Photos: bursts, live photos — select, save

Question

Photos: bursts, live photos — select, save

I have a Mac with High Sierra (10.13.6) and an iPhone SE with iOS 11.4.1.

1. I am confused as between bursts and live photos.

2. In both categories, I should like — after selecting a particular image from a burst or 'mini-video' — to be able to reduce the amount of data stored (particularly on my phone) by deleting all the rejected images. But I seem not to be able to do that: after selecting one image and clicking 'Done', etc., all the images seem still to be there.

I shall save this cry for help in the Mac community because that is where I like to do my editing, but it applies, of course, also to the iPhone community.

Mac mini, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Sep 16, 2018 11:12 AM

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Answer 1

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Sep 16, 2018 9:06 PM in response to Michael Graubart

A burst is a cluster of regular photos loosely bundled together. A live photo is more like a video with a distinct frame marked as the key frame.

One of the differences between bursts and live photos is whether you can reduce them to one or more separate images. If you select one or more photos from a burst, they become separate images, and you are given the option to drop or keep the other images.

This is not true of live photos. Selecting a new key frame doesn't reduce the amount of data being kept. You can still go back later and select yet another key frame.

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Answer 2

Sep 17, 2018 4:23 AM in response to markwmsn

Thank you very much for your comprehensive explanation. Am I therefore right in assuming that the only way I can reduce the live photo data is to export the live photos from the Photos app on my Mac to some folder on the computer, deal with them there and then (if I so desire) save what is left back to Photos?

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Answer 3

markwmsn

Level 6

16,715 points

Sep 18, 2018 9:30 PM in response to Michael Graubart

That depends on what you mean by "deal with them" once they are in a folder.

It also depends on which version of live photos you are dealing with (JPEG or HEIC) and whether you use "Export ... Photos" or "Export Unmodified Originals for ... Photos".

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Photos: bursts, live photos — select, save

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