Q: iPhone isn't transferring photos taken with built-in filters

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Just lost a load of beautifully filtered photos due to this issue. Until recently, one simply imported them with ONE BUTTON. There are no amount of archaic threads, excuses, apologies or thoughtful workarounds (seemingly involving casting runes around your iPhone under a full moon). Apple broke the beautiful synergy between it's telephone device iOS device and it's Mac OSX device.  Remember Rip, Mix, Burn? Now it's point shoot, cry.

I was using Macs when they were still cool…

Even the forum doesn't work properly any more.

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Nathan Jones2 wrote:

 

Just lost a load of beautifully filtered photos due to this issue. Until recently, one simply imported them with ONE BUTTON. There are no amount of archaic threads, excuses, apologies or thoughtful workarounds (seemingly involving casting runes around your iPhone under a full moon). Apple broke the beautiful synergy between it's telephone device iOS device and it's Mac OSX device.  Remember Rip, Mix, Burn? Now it's point shoot, cry.

 

 

Well, you COULD just turn on iCloud Photos, and they will magically sync to iCloud and your computer, with all of the filtering and editing in place, in near real time, as soon as they are taken.

It IS on, and no they don't. There is no magic here.

Mine do.

And they should: What to expect when you import edited photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to your Mac or PC - Apple Support

If yours don't you have an individual problem with your phone. Go to Settings/iCloud. Is Photos turned on? You said you import your photos. If it's turned on you should not have to import them.

I bet they don't if you use a third party camera app - as per any number of discussions here.

Until recently, one simply imported the pictures. One did not lose the edits. The issue is relatively new. This is why someone added this post and asked the question. iCloud does not fix the issue.My previous comment was a vent, admittedly, but I just lost a load of photos (again) because of a poor;y thought out software design - one that used to work and inexplicably now does not. I am a photographer, I don't expect to lose photos. I don't expect bad Apple software to lose photos. I started using Apple computers because they were good with visual work. The hardware and software used to be more or less transparent. Now, not is not - hence all of t he comments on posts like this one. iCloud sometimes imports some of the photos some of the time - rarely all, any of the time. I just want to plug in the phone and press import. It was easier, and worked better.

Nathan Jones2 wrote:

 

I bet they don't if you use a third party camera app - as per any number of discussions here.

 

You have just changed the rules. A 3rd party camera app is responsible for the edits you make with it. If the edits are not being saved in the jpg file it is a poorly designed camera app. You should take it up with the app's developer. Apple is not responsible for design flaws in apps.

The iPhone camera app has the same issue. It's an Apple issue. It used to work, it no longer does. I have attempted to take it up with Apple. I have contributed to feedback reports and forums here. It is the Apple import that is poorly designed, not any particular camera app.

While we're on it, one of the apps has a facility to zip the photos to send. A bit inelegant, but seemingly a good workaround - except that the zip file size is too big for email. Conveniently it suggest to use the Maildrop facility. Again, this should fine, but this is also a flakey service and actually rarely works. It usually delivers a 0kb file. Without going on a tangent, my point was the massively reduced quality of the Apple software provided for use with iPhone and Macs. The communication between iOS and OSX is frustratingly poor at the moment.

Back on topic, the only means of transfer is one file at a time, which is frankly laughable.

The iPhone camera app does NOT have the issue on my iPhone if I use iCloud Photos to transfer the filtered image. I also was able to transfer it using Dropbox and the filtered image was intact, and I emailed it successfully with the filtering preserved.

I haven't changed the rules? Apple's own camera does not import filtered images into iPhoto. That is what this discussion is about. I pointed out that it used to and no longer does. I am also pointing that the issue is not to do with poor;y designed apps, but a poor provision Apple's own software.

The iCloud method does not work reliably, and the airdrop method (as per the article above) is ridiculous and impractical. These are 'new'; methods replacing the simple one click working import - which did used to work fine.

So you iCloud it to dropbox and then email? You use three steps to import photos from a phone in 2016? If it works for you fine, but I preferred just importing straight into my application. That made more sense to me and certainly saves time when doing actual work.

The fact is, Apple have 'broken' the filtered image import - this is what is causing the problem.

iPhoto has been retired and is no longer being developed. As has Aperture. Photos is the current Apple app, and it works perfectly. And I've never had a problem with iCloud photos. I take a picture and it appears seconds later on my Mac and if I log into iCloud. Every time. As I said, Dropbox works also. And I've got a really great new app called Upthere, which saves my photos to their cloud server so I can delete them from my phone to save space, but still view them when I want to.

Photos does not work perfectly (it's pretty awful actually, compared with past Apple photo products), hence myself and many other people on this forum not fully adopting it. Photos has myriad issues and is a downgrade of facilities from Aperture certainly, and iPhoto is also better featured. I can't use it because it does not easily show file names (you can only view one t time by cumbersome clicking) - something I need in photo management.

I appreciate you use a cloud and some benefits of that, but quite frankly, nothing beats plugging in a camera or device and simply importing the files. These other methods you mention are esoteric and fiddly. I do appreciate they work for you, but they are not really very flexible or adequate for someone wishing to use a library or editor on their Mac. There is no longer a pro or semi pro offering.

It is worth pointing out the irony that any non-Apple device imports via USB perfectly, it's only with the iPhone this is an issue. The iPhoto problem looks
suspiciously deliberate. It did used to work and only failed when they brought in Photos.

Had the cloud service actually worked, I would not have added to this post today. The fact is, it doesn't actually work and I have lost filtered photos irretrievably due to Apple software failure/bad design - tick as applicable.

Nathan Jones2 wrote:

 

So you iCloud it to dropbox and then email? You use three steps to import photos from a phone in 2016? If it works for you fine, but I preferred just importing straight into my application. That made more sense to me and certainly saves time when doing actual work.

 

The fact is, Apple have 'broken' the filtered image import - this is what is causing the problem.

No, that is NOT what I said. I took a filtered picture:

• It appeared, filtered, seconds later in the Photos app on my computer. Done.
• As an experiment, I also shared it to Dropbox Filtering preserved. Alternative. Done
• As another experiment, I emailed it. Filtering preserved. Alternative. Done.

AFTER this experiment, I opened the Photos app on my Mac and exported the image to my desktop. I was given the choice of saving the filtered or unfiltered image. I saved filtered, and could view it filtered in Preview. As you like iPhoto I then imported the filtered image into iPhoto and it remained filtered.

You don't have to do everything I did. Just turn on iCloud photos. All of the images, with filtering, will appear in the Photos app on your computer, filtering in place. And also in the web interface to iCloud. If you really want them in iPhoto then simply open Photos first, select and export to a folder, and import to iPhoto.

Alternatively, on your phone save them to Dropbox. On your computer import them into iPhoto from Dropbox. Saves a step. ALL of these different ways work, and ALL are more convenient than transferring over a USB connection.

I Don't use Photos. I do just move to Mac with Mac's Image Capture app. Seems to work well for those purposes.