Upgrading an iPhoto library to Photos has messed around with my 'Faces' library

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Upgrading an iPhoto library to Photos has messed around with my 'Faces' library

I have recently purchased a new MacBook Pro which came with OS Sonoma 14.x; i've since updated that to Sequioa, 15.1

My previous Mac/s used Yosemite, and Sierra systems, and I have several iPhoto libraries stored on drives.

I noticed when I migrated my User data onto the new laptop it upgraded my System photo library and ended up altering a lot of my faces database such that it renamed several persons as another name such that that person is predominant now. I have to meticulously go through changing names back.

With my other saved iPhoto libraries which contain thousands of photos and hundreds of Faces, I do not want to have the same happen to these; what are my options? Can I have an older version of iPhoto installed onto my OS 15.1 Mac (legacy software?) I do have prior iLife installer disks that I may be able to extract it from. (May have a problem reading from disk though). I understand that we are trying to use Intel-based software on the new Silicon OS? I attempted to download iPhoto 9.X, which were only updates, and advised that I needed to install Rosetta to bridge the OS protocol issue?

My fears of incompatabilities are always confirmed whenever i'm faced with major hardware/software updates… technology never gets easier!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Nov 14, 2024 4:55 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 14, 2024 8:18 AM in response to martmax

Face ID is a very cool thing, but there's no universal format for it, and Face ID doesn't transfer well. My process is to use the Face ID and People albums to help me add name keywords to my pictures. I just open the "Jennifer" people album, select all, and add the Jennifer keyword, for instance. And lots of time Jennifer doesn't have her face toward the camera and isn't recognized, so I like having the keywords that don't depend on Face ID.

And I try to include people's names in the captions, as well, especially since iPhones and iPads don't show keywords. Keywords are always kept in alphabetical order, so with groups of pictures, Captions can indicate order. Captions and keywords are universal and quite robust in transfers of Photos with metadata between OS upgrades and even to rival computer systems.

So, with each major upgrade, after waiting a week or two for Face IDs to finish, I get all pictures with a keyword of "Jennifer" and make sure their faces are right, and so on with others.

iPhotos is no longer supported by Apple-- it was discontinued 10 years ago, after all. You can use the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($30) to import iPhoto Libraries in to Photos, preserving much of the structure. Events become Albums, for instance. PowerPhotos is made by Fat Cat Software who made the iPhoto Library Manager that was an essential accessory to iPhoto. Those people are probably the best iPhoto experts, and they're pretty nice at helping out.

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