hey - i was just wondering what all you mac users were using to organize your pictures? i haven't switched over to Photos yet because i read it wasn't great - but i don't want to continue to put time/effort into iPhoto if that's obsolete. anyway - does use Photos and like it? Should i make the switch? Any other ideas? I'm thinking about this because I am looking for some pictures from a Disney vacation a few years ago and i cannot find them ANYWHERE ughhhhhh!!
I have a mac and I haven't ever used either of those to organize my photos. I use Image Capture to download and place the photos in my own folders which I have a system for keeping organized. I'm not sure that's really the best option though, because I can't really search for photos... I just have to know which year and which month the event was in to find stuff.
I have a mac but use Lightroom for organizing. iPhotos frustrated me because it would duplicate everything just to put it in its system - I far prefer Lightroom since I can access the photos either in or out of the program and they are where I expect them to be. I also love that when you import them it will go ahead and sort them however you like, and I can tag the so I know that yes, I really have scrapped that same photo 5 times!
I use Lightroom as well, but my photos are stored on my hard drive in folders. I tag them in LR and it's added to the metadata, which doesn't happen with iPhoto (not sure about others). I will say that I'm toying with the idea of storing all of my photos on an EHD only (I have 600 GB of digital photos, leaving little room for much else), but I'm a totally chicken to finally delete them from my iMac. Geek, I know. When I get up the guys, I'll move them from within LR.
I have always used iPhoto and photos, i have never had any issues. I love it. I organize in folders by date. I have 70,000 photos in there.
heather - have you switched from iPhoto to Photos? do you prefer Photos? or even notice a difference? did you lose any of your organization when you switched? i am definitely thinking of switching to lightroom ... question for you LR users - how do you get your pictures off your phone into lightroom? do you have to plug in or can you access from the cloud?
I don't have a mac, but in regard to lightroom, changeing the metadata? Does it change the orginal date from camera. Something i did once, be it brigde or windows tagging, changed some of mine (i have my orginal pictures untouced on external since and view and load in to ps, from me copy, i call use photos (inside same drive structure as on external)
I am similar to Heather. I converted to Photos right after it released. I'm not sure how you organize now... but if you tell me, I can tell you if it would be similar, lol! It's not way different, but it does have that learning curve like any software. I do like it very much and don't see a huge difference from iPhotos for what I use it for. I keep 2 libraries. One for photos for the current year, and the other for Scrap Supplies. Other photos are on an EHD. How I had my photos set up in iPhoto was how it was in Photos after the transfer... all albums. I'm not sure if it was something I did, or what, but the sorting was backwards, Z-A, versus A-Z. I manually did it, and it's fine. Once I transferred my photos, I deleted the old iPhotos libraries. Some say not to do this... but I researched and it all worked out. I do switch back and forth between libraries when scrapping, usually start in scrap supplies, switch to get photos and then back to scrap supplies. Photos is way faster than iPhotos used to be! My photos are sorted by date... I separate into albums when I upload. I don't know or haven't found that it will automatically create albums by date. My scrap supplies are sorted and made into albums by store/designer/kit. No tagging. I just use the search bar occasionally. One thing that doesn't seem to happen for everyone.... dragging out of Photos direct to the desktop loses quality for me. I click to export "unmodified original" and that solved it for me. I LOVE the cloud sharing. I really lucked out when my computer died that I had played with the cloud storage, as some of the photos on my computer were in the cloud... and it's so easy to press share and the photos are on my computer and phone. You can pick and choose which photos, or "moments" (like location or date). I edit in PS... but the editing in Photos is a HUGE upgrade from iPhotos. There is a "How to Scrap on Mac" group on FB if you'd like. It's a great spot to share layouts, ask for help, sounding board, printing info, promotion sharing (not codes, but more like so and so is having a sale).
thanks jenn - that's super helpful. right now i have pictures sorted into smart albums by date (4 Q/year) ... and i also have some albums based on specific events, and then some albums based on star ratings .... for Photos - can read a library on an EHD? i feel like that was an option with aperture? i'm going to go join that FB group
Your albums will transfer. The star rating is gone. I didn't use this, but know of others who have. However, it's automatically converted to a keyword - 1star, 2star, etc. So, it's not totally gone, just different. They incorporated "favorites," which you just "heart" it. lol. Here is great info too... http://www.macworld.com/article/288.../your-photos-for-os-x-questions-answered.html http://www.imore.com/photos-os-x-faq I'm not sure you can read a library on an EHD. Mine are sorted by folders/date. Hope that helps!
