Photos.app is not the app I'm looking for

[simonsi]

Photos (and iPhoto and Aperture) use a database to store info about images, like faces. And other stuff. So does Lightroom and Capture One and many others. Using a database means you can store everything from image adjustments (like conversion to B&W) to metadata (like face names) in a database for quick retrieval, and it leaves the photos untouched. .... These are PIEs: parametric image editors.

Most PIEs leave your image files in place and reference them....So Photos, unlike most PIEs....

Well iPhoto, Aperture, LR and Capture One can all use referenced files as well as hod files in their own database. Capture One (not sure about the others), can happily do both at the same time (ie have part of your library in its database and part referenced).

Photos isn't feature-enhanced in this regard as you suggest. The fact that it is raising these questions on a pervasive technology and library implementation methodology implies Apple haven't implemented Photos particularly well. The is no confusion in Capture One, no strange apparent (or real) storage space cost.

 

[jdechko]

The puzzling thing is why this is happening at all, and why some images are copied and not others. I'm not sure that this is due to Faces - there were images with no people in them that were copied.

I have gone back to using Aperture for the time being; what's the point of having referenced images if they are going to be significantly duplicated on the host hard disk?

Does anyone have any idea what is going on with this modelresources directory?

I think Photos uses the modelresources folder for 2 things: face detection and thumbnail previews. In my digging around, I saw faces that were cropped from the originals, as you can see in my previous post. Also, remember that the way Photos is designed to work is that the masters are stored in the cloud. But Photos needs a local, low-red version as well so that the user can see all photos in the library. It appears that these previews are stored in the modelresources directory

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Simonsi, I think a lot of this has to do with Apple's intentions for Photos. Most users who stick with the defaults (import instead of reference, cloud storage with limited local cache) aren't going to run into any of these issues. The only reason I had any issues is that I don't want to follow Apple's prescribed methods. Other people who have different photo organization philosophies are also going to run into some of these same issues. That's why I personally wrote off using Photos, but overall I think it's an improvement for most users.

 

[26139]

Okay...

I stopped reading when you said you'd rather organize your photos yourself using the file system.

Can someone please tell me why anyone would rather do this rather than use iPhoto's system other than ignorance?

I used to do it that way before iPhoto back in the day, however letting iPhoto manage the file system is the best thing ever and I've never figured out a reason I'd want to go back doing it myself.

I'm dumb and didn't read before I posted.

 

[sarah11918]

As a Windows user, I had used Picasa as a front-end viewer to the file system. However, that has a nasty habit of littering folders with unwanted files, so that was out on the Mac as well. Additionally, it only shows local files, not local & cloud files. This isn't a huge dealbreaker, though. I have a 128GB SSD, so I only keep 2 year's worth of pictures on the internal drive.

I switched from iPhoto to Picasa on the Mac years ago because like you, I like to organize my photos in folders using a particular folder-naming and file-naming convention. I want my photo organizer to primarily be a viewer for my file system, over which I want total control.

Just wanted to mention that Picasa *does* in fact view local and cloud folders, if you specify to scan for those devices. As long as you can navigate to the associated folders in Finder (as you now can with Dropbox and many other cloud services), you can view them in Picasa.

So, you might want to reconsider seeing if Picasa works well enough for you. It's not perfect, but I haven't found anything else that plays as nicely with my file system based system. And, while Picasa itself has pretty much been abandoned as an app, Google has recently recommitted to its photo service as a stand-alone offering to be separated from Google Plus. So the hope is that *something* new is coming, ideally something that builds on Picasa's features we like.

FWIW, there are only two extra files I ever encountered in my folders. The first is single picasa file in each folder to hold any editing changes you made to photos in that folder. (As you probably know, if you make photo edits while in Picasa but don't re-save the file, those edits are only visible when you view those photos in Picasa, so I believe that file holds all those photo-specific edits for when you're viewing that folder in Picasa.) Secondly, there might be a "picasa originals" folder which happens if you edited a photo and "saved" it. Then, Picasa moves your original photo into that sub folder and replaces the one in the regular folder with your edited one. Are there other files that Picasa is putting in your folders? I personally haven't been bothered by those two extra files in each folder, and kind of prefer that that information is contained right in the folder itself.

 

[rexone]

The new Photos app is beyond a joke. If Photos is the future, then I want to die now.

I've dragged iPhoto back into my dock, which is where it rightly belongs.

