Michal Ždanský Apple's Photos app for Mac for the first time he mentioned in June at its WWDC developer conference last year. Brand new software is supposed to replace the existing iPhoto and, to the chagrin of some, Aperture, whose development, as in the case of iPhoto, was officially terminated by Apple. Photos is not expected to arrive until the spring of this year, but the developers got their hands on the first test version together with the beta version of OS X 10.10.3. Journalists who had the opportunity to test the application for several days brought their first impressions today.
The Photos app environment is designed in the spirit of simplicity and is strikingly reminiscent of its iOS counterpart (or web version). After launching the application, a summary of the user's photos will be displayed, which are divided into groups. The first of them is a preview of moments, where they are sorted by location and time by the application, in the same way that iOS 7 brought. Photos thus fill most of the space of the application itself, which is a significant change from iPhoto. Other tabs divide photos by albums and projects.
The fourth important tab is shared photos, i.e. photos that others have shared with you via iCloud, or, conversely, albums that you have shared and to which users can add their own photos. From all tabs, photos can be easily marked with a star or shared to third-party services. In general, the organization of photos is clearer, simpler and nicer to look at compared to the iPhot.
Editing in a familiar environment
In addition to organizing photos, Photos is also used for editing them. Here too, Apple was inspired by the app of the same name on iOS. Not only are the tools identical, but the edits you make to your photos sync to all your other devices via iCloud. After all, the application is largely focused on working with Photos in iCloud and synchronizing them across devices. However, this feature can be turned off and Photos can only work with your uploaded photos without cloud storage, just like iPhoto.
Among the editing tools, you'll find the usual suspects, grouped together just like on the iPhone and iPad. After clicking the edit button, the environment turns into dark colors and you can select individual groups of tools from the right side panel. From the top, they are Auto Enhance, Rotate, Rotate and Crop, Filters, Adjustments, Filters, Retouch, and Red Eye Fix.
While auto-enhancement will, as expected, alter some of the photo's parameters in Best Result Adjustments based on an algorithm, an interesting addition is auto-crop in the latter group, where Photos rotates the photo to the horizon and crops the photo so that the composition follows the rule of thirds.
Adjustments are the cornerstone of photo editing and allow you to adjust the light, color settings or adjust the black and white shade. As on iOS, there is a kind of belt that moves through all the settings in a given category to get a quick algorithmic result without having to play with each parameter separately. While this is an ideal solution for those who want good-looking photos with minimal effort, most people with a bit of a flair for photography will prefer the standalone settings. These are identical to those on iOS for the obvious reason of syncing them across both platforms, but the Mac version of Photos offers a little more.
With a button Add other more advanced parameters such as sharpening, definition, noise reduction, vignetting, white balance and color levels can be activated. More experienced photographers will likely miss some of the other tools they were used to from Aperture, but Photos is clearly not intended for professionals who likely switched to Adobe Lightroom anyway after Aperture was announced to be discontinued. While the app will support expansion with other apps that could bring more advanced editing tools, that's a distant and unclear future at this point.
Compared to Aperture, Photos is a very pared-down application and can be compared to iPhoto, with which it shares practically all functionality, but it brings the desired speed, which is not lost even in a library of several thousand photos, as well as a pleasant, simple and good-looking environment. The app will be included in the OS X 10.10.3 update, which will be released in the spring. Apple also plans to release a public beta version of Photos.
oh otherwise retarded lightroom
Lightroom retarded? I don't know about others, but it is still the best software for managing and editing photos. I admit that before I started using it, I installed and uninstalled it 3 times while I was using it. Neake iPhoto-Photos cannot replace it as far as the professional sector is concerned. Phots is good for home "zuvania", but that's about it.
My colleague, I understand what he meant by "retarded". Don't take it the wrong way. Lightroom is full of useful features and it is undoubtedly professional software, but in my opinion it is far from the best. In particular, the execution is quite lame. Unfortunately, Adobe put the crown on it with creative cloud and their pricing policy.
I thought it was the best for me :-) and as far as I'm concerned, I'm also satisfied with it..
what better alternatives do you use (or have in mind)?
I personally then use Aperture. As for the speed and organization of libraries, even the last AfterShot is not to be thrown away. I tried Lightroom and somehow it didn't work for me. It's hard to rate "the best". We all have different preferences.
Finally some info after so many months of waiting. I'm looking forward to the beta.
wasn't it supposed to be in january?
In my opinion, Apple should not cancel the professional program like this. If he pushes Photos like that, he could release some, perhaps a paid extension.
I declare a minute of silence for aperture and buried hopes regarding photos. I'm even more curious to see what Affinity Photo from Serif will come up with.
Some sample environment is here: http://vimeo.com/114651847
the main thing will be how it edits RAW photos compared to Aperture & what, the interface is still more iPhoto than Aperture... but I don't want to criticize before it's officially out
the 5GB limit should be revised, but I don't have more information (I heard it from an employee at the iCloud presentation in the Regent street Apple store)
They are scumbags. They should revive iPhoto for iOS.
I hope they don't bury the final cut for X in the same way..
… in the menu there is a 'Photo Library Account' option, but I can't click it because it imports the iPhoto library :D …
…. so no hope for now, nothing has changed :'(
Do you know if my library will be preserved (by that I mean created albums and similar)? It's a matter of life and death for me :)
You can probably read the most about Photos here: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/photos-for-the-mac-is-clean-fast-connected-and-110170322774.html or here: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/everything-worth-knowing-about-switching-to-os-x-110129491789.html – it is well described there what will be preserved and what will not.