Copy and Paste Adjustments

Question

Level 2

387 points

Copy and Paste Adjustments

How do you copy and paste adjustments?

I searched for an answer and found several.

1. Select a photo (while browsing?) and Copy. Then select another photo and press Shift + Command + C. This does nothing.

2. When editing a photo, right click anywhere on the photo and choose Copy Adjustment. While I can see this option (on a photo that I just made adjustments to) it's grayed out. I can't choose Copy Adjustments.

3. When I type Copy Adjustments in the Help Menu for Photos, it shows Copy Adjustments to be in the Edit menu. Yet when I go to the Edit menu, only Copy is an option. No Copy Adjustments. Also, it does show the keyboard short cut as Shift + Command + C.

I'm running:

Photos 1.0.1

OS X 10.10.5

Posted on Sep 18, 2015 4:27 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 18, 2015 5:39 AM in response to 1 Open Loop

In Edit mode, right-click on picture and Copy Adjustments; go to next picture to be edited, right-click and Paste Adjustments.

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Answer 2

1 Open Loop Author

Level 2

387 points

Sep 18, 2015 6:07 AM in response to lescornwell

lescornwell,

Not sure you read my post. I can't Paste Adjustments, because I can't copy them first.

As you can see below, Copy Adjustments is grayed out. I can't copy, so I can't paste.

What am I doing wrong that is preventing me from copying?

My current theroy is that (since Aperture is no more) I installed Lightroom. Photos knows this and won't let me Copy Adjustments. Just my current theory, until I come up with a better one.

In the mean time, hopefully someone with more knowledge of Photos will help me out.

Thanks for posting lescronwell.

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Answer 3

Sep 18, 2015 7:49 AM in response to 1 Open Loop

You are sure that you are in the Edit Mode? Black background and Edit options at the right of the screen? Strange...

I don't think Aperture or Lightroom have anything to do with this; I have both programs and all is working well. Tell me... are your pictures referenced (I use referenced files in Aperture and Lightroom, but not in Photos- further, I'm only using Photos for JPGs) or inside the Photos Library?

I assume you have tried the obvious:

- quitting and relaunching Photos;

- rebooting the Mac;

- repairing the Library?

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Answer 4

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Sep 18, 2015 8:43 AM in response to 1 Open Loop

You have to be in edit mode and the photos must have had edits made before that menu option is active

My current theroy is that (since Aperture is no more) I installed Lightroom. Photos knows this and won't let me Copy Adjustments. Just my current theory, until I come up with a better one.

and that is ridiculous and simply paranoid - no one is doing anything to stop you from using LightRoom and Photos - although I'm not sure why you would use both since they do the same thing except LR is much more advanced and the two can not work together in any way

The most likely reason for your problem is simple user error - always remember Occam's Razor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

LN

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Answer 5

1 Open Loop Author

Level 2

387 points

Sep 19, 2015 5:01 AM in response to LarryHN

The image I posted of the right click menu was from the edit mode. Note that the menu is black, not white. Also notice that the options for Copy and Pasting Adjustments is there (but grayed out). I don't think you can have either of those situations when you're not in edit mode. Either way ...

I did some more playing around and found I could get Copy/Paste Adjustments to work and rather consistently. But not in every case.

Up to this point, I've been trying to get the Copy/Paste Adjustments to work after I had adjusted a photo using the Crop adjustment. I simply used Crop to straighten the photo. If I just straighten the photo, Copy/Paste Adjustments stayed grayed out. I can't copy the straighten adjustment.

However, if I add another adjustment, such as White Balance, I can then Copy the Adjustment.

However, when I past these adjustments (Straighten and White Balance) only the White Balance adjustment gets pasted. Not the Straighten adjustment.

I tried this several times on several photos. Same result. I cannot get a Straighten Adjustment to copy nor paste.

All the photos in Photos (bad app name) were imported from a memory card using Photos' import command. I'm assuming the are not referenced files. But, unlike Aperture, I never saw an option to choose referenced over managed. I'm not sure how Photos handles my photos.

I have not tried repairing the Photos database, which has about 100 photos in it. I'll have to search that feature to figure out how to do that.

LarryHN wrote:

The most likely reason for your problem is simple user error - always remember Occam's Razor -

That's what I've been assuming. That I'm doing it wrong. Now I'm a little less sure of that, since I can get it to work, just not will all the adjustments, 100% repeatable. So, is the Copy/Paste Adjustments broke? Or has Apple decided that straightening a photo is not an adjustment?

Do you have any issues Coping and Pasting straightened photos? Or is it just me?

LarryHN wrote:

... that is ridiculous and simply paranoid ...

I may be ridiculous (though I prefer the term sarcastically funny) but I'm not paranoid. Though I'm pretty sure once I use Photos enough Apple will kill the product. (too much history here)

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Answer 6

Sep 19, 2015 5:26 AM in response to 1 Open Loop

OK, so it seems you can copy/paste adjustments but not straightening. I can confirm I cannot do that either; I seem to be able to do that in Lightroom.

But straightening/cropping is an action that I would not want to copy/paste onto another photo, as the angle to be fixed might be different.

It looks like I cannot retouch a spot on a specific picture, copy that adjustment and paste that onto another picture. Seems reasonable to me that these things are restricted to individual photos.

I just fixed the white balance of some ten pictures with the same WB deviation, that works perfectly although it is a one-by-one process.

Repairing the library is done by launching Photos with option (Alt) and cmd keys depressed. You will get the message:

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Answer 7

1 Open Loop Author

Level 2

387 points

Sep 19, 2015 5:34 AM in response to lescornwell

lescornwell wrote:

OK, so it seems you can copy/paste adjustments but not straightening. I can confirm I cannot do that either;

Well it appears that it may not be me. It appears that Apple has decided that straightening a photo is not an Adjustment. Not sure I would agree with that. Apple didn't agree with that when they wrote the SW for Aperture.

Why would I want to copy/paste a straightened adjustment? I took 10 photos with my camera on a tripod and I want to straighthen. All of them. The same amount.

I'd call this a bug. But I wouldn't be surprised if Apple called it a feature enhancement. Either way. I will report. I hope other do as well so that we can get this addressed. Link below:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

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