dasuess
Nikon Freak
Just installed an update on my Mac that includes the new Photos app. So it is now available to kick around if you are on the latest Yosemite version of OSX.
danielsterno
making soup from mud
I would enjoy to hear your or anyones opinion- I use Aperture and would like a comparison BUT I am not on Yosemite yet which I need to do, still on snow leopard, I think… one of the cat versions
kennylovrin
Well-known
I've used it since first beta came out, but not heavily so far. But here's a few outstanding things that I am missing from Aperture:
* No curves (other than that most adjustments exist, but look a bit different)
* Can't save adjustments as preset
* Lift & stamp is weird, can only do it in edit mode
* Can't select multiple images and double click to view those (and no 'compare' functionality)
There are a lot of other things missing, but the ones listed are the ones I miss the most. Think of it as a new iPhoto so far.
However, I can still do what I really have to in it, and I've been waiting for an iCloud library-like service for years, so for me it is worth it.
I am about to install the public version now, might contain some updates I don't know about yet.
Kenny
* No curves (other than that most adjustments exist, but look a bit different)
* Can't save adjustments as preset
* Lift & stamp is weird, can only do it in edit mode
* Can't select multiple images and double click to view those (and no 'compare' functionality)
There are a lot of other things missing, but the ones listed are the ones I miss the most. Think of it as a new iPhoto so far.
However, I can still do what I really have to in it, and I've been waiting for an iCloud library-like service for years, so for me it is worth it.
I am about to install the public version now, might contain some updates I don't know about yet.
Kenny
kennylovrin
Well-known
Another thing:
Smart album rules and search are pretty crappy. You can't do an album that is for example "has no keywords". It's hard to describe in words, but it allows you to set rules for certain meta data, but not set a rule that is inverted - that there is no such meta data.
And the search bar is also pretty stupid compared to Aperture, but on the other hand there hasn't been any help available in the betas, so I might have missed some features just because I couldn't find them.
Smart album rules and search are pretty crappy. You can't do an album that is for example "has no keywords". It's hard to describe in words, but it allows you to set rules for certain meta data, but not set a rule that is inverted - that there is no such meta data.
And the search bar is also pretty stupid compared to Aperture, but on the other hand there hasn't been any help available in the betas, so I might have missed some features just because I couldn't find them.
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
I got the beta a few months ago and while it's a jump up from iPhoto, it's a definite step down from Aperture. I'll continue with Aperture as long as I can and then it's Lightroom for me. What a shame.
burancap
Veteran
I agree about the shame part. I stuck my eggs in the Aperture basket a while back and I am not very happy. I have now sent my money (just this morning, in fact) to DxO.
MaxElmar
Well-known
Yeah, it's basically a different animal than Aperture and even iPhoto. It's a great way to manage a cloud-based library in an Apple environment where you want to see all your photos across many different devices and share various sub-sets with friends and family members. It's a very good replacement for the family photo album. I expect it become excellent over the next few updates/releases.
The editing tools are quite modest, but it is very fast and easy to use. I went the $.99 per month for the 20gig storage.
I still do my ingest, catalog, and editing in a full installation of CS6+LR. I have a while to think about replacing LR. I know people (myself included) who don't like the subscription model, but professional-grade replacements - say, a copy of Photo Mechanic and Capture One works out to three or four years of subscription to Photoshop CC + LR. Tough call if you ask me.
This is my set up for my personal photos, at work my employer negotiated a great deal for many hundreds' of full CC installations so no change there. I will say - when CC breaks something, you are hosed. I had a corrupt font issue that brought my new Mac Pro to a halt - I mean massive kernel panic. Adobe "experts" were useless. They blamed the machine, of course.
The editing tools are quite modest, but it is very fast and easy to use. I went the $.99 per month for the 20gig storage.
I still do my ingest, catalog, and editing in a full installation of CS6+LR. I have a while to think about replacing LR. I know people (myself included) who don't like the subscription model, but professional-grade replacements - say, a copy of Photo Mechanic and Capture One works out to three or four years of subscription to Photoshop CC + LR. Tough call if you ask me.
This is my set up for my personal photos, at work my employer negotiated a great deal for many hundreds' of full CC installations so no change there. I will say - when CC breaks something, you are hosed. I had a corrupt font issue that brought my new Mac Pro to a halt - I mean massive kernel panic. Adobe "experts" were useless. They blamed the machine, of course.
squirrel$$$bandit
Veteran
I think it's pretty marvelous. Lots missing for serious editing and organizing (curves, distortion correction, bulk renaming, manual geotagging), but it's a superb 1.0 and so far the cloud services work flawlessly for me. 15,000 photos, available on four different devices, and edits on any device propogate instantly to the others. I can't believe Apple actually beat Adobe to this. I'll keep LR for serious editing, but Photos feels almost miraculous as a way of actually looking at and enjoying photographs.
Alberti
Well-known
I found it a stupid application and deinstalled it.
