Photos application

Hello Donald,

You can create a separate iPhoto library on your hard drive and then keep the default one on your computer for iCloud photos.

Let me know if you have further questions!

I have no idea what you are asking - what exactly do you want to accomplish and what are you calling a hard drive" image? Hard drives are storage devices adn can not created images - all images on your computer are stored on your had drive

all images you import into Photos will be in the Photos library -- you can have multiple Photos libraries so you could have different libraries for different photos but generally that is a bad idea and is complicated, confusing and makes using Photos much harder

Please explain and provide us with the software versions you are using and your iCLoud settings on yoru Mac and yoru IOS devices

LN

You can separate the images into different Libraries, but this approach is frauget with many issues and I would not recommend it.

Tell us, instead, what issuesyouretrying yo resolve, or what needs you're trying to achieve,and we might be able to offer a better approach.

There is one thing to consider when using more than one Photos Library. Only one Photos Library can be used as your system photo library and be visible to other applications in the Media Browser. All photos you want to access from other applications, for examples to ync with iTunes or use in Pages and Keynote need to be in your system photo library. And only the system photo library can sync with iCloud. So you would have to make the library that is syncing with your iPhone the system photos library and not the Photos library that has the photos from your local hard drive.

It sounds to me as if it is iCloud-centric.

You can use Photos without iCloud, as long as you do not enable iCloud in the "Photos > iCloud" preferences.

iCloud services for photos can only be used for the System Photos library.

• If you enable iCloud Photo Library for the System Photo Library, all photos from that library will sync with iCloud Photo Library - upload all photos from that library and download all photos from iCloud Photo Library to that library.
• If you enable My Photo Stream for your system Photo Library, any new photos you import to that library will upload to My Photo Stream and stream to the other devices that are using My Photo Stream. Photos does not allow to selectively only download from My Photo Stream, t will upload as well.

So you can use your libraries without using iCloud Photo Library.

can I take all of my iPhoto and Aperture libraries, convert them to Photo libraries (strongly suspect the answer is yes) or to a single Photo Library (if that seems better?)

You convert Aperture Libraries or iPhoto Libraries to Photos Libraries by dragging the library onto the Photos icon in the Dock. That will create a new Photos library from your Aperture Library or iPhoto library.

Photos has no tool to merge Photos Libraries. If you prefer one large library with all your photos, use Aperture to merge the libraries before you migrate them to Photos, as described here: Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries

Once your libraries are Photos libraries, you can no longer merge them losslesly: See this user tip:

If you have not seen these documents, have a look:

• How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support
• Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

Yes, you can. Just don't enable the iCloud Photo Library nor the My Photo Stream on your Mac like shown in this screenshot:

Also in the System/iCloud preference pane uncheck Photos.

That will keep the two devices separate as far as photos are concerned.

Sorry, the link to the User Tip vanished from my post: Notes on Merging Photos Libraries