will iPhoto work with El Capitan ?

We'll know for certain one September 30th, but the current state of gossip is that iPhoto runs fine under El Capitan.

However, this is a time limited situation. Sooner or later a version of the OS will come along that win't run iPhoto, so you need to be planning for that one way or another. Note that you're not "railroaded" into anything. You have a range of choices:

Don't upgrade the OS and stay with iPhoto - but ultimately you'll need a new machine and that won't work then.

Migrate to Photos and learn how to use it. It's not that terribly different and is better in some ways - particularly editing and the whole iCloud Library feature.

Migrate to another application entirely - personally, I went to Lightroom as the best fit for my needs, but there are many other apps that you can use instead.

So, no railroading there, just plenty of options.

10k is not a large library. My 60k library migrated flawlessly

I called Apple Support Line on Oct 1. After some research, the Apple representative said: "Yes, if you have the latest version of iPhoto ( 9.6.1 ) then your iPhoto will operate with El Capitan."

Of course, they are quick to remind you that there is no guarantee that iPhoto will work with future operating systems.

And I agree with you. While the editing features are nice in Photo, the organization in Photo is useless. Photo's organization is merely a clump of photos, an even larger clump of photos, and an impossible clump of photos. It is as useful as throwing all of your photos in a shoe box.

Apple's goal is to have systems that work across all of their devices. However, I have no need for all of my photos to be on my phone. But I do have a need for an organized system of photos that we have on iPhoto.

It is a shame that Apple was not clever enough - or cared enough - to devise a system that works across various devices AND allows for a useful organization of photos.

If you're using Lightroom it's hard to see any use for either iPhoto or photos.

I really appreciate this post as I have the exact same questions! I like the true organization of iPhoto - I have events with Key photos about 60 to 80 events per year since early 2004 --- about 8 libraries (most recent ones are 1 library per year)--- and while I will move to PHOTOS someday… It just isn't the same. (I agree with DavidColumbus' reply! lol but a bit true!!)

So I am intrigued by LIGHTROOM: Is this "Adobe Lightroom CC for Mac, 5.7.1"?? (CC = Creative Cloud)??

I really don't want a $10/month cloud/photo subscription service - I just want to organize my photos similarly to what I did (do) with iPhoto. Can one simply purchase Lightroom and use it without having a subscription / cloud service?

Thanks for any information! Really appreciated.

Steve

Sunday 4 October 2015

14:31

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Yes you can, but it's more expensive than the annual subscription, assuming you update yearly. AFAIK the one time purchase option is also missing some features. For details see the Adobe website. BTW Lightroom is on v6 now.

Thanks for the superfast reply!

OK Lightroom is therefore a commitment of about $120/yr it seems. I imagine I can migrate all my iPhoto libraries to it? Can I keep separate libraries like I do with iPhoto (since they get very large I don't need 12 years and 500 gb of photos on my Mac so I keep 2 complete copies on external Hard Drives - each from 10 gb to 80 gb in size). (I think PHOTOS enables one to have more than one "Library" - isn't that correct?)

Can Lightroom organize photos into "events" or "albums" and can I assign a "key Photo" like with iPhoto? (With Photos I find the only way to have a "key Photo" is to give the photo I want the earliest date in the album and then it is the one to appear. So I can duplicate that photo and just change the date of the duplicate I believe-- or reimport it as a new photo or something. A bit of work and I've only played with this a few days on my daughter's new MacBook…)

Thanks Terence for any additional comments--- Glad Hard Drive prices keep coming down as I sure will be needing a number of them to make sure I don't lose decades of photos! (Need to print some!)

Steve

Sunday 4 October 2015

14:41

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These are really questions for the Adobe forums here

https://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom

But I'll try answer. The package that gets your LR for $120 gets you Photoshop as well. Yes you can have multiple Libraries (or catalogs as they call them). That said you don't need them as LR is quite capable of working with the files started on an external drive. So one Library the Masters stored on externals saves disk same and is a lot more convenient, especially when it comes to searching. Yes you can also have more than one library with Photos.

You can certainly organise your photos into items similar to iPhoto's Albums or Events. They're not called the same thing. As for Key Photos? I've no idea, sorry.