I'm with you there Big Stevie.
This is still more of Apple's push towards the iOS being King & the OS being the servant.
I didn't spend nearly 4k on a BTO iMac for my home-office to have it function like a giant iPad
I really had high expectations for Photos & have to say it's quite a huge let down as I use iPhoto for photo library & management for both my business & home. Prior to Photos it was easy to do this. Now it is just not practical.
I just can't understand why Apple is constantly on this push to dumb their software down.

A footnote too... I'm surprised how many people say that iPhoto never handled large libraries well.
I've over 37k images in my library with well over half of them being hi-res RAWs & I've never really had any issues.
Maybe more to do with the age of the machine hosting the library & available RAM...

 

[simonsi]

I'm with you there Big Stevie.
This is still more of Apple's push towards the iOS being King & the OS being the servant.
I didn't spend nearly 4k on a BTO iMac for my home-office to have it function like a giant iPad
I really had high expectations for Photos & have to say it's quite a huge let down as I use iPhoto for photo library & management for both my business & home. Prior to Photos it was easy to do this. Now it is just not practical.
I just can't understand why Apple is constantly on this push to dumb their software down.

A footnote too... I'm surprised how many people say that iPhoto never handled large libraries well.
I've over 37k images in my library with well over half of them being hi-res RAWs & I've never really had any issues.
Maybe more to do with the age of the machine hosting the library & available RAM...

My library was 65k images and just under 600GB in size, I never had any issues with either iPhoto or Aperture. The only thing that would have persuaded me to sub-divide into different libraries would have been performance but it never did.

What I would say is that I had my OS and Apps running from an SSD and the library was on a different HDD, being on different drives may have avoided any cache/app/disk contention that would have otherwise occurred on a single drive, I don't know.

 

[jdechko]

Picasa itself has pretty much been abandoned as an app

And that's part of the reason I don't want to use it. I'm fairly happy with my current setup, and the options out there just don't offer enough to entice me to switch.

Ironically, one company that's in a decent position to make a compelling product just might be Microsoft. They've done some interesting work with Dropbox integration in office. A photo manager with full DB integration isn't outside the realm of possibility. Though I'm still hoping for an official Dropbox Carousel desktop client.

 

[jasnw]

OK, I actively dislike the Photos app, and have come to love (or maybe dislike less) good old iPhoto.

After fighting (and really disliking) iPhoto for a while I came up with the following organization that has worked for me. The first level of organization is the use of multiple iPhoto libraries. I’ve got one for “current” photos (the past six years or so), one for each place we lived over the past 30 years, and one each for my wife and I to put old family photos in. I have aliases for these different libraries in a folder on the desktop, and just click on the one I want to access. (I initially used the iPhoto Library Manager app to split the libraries up before my main one grew too big. A useful app.)

Second level of organization is within each library. I really did not like Events at first, and then I realized that I could use them to my advantage by setting up an Event for each year and storing photos/images that fall within that year into that Event. When I look at the All Photos view I have the Event Titles toggled on and I sort the photos by date. If I want albums for specific activities, or for pets, or whatever, I just set them up as needed.

This organization has worked well for me, particularly while scanning in old photos covering over 100 years, using iPhoto to set the date the image was taken and setting the location (still working on that one). The new “improved” Photos app breaks this organization at the second level. Organizing within Photos is pretty much impossible unless you want exactly the organization Photos imposes on you. Blech, and no thank you, Apple.

 

[Oz.]

My original photo folders use 780mb and the photo library uses 1.02gb without import.


This sucks hard !!!

 

[jdechko]

Organizing within Photos is pretty much impossible unless you want exactly the organization Photos imposes on you.

Pretty much.

 

[gpspad]

Photo's is not for the hardcore archiving user. It is for synching photos for people that don't want all that hustle.

Im in search for a hardcore storage option, photo is fine for my parents, and can see if benefiting them. You just have to see the program for what it is.

 

[jdechko]

Im in search for a hardcore storage option

So what exactly do you want to do with your photos?

 

[hydr]

I guess I´m the only one working full-time as a landscape photographer who have migrated all my work to Photos and love it? Granted, a ton of stuff needs to be added to Photos - but it´s a V1 release, and I´m impressed by Apple.

 

[jdechko]

I guess I´m the only one working full-time as a landscape photographer who have migrated all my work to Photos and love it? Granted, a ton of stuff needs to be added to Photos - but it´s a V1 release, and I´m impressed by Apple.

But did you import your photos into the library or did you reference them from a location on disk. I'm not saying it's not a good app. For plenty of people it's a marked improvement. The issue I have is how it handles referencing.

 

[Shattentor]

I experienced the same unexpexted behaviour when importing pictures while having the copy-box unchecked and couldn't believe my own eyes. There is just no reasonable explanation for having this option if it fills up the forsaken library nevertheless!