PC+iOS User Thinking of Going Mac-ICloud Photos Drives Decision

[redman042]

I'm looking for advice on whether it's the right time for my family to switch from PC to Mac. We've been exclusively on iOS devices since '09, but our computer has always been a PC. My desire to switch is primarily driven by the desire to move our 300 GB of photos and videos to iCloud Photo Library, and to get all the rest of our stuff in one ecosystem.

Has iCloud improved to a point where I can place our large photo library in it and use it reliably? I'm noticing that iCloud photos do work better on our devices than it did a year ago. Though I still run into issues with large photo imports.

Is the ability for multiple family members with separate iCloud accounts to view their photos on the Mac reasonable straightforward?

Is anyone trying out Beta 1 of macOS Sierra? I'm interested in how iCloud Photo Library and the Photos app has improved. Most likely I will revisit this decision after Sierra and iOS 10 hit and I can see how much iCloud has improved, but I do feel like it's getting close to time to make the switch.

Most likely I will ditch the old Windows desktop and go with a MacBook Pro when the time comes. I don't really want to be tied to a desk anymore.

 

[AppleNewton]

I'd say its exceptionally better. When Photos first came out there were a ton of lacking functionality (not features per se). But they've been ironed out, though still needs some work or atleast an understanding of why certain things occur.

I'd recommend getting a gauge on how much each persons photo library takes up and get that equivalent iCloud storage for their account.

iCloud photo library is great, if you have a large library 200GB+ once its fully cloud based and synced, then it makes managing a lot easier and coherent. I have a huge personal and professional set of albums and imports and its nice having them all in one place and its the same library on my iPad / mac / phone / iCloud.com etc.
And what I like about it is, even though my iPad is set to not store images local or atleast high resolution ones, if i import photos off my camera while on a shoot, they sync right over iCloud and are on my mac in full resolution.

The only thing that lacks clarity is the All photos section of Albums...while it is all of your photos they're not really organized methodically but more so when they were actually imported into your library.


Just create each users own account on the Mac, have each sign into their own iCloud account. enable family sharing if you wish to share photos amongst yourselves, but so far its been much better than the release.

 

[redman042]

Sounds like you are working iCloud Photo Library pretty hard and it's passing the test. That's good to hear. Last May when it first rolled out, there were lots of issues, including some users reporting lost photos. I want to make certain that is a very rare occurrence before I commit. We will run a local backup to HDD, but don't want to have to rely on that.

We already have iCloud accounts for all three of our family members and have been using them for a year. My wife and I each have 200 GB accounts and my daughter has a 20 GB account.

If we switch from PC to Mac, I will be uploading about 300 GB of additional photos and videos that date back to 2003 and have lived only in Windows up until this point. I'll upload those to my iCloud account and then copy them all to the Family folder so my wife and daughter can see them. I did find yesterday that using iCloud photo sharing on my iPhone requires me to limit my postings to the shared folder to no more than about 30 photos at a time, otherwise the app will crash. I hope it works better on the Mac or will get patched in the future.

I also have about a year of photo edits made in Lightroom that I'll need to export to JPG because I plan to ditch Lightroom. It's super powerful but just too bloated for my needs. I want to do things fast, and Photo will get me there 95% of the time, and Photoshop Elements or some other app the rest of the time.

And I've been converting all my old videos to MP4 using Handbrake so they are all native to Apple's favorite format.

 

[AppleNewton]

Yeah I think you're pretty much set, i have it synced to a portable mac and a desktop for testing purposes. the only thing I don't quite get is Faces do not sync across devices. but thats a little trivial to me but still don't know why it can't be done if we're syncing everything into iCloud.

Other than that, adding a few extensions for photo edits would be nice, but i've actually had a few 20x30 print outs and a few photo books printed using the new Photos app and they all look just as great or better than the edits made.

I think now is just as good any time to get it going. but of course back up back up back up