What went wrong:
What went wrong:
- It created its own lib on my SSD, and while I said "don't copy files" it did take a lot of space and after some time said it ran out of space; allocated space probably, at a bit over 1 Gb. (I have 100 Gb space on that drive but I did not like the warning: did it create hidden files?). I deleted the masterfile.
- The help is very scarce. I subsequently have learned that it is possible to create a lib somewhere else than on the app-root folder, such as on my HD (by pressing Option on starting up; the help gives no clue).
- I have all my files neatly covered on subject in folders with classifications and categories but Photo only displays everything on date, unlike iPhoto with 'events' that at least was a bit of help.
- Importing does not open subfolders. I have many layers so to speak.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
You would likely have a better experience starting with Photos if you read the documentation first:
https://www.apple.com/support/mac-apps/photos/
G
https://www.apple.com/support/mac-apps/photos/
G
Alberti
Well-known
Well I always work by install, then try. Fool profess.But you are right. Just - I didn't find that page. Thanks.
Remains the problem of importing and preserving sub-libs from other applications (in my case: Capture One). I have not used iPhoto yet. So no events; I think my wife imports directories at a time and these are reflected in het iPhoto as events.
I will want to use it though, because I am moving pictures to a NAS. Then an overview app is handsome.
Sparrow
Veteran
... read the instructions eh? ... :thinking:
Its an idea I suppose, it took me over thirty years to get round to reading the M2's manual ... and I learned something new from that
The only thing I can truly be incensed about is that stupid new icon ... to say how good apples product designs are you'd think they could put some effort into the graphic design ... this new one is an object lesson in how to misunderstand both form and function truly missing the point if an Icon and being a dismal design in itself, bloody awful
... and that red iTunes icon too while i'm on the subject; what's that all about ... and why make them so difficult to change?
The program looked OK though ... mine looked pretty much like iPhoto after a few minutes, just harder to notice in the dock
Its an idea I suppose, it took me over thirty years to get round to reading the M2's manual ... and I learned something new from that
The only thing I can truly be incensed about is that stupid new icon ... to say how good apples product designs are you'd think they could put some effort into the graphic design ... this new one is an object lesson in how to misunderstand both form and function truly missing the point if an Icon and being a dismal design in itself, bloody awful
... and that red iTunes icon too while i'm on the subject; what's that all about ... and why make them so difficult to change?
The program looked OK though ... mine looked pretty much like iPhoto after a few minutes, just harder to notice in the dock
Alberti
Well-known
I found out why it was behaving so silly.
I did not have an iPhoto library for Photo to capture! So yesterday I created a iPhoto library from scratch; that did display the various subfolders as its 'events'.
Importing directly in Photo does not have any facilities.
Having read the Photo manual now (the few lines that go for it probably reflect the thin app) it says that if you make any changes in iPhoto or Aperture it will not be reflected in Photo.
It means: "sorry guys, we can't afford ourselves to make a good integrated application, you must stick with our sloppy work. Our time-box just ran out".
I did not have an iPhoto library for Photo to capture! So yesterday I created a iPhoto library from scratch; that did display the various subfolders as its 'events'.
Importing directly in Photo does not have any facilities.
Having read the Photo manual now (the few lines that go for it probably reflect the thin app) it says that if you make any changes in iPhoto or Aperture it will not be reflected in Photo.
It means: "sorry guys, we can't afford ourselves to make a good integrated application, you must stick with our sloppy work. Our time-box just ran out".
squirrel$$$bandit
Veteran
You kind of have to give up on your folder structure and go with the flow, and this may not be for everyone. I just exported my entire Lightroom library to high-res jpegs, and let Photos eat them and sort them as it liked. So far I've been dumping new RAWs directly into Photos and haven't needed to return to LR to edit...I'm sure I will, though.
Essentially you're giving up options in order to have universal accessibility to your pictures and a very fast interface. It's a useful tradeoff for me, but again, probably not everyone. I do hope pro features start to show up soon, though. Though they may not. It's more an iPhoto replacement than a Aperture one.
It's not sloppy work, in my view. It's their way of saying, iPhoto is over. This is the new thing. Get on board or don't. They're choosing efficiency, speed, and integration with other devices over backwards compatibility, which is a common Apple tactic...it lets them move forward.
Essentially you're giving up options in order to have universal accessibility to your pictures and a very fast interface. It's a useful tradeoff for me, but again, probably not everyone. I do hope pro features start to show up soon, though. Though they may not. It's more an iPhoto replacement than a Aperture one.
It's not sloppy work, in my view. It's their way of saying, iPhoto is over. This is the new thing. Get on board or don't. They're choosing efficiency, speed, and integration with other devices over backwards compatibility, which is a common Apple tactic...it lets them move forward.
willie_901
Veteran
Yikes!
Although I do export sRGB JPEGs from LR Collections for images I plan to use with apps that automatically (seamlessly) access Photos (iPhotos) when creating content.
