Pre-digital photos in conversion from iPhoto to Photos

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Level 1

4 points

Pre-digital photos in conversion from iPhoto to Photos

In my iPhotos library I had a lot of old pre-digital photos which I had just scanned and imported into iPhotos. They were organised by Events, as this was quite adequate for sorting holiday photos from work photos or the house we lived in, or which part of family history they were from.

Of course they all have the date I scanned them (or maybe it was the date I imported them) but it was not the date the photo was taken. Also the location is shown in Event title, not in each photo.

I am sorry but I am not a metadata nerd and have not put the missing information into every photo. I was just pleased to have a digital photo and to be able to order them easily.

Of course I can appreciate that Photos is aimed at digital photos, and can see that Moments makes sense for that. I have no problems using Photos for all new photos I take.

But the Photos conversion from iPhotos has resulted in a real mess for my old scanned photos. The Events names appearing in the iPhotos Albums in Photos are mixed up and often include photos which should not be there, so I can’t use them.

What to do? I guess I can go back to iPhotos and add more data (date of photo, place taken). But that’s a lot of work, which requires invention of dates and places.

or i could just use another solution for the scanned photos, like Flickr or Google Photos. I’m not really interested in photoshop type editing of the photo image, just being able to sort the photos more easily.

Surely I’m not the only person with this problem? Any suggestions.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), iOS 11.2, Photos

Posted on Dec 12, 2017 1:15 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,260 points

Dec 12, 2017 6:44 AM in response to varske

I'm afraid any database is like a sewer, to coin an old joke... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. It really depends on how much work you're prepared to do. Only you can decide that.

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Answer 2

varske Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 12, 2017 6:57 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thank you for the response, but it doesn't really help. And I disagree that one should now be forced by Photos to enter non-existent metadata merely to group photos in a meaningful way, when this was possible for iPhotos without that.

It seems I shall have to use other software for my scanned photos, which is simpler and intended for grouping photos manually, which I don't mind doing again as it reminds me what I have. But I do object to having to invent data and enter it.

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,260 points

Dec 12, 2017 3:04 PM in response to varske

You're not forced to do anything. Different apps work in different ways. If you don't like the way an app works use one that works the way you want.

But I do object to having to invent data and enter it.

Well that's just amusing. I want to find all the photos of Grandmas dog but I resent having to add that information to the photos.

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Answer 4

Dec 29, 2017 8:28 AM in response to varske

So it is iPhoto events that you are missing in Photos, right? I still use iPhoto and I'm surprised that the only (?) workaround in Photos is to remember add each new import as an album to simulate events.

Also I do have A LOT of old pre-digital photos. But I have carefully and time-consumingly inserted EXIF dates, GPS locations and ratings (iPhoto or Photos can't take advantage of the ratings, however) via GraphicConverter.

But in Photos I still miss simple things like iPhoto events and titles (yes, I just learned there is an AppleScript to add a date as a title).

iPhoto is old and maybe it is soon totally unsupported (I thought it was obsolete when my iPhotos library failed to sync to iOS but this bug seems to currently affect Photos libraries, too).

I don't trust iPhoto/Photos/Lightroom etc so I archive all my images and movies in simple folders on DVDs and HDs and currently use iPhoto only as a viewer in macOS and iOS. But I might soon have to move to Photos or some newer app.

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,260 points

Dec 29, 2017 8:36 AM in response to Matti Haveri

So it is iPhoto events that you are missing in Photos, right? I still use iPhoto and I'm surprised that the only (?) workaround in Photos is to remember add each new import as an album to simulate events.

You know, before there were Events in iPhoto there were rolls - another basic organising concept. In Photos you have moments. Frankly, Events exist only in iPhoto. It's just one way of many to organise.

But I have carefully and time-consumingly inserted EXIF dates, GPS locations and ratings (iPhoto or Photos can't take advantage of the ratings, however) via GraphicConverter.

Yes, ratings don't really exist in standard metadata. However you can use keywords to achieve the same thing.

But in Photos I still miss simple things like iPhoto events and titles (yes, I just learned there is an AppleScript to add a date as a title).

Titles are there.

I don't trust iPhoto/Photos/Lightroom etc so I archive all my images and movies in simple folders on DVDs and HDs and currently use iPhoto only as a viewer in macOS and iOS. But I might soon have to move to Photos or some newer app.

You don't trust these apps that store your images... in the Finder. But you trust the Finder? That makes sense. Using iPhoto or Photos as a photo viewer is a poor bit of disk space management, better off using a photo viewer.

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