There are hundreds (and hundreds) of videos on YouTube about Lightroom. Go check them out - begin with the basics. There are also a lot of alternative applications. LR is a Professional grade app and it has a learning curve. It might not be the right fit for you.

Thanks!! I think for now I'll continue with iPhoto and migrate to Photos. Really appreciate all this and have printed a copy!!

"Key Photos" is when you create events in iPhoto: Let's say you have 123 photos in there all basically about you and your daughter at Halloween. So you find one photo that has you, your daughter and a pumpkin in it and you indicate in iPhoto that that is the photo to show when the events are displayed. The "Key Photo". It makes visual organization easy and fun!

Steve

I know what key photos are, just no idea if LR has them...

This is in response to your inquiry about key photo.

Once inside any album, choose any photo you want to be your key photo and click on it .. you will will see some options, the second one is "Make Key photo" .. click it and it will be the key photo for that album. This should be much easier than the method you mentioned.

Hope this helps.

SUPER! Hey, thanks VERY much--- now that I think of it, the only time I have worked on Photos was back in May 2015 on my daughter's new MacBook and that was running Yosemite. Maybe this right click is new for 10.11 El Captan -- or maybe it was always there -- but I really appreciate you coming back with a reply here. Excellent!

Have a great weekend!

Best regards,

Steve Schulte

Friday 9 October 2015

I have to say that I find it quite disturbing, frustrating & annoying that Apple has dropped iPhoto & Aperture and replaced them with an app that, in my opinion, is inferior to both. I really find this assumption that Cloud is what it's all about & is relevant to all users very annoying.

I rely on iPhoto for my work. I have well over 40k images & iPhoto allows me to keep them easily sorted & tagged.

None of that is there in Photos.

As one previous poster said Photos is about as useful for cataloguing as a shoebox full of photos.

What I also find very annoying is the forcible installation of Photos and the subsequent updating of your library every time you update the OS.

I have been halting the update process & manually removing Photos with every update & have had a couple of heated conversations with Apple support over this.

In my book it should be asking permission before updating your library & making an app an integral part of the OS is no excuse.

Anyhews... I'll be updating to El Capitan soon so will have to go through that removal process again but thanks for the heads-up that some peeps have been having iPhoto issues, I have bookmarked this thread for troubleshooting support 🙂

1. Apple have ceased development of iPhoto and Aperture. It has not replaced either with Photos. Photos is a whole new app going in a different direction.

2. You do not need to use iCloud with Photos, but - and this is what I meant about a different direction - Photos is aimed at users who wish to manage and process images seamlessly across a range of Apple devices on OS X and iOS.

3. iPhoto - like Photos - is a consumer level application and not aimed at the professional setting. Photos has both tagging and sorting, in fact has pretty much all the same tools for managing images as iPhoto. There are some differences, of course, but it's arguable a more capable application in this area. The one previous poster obviously didn't look too closely at the application.

3. Your Library is not updated every time you update the OS. It's only updated if you launch the app. If you don't use the app and therefore don't have a Library, there is no issue. There are lots of apps on your Mac put there by the OS that you might never use.

4. If manually removing the app is a pain then don't do. Just ignore the app.

FWIIW: my experiences:

I use Lightroom since V3. You have to import from folders with photos in it. A very satisfying package.

LTR is a photo organiser combined with a very advanced editing functions (although just a little bit less than the "real" Photoshop app).

Now I have the LTR6 Standalone version which is a one time license (I don't like the recurring fee earning model).

I also use iPhoto sometimes, it is quite well running in ElCapitan. To avoid issues with updates in Appstore in ElCapitan, I dragged the iPhoto app from the Applications folder, and then installed it from the Purchased tab in Appstore, this then the latest Photo update, and it runs perfectlx well in ElCapitan. The difference is that iPhoto has the photos in it, LTR has just the data and previews in the Library and has the photos in folder(s) in Finder.

I also use Photoshop Elements (v14) which is sold as a "complete" package. I am not very enthousiast about PE: it is not an integrated package (as it used to be in Windows) but two apps: organiser (by far not as good as LTR) and an editor by far not as good as LTR. but it is very practical for beginners who want auto editing.