I just looked at syncing via Finder, like we used to do in iTunes, thinking it was a bi-directional sync. You can sync from Mac Photos App or specified Folder to iPhone, but the following web page is given if you want to do the other way around:
I just created a folder on the Mac and put one photo in it, chose it as the folder to sync, ran a sync and the folder with photo appeared on the iPhone, Boom! (like they used to say).
But I suppose if you had one Mac folder where you put photos you want on iPhone, and used Image Capture to import from iPhone to the same Folder, and specified that as the folder to sync with a Finder sync, that might work… or maybe it would crash the universe… hard to say! (Oops, at great risk to the Uniververse I just tried that and it worked). Similar might work via the Finder sync option to sync selections from Photos vs. a specified Folder. As I don’t want to risk crashing the universe a second time today, maybe another TBTer can try that… ;-)
My general workflow however, with photos from iPhone or digital camera, is to create a folder structure in Finder similar to @Shamino’s method in Photos App:
Then I use Image Capture to import/download the photos via USB cable or card reader to that folder structure, and rename the images with a date format and short description. Then I can use Aperture, Photos app, Nitro, Graphic Converter etc to look at those folders and manage them from those apps (the so-called ‘referenced’ method).
So, if the tools of those apps are sufficient for your need nothing fancier is required. You have an organised, local folder structure that is easy to backup with usual methods and doesn’t get messed up by The Clouds.
For ease of copying photos from phone to computer, check out PhotoSync. It copies new photos over wifi when you are in range, to a location of your choice. Not sure if there are organizational features, I use it as a backup from the phone.
You may want to have a look at Musebox which has very nice photo management features and can work with a folder structure or the system Photos Library or both. It’s also a reasonable under £20/€20/$20 one-time payment.
There is also Nitro which is written by former Apple Aperture developers. It also works with folders and/or the Photo Library. It has both photo management and editing capabilities.
I edit my photos in Photoshop, but I’ve been using Apple’s Photos app, and iPhoto before that, to organize my photos for as long l can remember. I don’t have any trouble organizing them any way I want to; and if my Photos library were to grow too large, it is very easy to move the Photos library to an external drive and manage it with the same copy of the Photos app on my Mac. It comes with a bunch of (for me) useless sorting options, but I simply ignore them.
I find the search function of the Photos app works well these days. With simple search terms ("e.g. “windsurf”) it has found relevant photos that I “lost” amongst 10 of 1000s in my Photos library,
I’m just using iCloud Photos and the Files app as a temporary location for my phone photos and documents until I can move them to the Mac. I can make real folders in the pictures folder.
I use tonfotos to manage my pictures library. It’s free, small, fast.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac. It doesn’t care what drives or folders you choose to contain your photos. It can copy them to a master backup or leave them in place. It displays all IPC metadata and enables you to add your own, because IPCs travels with the image, and it’s interoperable with other systems.
ACDSee displays a mass of size-adjustable thumbnails across the screen and enables you shift-select or command-select them quickly to mass-assign your custom tags with a click.
This is important for people like me who have large collections of images that were not taken by me — slides and other images scanned from photos, and pictures taken by other people — not just iPhones. Not a subscription. Until August (oops!) only $55.
I’m finding I make very few albums, and temporary at that, on iPhone in large part for this reason… it’s a wasted effort for those of us who use our Macs as our computing hubs.
So I’ve come back to your original post and realize my earlier comments were not directly to your questions.
Scrolling to the bottom of the Photos screen in Photos App, there is a “Customize and Reorder” button which allows On My Mac to be reordered.
The difference is quite simple. An album will allow you to quickly add photos of a person, occasion, or event to group them together. On the other hand, a folder will only allow you to add existing albums and other folders to it rather than individual pictures.
I searched for about 20 minutes on this with various keywords and found on various blogs and Apple Discussions frequent references to iCloud being the ‘easiest’ way to sync albums from iPhone to Mac, with no reference of ‘possible alternatives’.
There do seem to be various semi-dodgy-looking or subscription 3rd party Apps for Mac and PC that can do this.
So, further research seems required if one wants to work outside Apples preferred business-model-supporting method. Need to hop onto my errands but am also looking forward to a non-iCloud solution.
I’m another that doesn’t use iCloud for my photos.
I use Photos (and iPhoto before that|) for images from my Cameras, phone and iPad, and a folder hierarchy in the Finder for scanned slides. This method has served me well for (probably) before iPhoto - mind you there were very few digital originals before that.
I used to use Extensis Portfolio originally and tried a few other DAMs that came and went and then when iPhoto came along I stopped using Portfolio except for scanned images.
I used the ‘Albums’ feature a lot and still do in Photos (up to point). However, as time goes on Albums starts to get rather unwieldy so my use of that has diminished to only being used for holiday pix.
What I do use though is ‘keywords’, and now every new import (from whatever source) gets keyworded to within an inch of its life. Yes it takes time but keywording batches is easy.
As an example, I was recently in Spain, local to me were some salt pans. On the salt pans was a flock of flamingos, some stilts and some stilt chicks.
Selecting all those images allows me to keyword every one with Spain, Location and salt pans in one go. Deselecting the stilts I can add flamingo. deselecting those and reselecting the others allows me to enter stilt and chick (if it’s relevant). Errors are easy to correct on individual images.
If I now do a search for Chick, Photos will show me all those images with chick including any other chick-pix from other imports. Using multiple keywords in the search narrows down the results accordingly.
Keywording is so easy to do and use but i’m surprised so few people I come across actually use it.
For my scanned images it’s a tad more tedious as I have to do each image individually in Photoshop.
With regards storage, Photos resides on an external drive and scanned images are on a separate drive filed by Subject (mostly the are musicians).
Images that I deem commercially viable are also uploaded to Smugmug (www.jazz mugs.net) and some to Alamy. Smugmug has a cost but I find that it’s worth it in the long run. (I also have a private section with family pictures and movies that is only accessible by close family members.)
Excellent reminder! ACDSee is much better known on the Windows side of the equation, but I recall their Mac software as being quite competent. I had purchased one of their software bundles a few years ago, but mostly for Windows. At the time, I had been using Photoshop Elements for routine photo editing on the Mac, but now that PE only works for three years, ACDSee is worth a look, especially while discounted. I’m particularly interested in its Digital Asset Management tool.
Looks like excellent value but I am cautious about “this all-in-one software gives you AI-powered digital asset management to effortlessly navigate and organize your photo collections”. So the photo analysis is likely online and potentially not confidential. For example, this is a concern with AI face recognition.
or maybe it would crash the universe… hard to say! (Oops, at great risk to the Uniververse I just tried that and it worked). Similar might work via the Finder sync option to sync selections from Photos vs. a specified Folder. As I don’t want to risk crashing the universe a second time today, maybe another TBTer can try that… ;-)