Q: PERMANENTLY Prevent Photos from Opening Automatically

Ok, this worked for me on El Cap

Open a terminal window

Type the following into the terminal and press enter

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool YES

Exit the terminal.

Photos will run if you launch it, but it will not autolaunch on every connect of a camera or card or reformatted card.

If you want to return to Photos auto-launching on pretty much everything, use the same command changing YES to NO

This fix has put my workflow back to normal without the gd Photos launching all the time.

Ok, this worked for me on El Cap

That is interesting.  When I tested this command earlier on El Capitan MacOS X 10.11.1 it did not work. Photos launched nevertheless when I used a new card.  Perhaps didt the recent update bring this default preference back.

Yes

Old Toad wrote:

 

Remember it you update the system it will also install a new Photos app and you'll have to repeat the disabling procedure.

In El Capitan, I had changed the prefs (do not open Photos when inserting a disk), BUT after I updated El Capitan this week, all problems are there again:

1) opening of Photos

2) slowing down of Lightroom.

Comment Poor Apple. First they messed up iTunes and now Photo's. Where will it end?

One thing you do NOT want to do is download your RAW files into Photos. It converts them to jpg. I learned that the hard way when I paid the tech where I bought my Macbook Pro to migrate all my files from my old pc laptop and my external hard drive. He installed every one of my images into Photos. All the raw files were converted to jpg. Unfortunately I had him reformat my external hard drive so it would work with my new Macbook. Fortunately I still had my old laptop so I could move the Raw files I had there myself. In hindsight I should have done that with both my laptop and my external hard drive. THEN had them reformat the hard drive. Unfortunately the raw images I had on my hard drive are now gone. I'm not a professional photographer and only a hobbyist but it still ticks me off that my raw images were lost. Did not even get an apology from the place where I purchased the Macbook. This was not a regular Apple store but a dealer.

One thing you do NOT want to do is download your RAW files into Photos. It converts them to jpg. I learned that the hard way when I paid the tech where I bought my Macbook Pro to migrate all my files from my old pc laptop and my external hard drive. He installed every one of my images into Photos. All the raw files were converted to jpg.

I don't know what the tech did, but Photos supports a lossless workflow like all Apple photos applications. The tech did probably only export the edited versions as JPEG and not your original files.

Photos stores all image files  as originals, and when you edit a photo it can always be reverted to the original version. You can always export the original RAW files you imported to photos exactly as you imported them.  That is the main reason for using an application like Photos, iPhoto, Aperture.  The database manages the photos as pairs of edited versions and original files.

I tried it again last night with some images I took the last couple of days. When I plugged in the SD card, Photos popped up to download them.  I made sure the delete after option wasn't selected and let the app download the images. Every single Raw file converted to jpg.

Every single Raw file converted to jpg.

No Photos does not do that - when you import no change is made to the original - it is either referenced (not recommended) or copied bit by bit to the Photos library (strongly recommended)

Why exactly do you think they were converted? If you select one and export the unmodified original you will get the RAW

and remember we can not see you so it helps if you provide context and software versions

LN

I was able to disable Photos while I still had Yosemite and was using Bridge to download and file my images. Since I have uploaded El Capitan I am not longer able to download images with Bridge. Need to get in touch with Adobe to see if any one else has this problem and how to correct it.

Because when I went into Photos later and clicked on each image it had the jpg designation after the file number rather than the CR2 designation. Is that not converting it from Raw to jpg?

Every single Raw file converted to jpg.

Have yo uset  your camera to shoot RAW&JPEG pairs?

Photos imports RAW&JPEG pairs as stacked.  By default you will see the JPEG of the pair as the original, but both files of the pair will be imported. If you enabled Metadata overlays in the VIew menu you will see a "J" in the lower left corner of the thumbnail.

If you open the photo in EDIT mode, you can switch between the RAW and the JPEG file as the original from the Image menu. Then you can use the RAW file and will see a "R" on the thumbnail.

Not at all -  the RAW is there as I stated - did you export to verify as I explained?

If you select one and export the unmodified original you will get the RAW

What you are seeing it a JPEG preview - the RAW is there and is the basis for edits, etc and can be exported at any time

And if you do not want to use Photos and Bridge will not work use Image Catpture (in your applications folder) to download photos to your desired location

LN

I have used Raw and jpg but that eats up more memory on your card. When you shoot hundreds of images at a time you need all the available space you have.  I don't need the jpg as I will edit the raw file and then save as a tif or jpg as needed.  I went to View and Metadata where file type and favorite are checked. I assume this is a default since I haven't changed anything.  I don't know enough about it to go making changes...:) When I look at Image the Reprocess Raw, Use Raw as Original, and Turn on Live Photo are not highlighted so I can't do any thing with them.  There is no j or r in the lower corner.

I will see if Capture works. I have tried exporting images but keep getting an error message that says it can't be exported because there is no such file.  I appreciate your help and will try what you asked. I didn't mean to hijack the OP's original post...lol. I am currently in Scottsdale where they have an actual Apple store so will try to make an appointment with them and see if they can get me straightened  out.

Thanks for that tip. That works better than anything I've found so far. At least it will put the images in the pictures file.

RAW isn't automatically converted to JPG, it depends on how you shoot.

With a new camera I set it initially to RAW+JPG and it appeared only the JPG was imported. I then changed the settings so that only RAW was produced and imported and in this instance there are only RAW files in Photos now.

Here's an extract from an email I received from an Apple engineer on the Photos team:

We wanted to let you know that the behavior you are seeing after importing RAW+JPG pairs is expected. The Photos application will pair the two files with the JPG on top by default. If you’d like to display the RAW on top, you can open the image in Edit view, then select Image > Use RAW as Original. You can see this information in the Photos help documentation at https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.1/index.html?localePath=en.lproj#/pht304c2ac e6.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion.