Re-creating Photo edits

How are you importing the .AAE files?

Phots will apply all adjustments described in the .AAE file, when you import the photo to Photos together with the .AAE sidecar file.

Both files need to be in the same folder and the filenames need to match.

• There must not be another copy of the same image file already in your library. If there is, export the image with "File > Export > Export unmodified original" to keep the copy safe, then delete it from the library and remove it from Recently Deleted as well.
• Import the image with the sidecar file together.
• You will see the effects and the adjustments applied, if you open the image in Edit mode. In edit Mode you should see an active "Revert to Original" button. And the button to toggle between the original and the edited version.

Is "revert to original" active after you import the phots with the AEE files? Then click the "Show the photo without adjustments" button to the left of "Revert to Original" to compare the versions with and without adjustments. This will show you all adjustments that can be recovered from the .AEE files.

If you import a photo to Photos for Mac with its .AAE file in the same folder as the photo is, Photos for Mac will apply the edits described in the .AAE file.

And when you sync the Photos Library to the iPhone with iCloud Photo Library, the effects described in the .AAE files will bsync to the iPhone.

But the .AAE files in my library did only describe the filters (Chrome, Instant, etc), not the other edits done on the iPhone.

I only see the photo with the edit tools. No previous edits (Markup...) are recalled...

The mark-ups will have been done with the photo editing markup extension or another extension and not with Photos itself. The .AAE files can only describe adjustments, that Photos or the Camera.app itself can create. Edits done by an external editor are described as a second image file, returned by the photo editing extension. I really doubt, that you can recreate any other edits than color adjustments from the .AAE files.

You can look at the information inside an .AAE file by opening it in TextEdit (just look, do not modify anything). When I look inside, I am only seeing a color table with adjustments, no cropping or adjustments.

And Image Capture is downloading only the contents of the camera roll, the images you take with the Camera.app or save from other applications. You would have had to save the edited image with the markup applied to the camera roll as a new photo, so Image Capture can download it.