Photos App Beta Discussion

[Crazy Badger]

My initial reaction after importing ~30,000 from Aperture was oh dear

I've recreate some of the Smart Albums lost in the conversion and now have something that resembles my project structure, so will give it some more time.

Can't see it handling my import/backup workflow very well, or editing externally although recently I haven't been doing so much.

Having recently looked at LR5 and Capture One I'm really hoping I can make this work, even if it means somethings are a little more difficult, as I didn't like either of them!

 

[Khedron]

Does anyone know how to rescan for faces? Or any tricks for faster tagging?
I already tagged a few thousand photos in my Photos library and now it is still asking me to confirm and tag faces one by one. Such a slow process.
I have about 12,000 photos and tagging these again one by one will take forever. I do not see any improvement with faces compared to iPhoto.

Also how do I delete photos already imported off of my iPhone or iPad from inside the Photos app?

Face recognition is way better in Photos than iPhoto IMO.

Select the user's face and click "may also be in" to quickly get all the easy hits done

 

[itabmedia]

Face recognition is way better in Photos than iPhoto IMO.

Select the user's face and click "may also be in" to quickly get all the easy hits done

Thanks for the tip, Much appreciated
I'm having trouble finding this option though.
In albums->faces All I see are my tagged faces and "suggested faces" on the bottom.
Highlighting someone's face also does not bring up additional options.
Thanks very much

 

[KALLT]

Is anyone able to send bug reports on Photos? Feedback Assistant requires a separate diagnostics report, but whenever I try to create one in Photos (File > Gather Photo Diagnostics…), I get the following error: "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application. Try your operation again. If that fails, quit and relaunch the application and try again.” I’ve restarted the app, the Mac, even held down the option key while starting Photos. Didn’t help.

 

[joedec]

Is anyone able to send bug reports on Photos? Feedback Assistant requires a separate diagnostics report, but whenever I try to create one in Photos (File > Gather Photo Diagnostics…), I get the following error: "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application. Try your operation again. If that fails, quit and relaunch the application and try again.” I’ve restarted the app, the Mac, even held down the option key while starting Photos. Didn’t help.

I get the exact same error.

So I send anyway without the files from Photos. Hopefully I am descriptive enough.

Strange that it doesn't work.

 

[cjcb]

Merging libraries & other questions

I have some questions that I'm hoping others have as well.

Here is my scenario:

I have an iMac that has been the main repository of all my pics (~20K). About two years ago, my spouse and I got MacBook Airs so we each starting keeping our own libraries. At that point, I also exported some of my favorite pics so that I could have a subset of my original library in my MBA.

Since then, I have tried to be as diligently as possible and ensure that my iMac library was also kept updated (either though manual sync or Photo Stream updates). My MBA library now has ~12K pics, and my spouse's about ~3K.

Last September, I switched on iCloud Photo Library in both my iPhone 6 and iPad Air2. Pics are mainly taken with iPhone, which I keep storage-optimized, and I use iPad for viewing full-res pics. My ICPL has about 1K pics and some videos. All those pics have been carefully edited and curated.

I have updated my MBA to 10.10.3, and the new Photos app migrated over 12K pics, with no issues apparently. I have not turned on iCloud Photo Library. I have not not updated my iMac yet.

Summary:
iMac - Original library ~21K pics = 72GB
MBA 1 - Subset of original + others ~12K pics = 46GB
MBA 2 - New library 3K pics
iPhone/iPadAir - ICPL ~1K =

Questions:
1) Merging. How would you best handle merging all these libraries? Now that I can have one iCPL, I am toying with the very appealing idea of having one fully synced library.

2) Duplicate libraries. After upgrading to 10.10.3. The new Photos app created another library. Now I have one iPhoto and one Photos library, each of 46GB. Is this normal beta behavior?

3) Storage. I don't necessarily need to have all my 20K pics in the cloud, and with my library sizes, I would need to upgrade to the 200GB plan. Is it possible to split libraries, and sync one library with iCPL and not the other one? If so, what would be the best way to split them?

4) Reimporting to Photos app. Is it possible to delete and reimport my MBA library? I realized I could have synced my iPad to and have at least the last 6 months worth of curated pics.

5) Photo Stream. Are the pics downloaded via Photo Stream full-res?

 

[xgman]

Thanks for the tip, Much appreciated
I'm having trouble finding this option though.
In albums->faces All I see are my tagged faces and "suggested faces" on the bottom.
Highlighting someone's face also does not bring up additional options.
Thanks very much

Exactly. In iphoto or Aperture, you could click on one of the wrongly suggested faces and assign it correctly. Here no such feature. Slows the flow. I don't know why it didn't import all the iphoto faces intact anyway. Apple has a history of adding a 1 feature and removing 3. Don't get it....