After they announced that they would stop with Aperture I went to Lightroom and it was the best change I made in my life, photos is very very basic Apple said before their goal is not to invest in photo program to advanced users so photos is really basic.
and this makes me cry because I realize how I am NOT using my Mac to full potential...... I'm not really paying much attention to anything right now as my computer is in it's last days (I am eagerly awaiting the next iMac release....it better be soon or I ll have no computer) but I had to move my iPhoto to an external grad drive for the computer to work a bit better.... I also find that when you edit, I can;'t find the edited photo unless I do a search and I had to have given it a name I will remember to find it....I thought it was me being dumb...
Okay, I am going to have to look at some of the links above. I have always used Lightroom to organize my photos and I still love it the best for that. I switched this summer to Photos and it was honestly a nightmare. I still can't figure out how the thing works. The first day that I did it, it worked GREAT. I could edit photos on my phone and immediately see it update on Photos. I did discover that unless I wanted to pay for unlimited iCloud storage, I would need to download the photos to my computer and then delete them out of Photos. Now, it is like the app on my computer does not want to sync with the app on my phone. Once you switch to the iCloud storage system on your phone, then when you plug your phone into the computer to download pics off of your phone into LR, the photos no longer show up to be downloaded. I felt like I lost days of my life this summer to it and I STILL have no idea what I am doing. I am well aware that this is not a ringing endorsement for it, I want it to work, but feel like I need to go park myself at the Mac store and get someone to explain it to me and help me out.
Hmmm.... I think I don't know about that part, is because my library is too big for the iCloud storage that I am willing to pay for. I opted to choose which photos I want to share to the cloud. Every few days or so, I upload my phone photos, but I don't usually download my computer (DSLR photos) to my phone. If I really love a few, I'll opt to share those to the cloud. This was my workaround to keep the storage smaller. I didn't want a monthly cost. This is not intended to come across wrong... but in essence I think of Photos as a file cabinet, lol! I'm think I like simple. I store my images in by date order (if multiple - then events on the date) in each file/album). I don't use Photos to edit. I use PS along with RadLab/ProRetouch. I have a second file cabinet for my scrap supplies, sorted by files/albums - aka kits. If I want a photo, I open file cabinet A, if I want scrap supplies, I open file cabinet B. My cell photos, when I opt to share, and they go to file cabinet A by date. I then add them to the correct file so they are on my computer and not just in the cloud. Becky... I think the difference for me is that the photos in my cloud are from my cell, not my computer. If I share them, I save them in an album on my computer... then I can delete them from the phone/cloud, if I want. Does that make sense? Maybe I'm looking at this backwards, lol!? I can totally see how this would drain time and days. Software is not fun when it is new, and different. I think the links above have videos that might help! The way I use Photos is so basic, that it works.
I store all my photos in folders. They are organized by year>month>day. I edit with Lightroom and Photoshop. I have looked at photos 1 time and it was way to basic for me and I did not like the whole feel and layout. That may be partly due to the fact that I have been using Lightroom for so long though. My system works great for me so I don't feel like I need photos. Most of my pictures are for my PL though and I stay pretty current so I don't really have pictures that I need to search and sift through. It might be a different story if that were the case.
Oh i should clarify I am using iPhoto. I tried photos but at the time there were a few glitches they needed to work out, I could change the order from recently imported photos being at the bottom to the top where I like them and I couldn't drag photos from there into PS which really annoyed me. So I switched back to iPhoto. I will give Photos another try though. I like using the MAC system because it connects with my iPhone for photo stream and my apple TV etc. The photos did import flawlessly though Dana.
I should clarify that I only started using the Photos app on my computer for my cell phone pics because I thought it would be an easier way to download pics off of my phone (as opposed to getting the cord out and plugging it in--apparently, I am lazy), but I have just found some issues with it syncing correctly. Although, after I was on this thread yesterday, I did go back in and mess with it and somehow was able to magically pull pics up on my phone and delete the duplicates and see it automatically deleting them from Photos as well. Overall, I really like having all my photos going into LR so that I can have one relatively seamless photo file system. So, I will most likely turn off the cloud on my photos on my phone so that I can go back to importing them into Lightroom directly from my phone. That was the thing that was surprising to me...once I turned on the cloud on my phone, when I would go to the import screen on Lightroom, I wouldn't have any photos there, because they were stored on the cloud and not the actual phone, does that make sense?
Yes, completely. I think because I share only certain things, mine remain on my phone. I don't know if it an option that I unknowingly chose either, lol!
