significantly better than Photos does?

I know there's the stuff like star ratings, which you can kind of get around with keywords and smart albums, but that just seems like detail (which may even be present before the public release), rather than essential functionality.

 

[Dranix]

Well one very big missing point is useable export of the images. iPhoto did that at least decent.

 

[johngordon]

Well one very big missing point is useable export of the images. iPhoto did that at least decent.

What makes images exported from Photos unusable?

 

[Dranix]

What makes images exported from Photos unusable?

The bad quality of the exported images. I don't know how apple rescales them but the results look ugly.

 

[skaeight]

Wrong.

FCPX was powerfull in what is was doing right from the start. Just some niche features where missing. Photos is missing ALL advanced adjustments and ALL RAW parameters. In short it is useless to work with RAWs...

Can you expand on the RAW support? Is it possible that it's doing RAW adjustments under the hood?

 

[numlock]

Well one very big missing point is useable export of the images. iPhoto did that at least decent.

whats the difference?

 

[viorelgn]

Well one very big missing point is useable export of the images. iPhoto did that at least decent.

Indeed.

 

[Dranix]

whats the difference?

Apple apparently changed the way they rescale them. In my tests before trashing Photos I only got blurry images out of it.

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Can you expand on the RAW support? Is it possible that it's doing RAW adjustments under the hood?

It looks like Photos does open RAWs like Preview: With the Default-Convertion.

 

[johngordon]

The bad quality of the exported images. I don't know how apple rescales them but the results look ugly.

Are you saying that as a pro with a good eye for detail?

Just wondering because I just exported an image as an example, and I couldn't notice any difference between the photo as it renders in Photos, and how the exported version renders in Preview.

Not sure if that's because I don't have your eye for detail, or if we are seeing different quality results in the export.

 

[Dranix]

Are you saying that as a pro with a good eye for detail?

Just wondering because I just exported an image as an example, and I couldn't notice any difference between the photo as it renders in Photos, and how the exported version renders in Preview.

Not sure if that's because I don't have your eye for detail, or if we are seeing different quality results in the export.

Did you export full size or resized? I did export resized images and they came out as described. Full 16 MPixel would be useless for many tasks, but yes these come out fine - No wonder there.

 

[skaeight]

Apple apparently changed the way they rescale them. In my tests before trashing Photos I only got blurry images out of it.

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It looks like Photos does open RAWs like Preview: With the Default-Convertion.

That would make sense if there aren't any RAW sliders, because all Apple programs use the same RAW processing engine.

Have you compared a RAW picture in Aperture vs Photos (without making any RAW adjustments in Aperture)? I'm just wondering if Photos isn't using the camera specific RAW profiles that Aperture does. It seems like it should be, just behind the scenes without you seeing it.

 

[johngordon]

Did you export full size or resized? I did export resized images and they came out as described. Full 16 MPixel would be useless for many tasks, but yes these come out fine - No wonder there.

Full size. Just tried medium, and see what you mean. The iPhoto one is a decent size and quality, the Photos one is far too small. So it looks clear but tiny in Preview, and all blurry and poor quality when viewed as a larger size in the Finder.

That looks like the sort of issue that is a bug in a beta release though, rather than functionality missing from the app though.

 

[Dranix]

That would make sense if there aren't any RAW sliders, because all Apple programs use the same RAW processing engine.

Have you compared a RAW picture in Aperture vs Photos (without making any RAW adjustments in Aperture)? I'm just wondering if Photos isn't using the camera specific RAW profiles that Aperture does. It seems like it should be, just behind the scenes without you seeing it.

Sorry couldn't compare with Aperture anymore - Am on Lightroom since the drop of EoL for Aperture fearing exactly what has happened now.

 

[aristobrat]

Wrong.

FCPX was powerfull in what is was doing right from the start. Just some niche features where missing. Photos is missing ALL advanced adjustments and ALL RAW parameters. In short it is useless to work with RAWs...

In post #357, you specifically referred to Photos as a replacement to Aperture.

I'm just simply pointing out that through David Pogue, Apple has said ("stressed", in his words) that Photos IS NOT meant to be a replacement for Aperture.

 

[Dranix]

In post #357, you specifically referred to Photos as a replacement to Aperture.

I'm just simply pointing out that through David Pogue, Apple has said ("stressed", in his words) that Photos IS NOT meant to be a replacement for Aperture.

So what *IS* the replacement for Aperture? Ah I forgot - we already payed hundreds of euros - go **** ourself, why do we expect maintenance and continuity?

 

[johngordon]

So what *IS* the replacement for Aperture? Ah I forgot - we already payed hundreds of euros - go **** ourself, why do we expect maintenance and continuity?

Presumably you don't have to stop using Aperture and start using this beta version of Photos?

 

[aristobrat]

So what *IS* the replacement for Aperture?

No clue, but per Apple, it's not Photos (in its current state).

Ah I forgot - we already payed hundreds of euros - go **** ourself, why do we expect maintenance and continuity?

I paid US$199 for Aperture 3.0 back when it launched in 2010. I don't feel particularly ****ed that after having used it for going on six years now, the free updates have stopped.

I'm really not thrilled about jumping over to Adobe's Light Room, which is priced at US$10/month. It would cost me US$600+ to get the same amount of use as I got out of US$199 Aperture.

Aperture continues to work fine for me on Yosemite, so I feel no pressing need to move my library to any other application yet. I'll continue to use Aperture until it gets closer to the point where I have to switch, and then (based off how the products like Photos, Light Room, etc) look at that point-in-time, I'll make my decision.

 

[numlock]

Apple apparently changed the way they rescale them. In my tests before trashing Photos I only got blurry images out of it.

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It looks like Photos does open RAWs like Preview: With the Default-Convertion.

surely thats something they will fix. one would hope at least

 

[danny_w]

Simple (maybe stupid) question here about replacing iPhoto. I currently take a lot of videos and import them via iPhoto then drag them to iTunes for converting for my TV. As I understand it Photos does not support videos so how would I import them?

 

[jmmo20]

So quick question for those testing Photos for OSX.

I started using iCloud Photo library on my iOS devices a few months ago. I'm extremely happy. However, obviously, by the time I activated it, my iphoto library and my iCloud library lost sync.

So I have about 1 year of photos on the iCloud that are also on my iphoto library but all photos taken since I activated iCloud photo library aren't on my iphoto library.

If I were to upgrade my iphoto library to the new Photos app and turn on iCloud library.. will the two libraries be merged? will I lose all photos taken since activating iCloud photo library on my iOS devices?

Big question..