 

[orioncrystalice]

I love the UI for the most part. I'm able to move stuff easier and more intuitively. I haven't messed with setting up iCloud Photo Library yet since everything is on my Time Machine disk. That service does work well with my 5S but I haven't yet tried to directly sync those photos into Photos.

I can't get enough of the cropping and angle wheel and feel that's one of the sharpest software moves I've seen in a while from , love it on my phone and on this app.

I have noticed that sometimes when creating a new album it will just duplicate the previously completed album.

 

[ShavenYak]

Well, one thing is for certain - this app is not by any means a replacement for Aperture.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with it yet, I spent most of last night getting 10.10.3 installed on my uncooperative machine. It seems like a decent enough piece of software for iPhoto users, but I'm leaning toward Lightroom now. I need to try pulling my whole 400+GB photo Aperture library into it to see how it behaves.

One thing that's a little unclear to me: in Apple's new plan with this app and iCloud Photo Library, is there any way to have any new photo taken on an iPhone automatically sync to the library at home on the Mac, without having the whole library in the cloud (which looks like it would cost me $20/month)? I know I could use Dropbox or some other third-party cloud to do it, but does Apple have a complete solution for this? Will Photostream continue to work the way it does now even after this gets released?

 

[Khedron]

Thanks for the tip, Much appreciated
I'm having trouble finding this option though.
In albums->faces All I see are my tagged faces and "suggested faces" on the bottom.
Highlighting someone's face also does not bring up additional options.
Thanks very much

Double click on the face to view just the person, then look for the option at the top for other photos they might be in

----------

Exactly. In iphoto or Aperture, you could click on one of the wrongly suggested faces and assign it correctly. Here no such feature. Slows the flow. I don't know why it didn't import all the iphoto faces intact anyway. Apple has a history of adding a 1 feature and removing 3. Don't get it....

All my faces were imported, but Photos found lots of faces it didn't detect previously, especially small ones in the distance or partially covered up faces

I don't know how it's detecting these difficult ones, maybe guessing based on most common people or photos taken around the same time

 

[revenent]

Hi Guys.

My Aperture library is running off an external 2TB HDD.

How do you import your photos in that way?

I tried a couple of Albums and Photos never imports it as an album. I have to sort it out all over again.

 

[joedec]

Hi Guys.

My Aperture library is running off an external 2TB HDD.

How do you import your photos in that way?

I tried a couple of Albums and Photos never imports it as an album. I have to sort it out all over again.

I think its all or nothing. I noticed that that structure only gets propagated when doing the initial migration from Aperture to Photos.

I am going to miss the ability to import a library and have it merged. You can't even merge Photo libraries, I tried.

 

[revenent]

That is terrible.....i have hundreds of Albums all sorted out and importing all of them into Photos leaves them all in one place called Import with no Albums. Can't it at least use the Folder name as the album name at least...

 

[joedec]

That is terrible.....i have hundreds of Albums all sorted out and importing all of them into Photos leaves them all in one place called Import with no Albums. Can't it at least use the Folder name as the album name at least...

On the initial migration they take all your Events and make them Folders, then they put the Albums in those. If its not inside an Event they keep the Album in the top level.

My issue is I like to carry a subset of my library on the laptop, process in the field and import/merge the library, with all of the albums, keywords, etc into my home/very large library. That goes away, so far at least.

Its too bad they didn't maintain file compatibility too, I never used iPhoto for anything except Calendars and Cards. Sure was nice to pop up iPhoto, build your Calendar or Card, order prints, having all the source photos available. The "Projects" part of iPhoto and Photos is way better than Aperture or LR, IMO.

 

[maflynn]

Hi Guys.

My Aperture library is running off an external 2TB HDD.

How do you import your photos in that way?

I tried a couple of Albums and Photos never imports it as an album. I have to sort it out all over again.

if you're using aperture and have a sizable library that requires a 2TB drive, perhaps Photos is not the best tool for you.

 

[Crazy Badger]

My initial reaction after importing ~30,000 from Aperture was oh dear

I've recreate some of the Smart Albums lost in the conversion and now have something that resembles my project structure, so will give it some more time.

Can't see it handling my import/backup workflow very well, or editing externally although recently I haven't been doing so much.

Having recently looked at LR5 and Capture One I'm really hoping I can make this work, even if it means somethings are a little more difficult, as I didn't like either of them!

