Lost in Asia

Q: How can I search for live photos in Mac OS X Photos?

How can I search for Live Photos (synced from my iPhone SE) in my iMac's Photos program? I can see there's a little icon in the info tab - it's a vaguely snowflake symbol that appears beside JPEG, and above the f-stop and exposure data - but I want to also be able to search for it. Ideally, I could make a smart album with all the Live Photos. Is that possible?

 

For the moment I'm adding a tag, but that will quickly become less and less useful.

 

The best source on this issue that I've found so far is this article ...

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/mobile-phones/apple-iphone-6s/23333/apples-live-ph otos-problem

... but it's from around a year ago, and I hope things have improved since then.

 

Thanks!

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11), Late 2009

Posted on Sep 3, 2016 12:52 AM

Close

Q: How can I search for live photos in Mac OS X Photos?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Sep 3, 2016 6:53 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    Level 10 (84,105 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 3, 2016 6:53 PM in response to Lost in Asia

    I do not have any live photo device so I can not test but I am not aware of any way to identify them except visually

     

    You can suggest to Apple - http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

     

    LN

  • by Lost in Asia,

    Lost in Asia Lost in Asia Sep 3, 2016 6:57 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 3 (607 points)
    Apple Music
    Sep 3, 2016 6:57 PM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks for the suggestion Larry HN. Feedback sent.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Sep 3, 2016 8:11 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    Level 10 (84,105 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Sep 3, 2016 8:11 PM in response to Lost in Asia

    You are welcome

     

    BTW - I plan to order an iPhone 7 next week so I will have have  photos to play with soon I hope 

     

    LN

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Sep 4, 2016 7:00 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    Level 10 (105,518 points)
    iLife
    Sep 4, 2016 7:00 PM in response to Lost in Asia

    None of the live photo samples I have in my library have any text or tags that could be found by the rules available in smart albums. The only tag I can use is "camera Model is iPhone 6s" to narrow down the selection.   I use the work-around to add a keyword "live photo", when I import them.

    For my Live Photos the lens tag is empty, so I can separate them from other photos by checking for an empty lens tag as well, but that is probably because I am creating live photos from videos and they have not been taken with the iPhone.

    Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 07.50.35GMT.png

  • by Lost in Asia,

    Lost in Asia Lost in Asia Sep 4, 2016 7:00 PM in response to léonie
    Level 3 (607 points)
    Apple Music
    Sep 4, 2016 7:00 PM in response to léonie

    Interesting how that's working - and you've also made me wonder how I'm going to deal with separating the [frozen?] "photo" from the "live photo" for exporting and sharing, but that's something I'll worry about another day.

     

    For me, the live photos display the same lens information (iPhone SE back camera); the only way to tell the difference is that little snowflake/star/gear/live photo icon, beside "JPEG" in your image above (and boy does that icon ever look similar to the slo-mo and time-lapse icons). Thus far that little icon seems the only way to tell the difference, and unfortunately that's not showing up in any search criteria I can find.

     

    I'm curious: if you've got the 6S, why are you just making live photos from videos? Is there something about the way they're used on the iPhone that you don't like?

     

    Whenever I import photos I try to always add a tag for which (and whose) camera it's from, and I'm trying to add live photo tags as I import, and that's working OK but not great - it'll soon become less manageable as more and more people send me live photos. I wish there were at least a little icon on the snapshot, like there are with keywords, GPS tagging, HDR, slow-mo, and so on. Maybe in the next iteration of Photos.

     

    (And more feedback I've just sent ... it'd be nice to have the Info window visible when I"m in a different application! It's aggravating to want the information from that panel visible, but have it disappear every time I switch to a different app/window.)

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 4, 2016 9:52 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    Level 10 (105,518 points)
    iLife
    Sep 4, 2016 9:52 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    I'm curious: if you've got the 6S, why are you just making live photos from videos? Is there something about the way they're used on the iPhone that you don't like?

    Actually, I am having an iPhone 5s, but the software I am using  to make live photos (live maker)is adding the wrong camera tag - because the 5s cannot make live photos. I have not used this work-around for quite some time now. I used it just to have a few live photos for testing.

     

    My new camera can take 4k video clips, and now I prefer the 4K clips to life photos. The have a much better resolution than the fake live photos. And they animate as soon as I select them. I do not have to hit the "Live" button.

    it'd be nice to have the Info window visible when I"m in a different application! It's aggravating to want the information from that panel visible, but have it disappear every time I switch to a different app/window.

    You may want to invest in Power Photos. It is a great companion to Photos for Mac. what I like most, is that I can have the libraryy open in PowerPhotos and Photos at the same time. Power Photos can show the photos in a list view with the metadata listed in columns, so we can compare the size, pixel size, keywords of many photos at the same time. or sort the photos according to the metadata. Just click the column heder for the file size and we have the photos sorted by file size.

    Or show a grid of thumbnails with titles and subtitles. This way you can show the keywords below the thumbnails, the file size, or the filename.

    PowerPhotos can scan for duplicates or move photos between libraries.

  • by Lost in Asia,

    Lost in Asia Lost in Asia Sep 4, 2016 10:04 PM in response to léonie
    Level 3 (607 points)
    Apple Music
    Sep 4, 2016 10:04 PM in response to léonie

    You may want to invest in Power Photos.

    Hmm ... thanks for the tip. When I just had a notebook computer, I used their iPhoto Library Manager a lot, but at some point I wound up recombining all my libraries because having them separate was just too much hassle.

     

    I don't think Power Photos has too many features I feel like I'm missing, but can it do much with changing / editing metadata, in particular things like file names and dates? That's far and away my biggest issue with Photos as it currently stands - it's still nowhere near as useful as iPhoto was at organizing the massive digital shoebox that is my photo library. (Viewing more metadata would be nice, but if I can't do lots of batch changes, and in particular incremental batch changes, I'd probably get even more frustrated!)

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 4, 2016 10:45 PM in response to Lost in Asia
    Level 10 (105,518 points)
    iLife
    Sep 4, 2016 10:45 PM in response to Lost in Asia

    I don't think Power Photos has too many features I feel like I'm missing, but can it do much with changing / editing metadata, in particular things like file names and dates?

    No, you can view the metadata, but you cannot modify them. It is a browser and library manager.

    It will show the full info panel with more detail, and that is why I suggested it.  It is the only way I know to keep the Info panel visible while another application is open.

    I am using it frequently to keep the metadata visible when working in other applications. In particular the list view. I can spot missing keywords at a glance, duplicate files, or compare the file sizes.

     

    Hmm ... thanks for the tip. When I just had a notebook computer, I used their iPhoto Library Manager a lot, but at some point I wound up recombining all my libraries because having them separate was just too much hassle.

    I also combined all older libraries into one, but I kept the old original libraries as a backup and a reference.

    After I combined my libraries I pruned the combined library rigorously to keep it small. the original libraries are having all photos, but the combined library only the favorites. Sometimes I need to go back to the older, original libraries to restore a photo that has become corrupted or to add photos back that I deleted from the combined library. PowerPhotos can search across multiple libraries.

     

    BTW: even PowerPhotos can just show "Kind: JPEG" for Live Photos. It will not help with your original problem.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Sep 4, 2016 10:48 PM in response to léonie
    Level 10 (105,518 points)
    iLife
    Sep 4, 2016 10:48 PM in response to léonie

    A Live photo as viewed in PowerPhotos:  It is showing the path to the original file in the Photos Library, and there it looks like a normal JPEG file, nothing special about it.

    Screen Shot 2016-09-05 at 07.42.39GMT.jpg