Rapidweaver and Sandbox are just two such apps. I use them to build web sites.
Otherwise, I used iPhoto (and now use Photos) for video (mostly family/friends) and sorting my credit/debit card receipts. I snap an iPhone picture of all those receipts to avoid paper clutter.
burancap
Veteran
First, nice to see you back on Rff. After having grumbled above (I was more mad at the abandonment of Aperture than the change from iPhoto to Photos), I have the same take on Photos in the brief time that I have used it.
I had used iPhoto as my catalog (typically holding JPG files with RAW files held in folders outside of the app), and then various third party apps for heavy editing when required. iPhoto was starting to feel lethargic and downright aggravating at times. So far, Photos seems to be anything but that. While I am still soaking in the interface change, I definitely like the speed and stability so far. I believe that the inherent new schema for sorting and categorizing will be a powerful tool AFTER I have used it for a while.
Lss
Well-known
Good news, this is what I hoped it would be (as it soon became apparent it would be useless for any real editing).
I think I will give Photos a chance as an album and photo viewing software once I buy a new Mac and get the organization sorted out. I'm still slowly migrating from Aperture to Lightroom, and my photo organization is slightly awkward as I want to keep the Aperture and Lightroom files separate and even have a third category of photos that currently live in both programs.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Hmm. If Photos can't find an Aperture or iPhoto library, it should be presenting you with an interface for creating a library or just make an empty one for you. That sounds like a bug.
No, not really. The situation here is similar to what happens if you have multiple Lightroom catalogs. You can have the same photos imported into several different catalogs. If you change the adjustments and such in one, there's the question: "do you want those changes reflected in all of them?" To do that, the app would have to open every possible catalog in which the photo you changed might exist, search for it, and update any settings to match ... And you might not even want that (I often split out a set into a separate catalog to edit them differently and re-integrate my work back into the main catalog when I'm done).
Lightroom (like Aperture, iPhoto, Photos, and other software of this nature) works with one catalog at a time to keep this to a manageable level of complexity (or because of underlying technological constraints, like the SQLlite database can only see one database at a time...). So when you import an iPhoto or Aperture library into Photos, it looks at the contents of that catalog when you do the import and builds *its* information store based on that state. If you then, later, manipulate the library in iPhoto or Aperture, Photos wouldn't be able to retrieve that information unless you told it to ... It has no way to know that the library had been changed except at import time unless it did an active hunt and search through all related libraries all the time. And it looks like they have not built in the ability to "synchronize" (do a partial or incremental update) on an already imported library (this is a v1.0 product, after all...).
Managing data stores like this is very complex if you prioritize "no data loss" and "ease of use" above "give me all the features every power user might occasionally need and don't worry whether they can figure it out..." particularly when the power users are a minuscule fraction of the total user-base for the product. ;-)
G
No, not really. The situation here is similar to what happens if you have multiple Lightroom catalogs. You can have the same photos imported into several different catalogs. If you change the adjustments and such in one, there's the question: "do you want those changes reflected in all of them?" To do that, the app would have to open every possible catalog in which the photo you changed might exist, search for it, and update any settings to match ... And you might not even want that (I often split out a set into a separate catalog to edit them differently and re-integrate my work back into the main catalog when I'm done).
Lightroom (like Aperture, iPhoto, Photos, and other software of this nature) works with one catalog at a time to keep this to a manageable level of complexity (or because of underlying technological constraints, like the SQLlite database can only see one database at a time...). So when you import an iPhoto or Aperture library into Photos, it looks at the contents of that catalog when you do the import and builds *its* information store based on that state. If you then, later, manipulate the library in iPhoto or Aperture, Photos wouldn't be able to retrieve that information unless you told it to ... It has no way to know that the library had been changed except at import time unless it did an active hunt and search through all related libraries all the time. And it looks like they have not built in the ability to "synchronize" (do a partial or incremental update) on an already imported library (this is a v1.0 product, after all...).
Managing data stores like this is very complex if you prioritize "no data loss" and "ease of use" above "give me all the features every power user might occasionally need and don't worry whether they can figure it out..." particularly when the power users are a minuscule fraction of the total user-base for the product. ;-)
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
This is pretty much what I've been doing for a long time: using LR as my primary image processing and management app and using iPhoto/Aperture as a casual album/viewing tool. I used to use Aperture to make PDF photo books, but LR does that pretty well for me now, and I use other tools as well when I want more.
New work flows into LR, gets finished, then gets output to*a "completed_work" directory structure. I have a second LR catalog used to do nothing but catalog that directory structure. Then, I've move selected groups of the completed work into iPhoto for ease of display and sharing, copying the files there to keep them independent of LR management. But I've never really been happy with iPhoto's design. I'm actually liking Photos a bit more, and its better at the sharing and cross-platform synchronization, at least from first glance.
Fun stuff.
G