Nope, the import routine is just too restrictive with no options for backup, selecting types of file (i.e. RAW v JPEG), or creating folder/project/album/etc. It doesn't let you do anything!!!

Added to that, there doesn't appear to be a quick and simple way to rate newly imported images so I can quickly remove any rubbish.

After some initial hope, I think this has been designed for people who don't actually own a camera, and take pictures on their phone/tablet.

Going to try and stick with Aperture until it breaks and I'm forced to pick a replacement

 

[sfwalter]

Is there anyway to create a smart album that have no keywords? For now I have a keyword called "tagged" which I add to all photos I tagged. So I created a smart album to show me all photos without the keyword "tagged". Its a hack for now unless there's a way to find photos without a keyword.

On a related note the UI for specifying a keyword in a smart album needs to change. If you have lots of keywords its going to be a pain to select one. Photos should allow you to type a keyword instead of having to use a select box.

 

[riverfreak]

I'm not filled with as much virtriole as other users and see much promise in Photos for the casual user.

Pros:
* It's fast. Very fast.
* The editing tools seem sufficient for casual users.
* Interface is clean and simple.

Cons:
* Library syncing is epically slow. As in like expect days or weeks or months to sync a large-ish library (200GB, 25K photos and videos) from an average connection.
* Duplicates abound and seem to be created at a fairly furious pace.
* There is no indication that an individual item has been synced
* The overall sync progress bar is coarse. It doesn't seem to update very often.

Troubling:
* the number of item on a local mac, on iOS devices, and on iCloud.com do not concur. It's not clear why.

 

[kilofox]

Email???

Is there a way to email photos? It is not available as a share extension.

 

[irishv]

I'm not filled with as much virtriole as other users and see much promise in Photos for the casual user.

Pros:
* It's fast. Very fast.
* The editing tools seem sufficient for casual users.
* Interface is clean and simple.

Cons:
* Library syncing is epically slow. As in like expect days or weeks or months to sync a large-ish library (200GB, 25K photos and videos) from an average connection.
* Duplicates abound and seem to be created at a fairly furious pace.
* There is no indication that an individual item has been synced
* The overall sync progress bar is coarse. It doesn't seem to update very often.

Troubling:
* the number of item on a local mac, on iOS devices, and on iCloud.com do not concur. It's not clear why.

I'm with you. This is very much a 1.0 Apple product, but I can see the potential. I'll be more impressed when features roll back to the iCloud website and to the iOS Photos app. Many of them should have been there to begin with (keywords, captions, etc), but at least now it looks like these will be in place and synced across the board.

A few key items I would like to see:

- Keyword Hierarchy (I'm guessing sadly that this won't happen any time soon)
- Better indication of what has been synced
- Import/Export libraries that can be merged like in Aperture
- Extensions for 3rd parties, which will come in time
- Folders for albums - seems like these get created if you migrated a library from iPhoto or Aperture, but I can't figure out how to do it in a clean library
- Geotagging, hopefully with the ability to display all photos on a single map like Places (instead of just all photos by year like in iOS)
- Ability to pin the Info box to a sidebar

I'm sure there are plenty of others

 

[pitt1717]

So i like this new photos. As others stated it is fast, clean, and for the most part has what i need for basic editing.

i created a new library and did not allow photos to copy the files into the library. i like them to stay organized the way i like. anyway, the 1 issue I'm facing and is keeping me from switching is deleting pictures.

if i delete the file from photos, i have to go to the folder and manually delete there. that is a total PIA and is driving me crazy.

 

[shareef777]

Any update on deleting already imported photos from an iPhone?

 

[swamyg1]

How do you import from Aperture? When I go file > import and try to select my Aperture library it's grayed out... And I can't select it. Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

 

[neversink]

When Apple abandoned Aperture, Apple abandoned professional photographers. I left years ago for Lightroom and Capture One Pro and Nik. These are so much better than Aperture, which was left in the dark years ago. As a professional photographer, I can't wait or hope or pray that Apple will get its act together. They have a history of developing great software (yes, an outdated term) and often abandoning after the masses buy into it.

Good luck with Photos..... But Apple is more interested in watches and fashion these days than professional applications in the photography department. An upcoming 18-page advertisement for the iWatch in Vogue magazine is an example of where Apple's concentration lies.

 

[AllergyDoc]

After fiddling with Photos for a couple of weeks, I like most of what I'm seeing. I used to use iPhoto and DxO. Now I think I'll be using DxO and Photos. Photos does a good enough job for casual photography and I've used DxO for my more "serious" photography for about 10 years. And it sends the jpegs it creates directly to Photos. I think Photos will only get better.