Selwin
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2010
- Messages
- 907
- Location
- The Netherlands
- Lightroom Experience
- Advanced
- Lightroom Version
- Classic
Hi all, I have three kids who all have personal iPhones and iPads now. As expected, the flow of photos is unstoppable. Must be a genetic disorder . Anyway I am deciding on a workflow for them when they run out of space on their phones. I have tried to be concise here but failed regrettably. However the quick question is at the second smiley below.
Photos and videos shot on their iPhones and iPad are stored in the Apple System Photo Library that is linked to their iCloud account, and are thus synchronised across their devices.
The essence of the workflow solution to be devised/chosen is to move older photos out of their synced Apple System Photo Library to another location. To cut to the chase: the current #1 solution I'm considering is to create a second Apple Photo Library on hard drive, which is not sync'ed in any way. So we have:
- recent photos and videos in the Apple System Photo Library
- older photos and videos in the second Apple "Older Photos" Photo Library
But could there be a better solution? I ask for your insights .
Requirements:
1 child must be able to manage the workflow without parent intervention, in order to preserve parent time and energy assets
2 all photos and videos, including the older photos moved out of the Apple System Photo Library, must be accessible on a computer of choice
3 child wishes to have edit functionality for recent and older photos
4 special "containers" like slomo, live photos and even RAW must remain intact after the move operation
5 absolutely no solutions that involve Google, Facebook or Microsoft products (yes I know Google photos is a massively functional solution but ... no)
Available hardware:
- three iPhones and three iPad 2019 minis, a pair for each of three children, each currently running iOS 13
- Mac Pro Late 2010 running High Sierra (no option to upgrade to Mojave or later) that they can use in turn
- Family Macbook Air which is also used at school on a regular basis
- iCloud account for each, installed and syncing well on all of the above devices
- photo library active on all devices
- 5GB free iCloud space
My current #1 solution in detail:
- Maintain Apple System Photo Library to be active on all devices so photos and videos continue to be sync'ed across iPhone, iPad and Mac
- Maintenance and edit procedures to be operated by the child on one of the Macs using the Photos app
- Create a second Apple Photo Library on one of the Mac computers
When photos need to be moved:
- Make sure all photos in the Apple System Photo Library are completely synced
- Follow this Apple Support article (read from 3rd paragraph) to "export unmodified originals" to an export folder on hard drive. Export "unmodified" makes sure the original formats are exported, but edits are lost so the user must agree to start the editing process not before the export.
- Switch to destination (older photos library) and import the originals by dragging the export folder into the library
- Inspect imported files
- delete the export folder or back it up to NAS just to make sure
- If need be, move the older photos library to a USB SSD drive for portability. The main caveat is that Apple may update a photo library on newer MacOS versions, so once it is moved from say a High Sierra system to a Mojave system (and updated) it may not be readable on the High Sierra system any longer.
Lightroom options
As Adobe allows simultaneous use of their software on two computers, there is a Lightroom option. I set it all up on the Mac Pro and it works. In this setup I logged in to each Mac Pro child account, opened Lightroom and entered my own Classic CC subscription credentials. I created a personal library for each child, CC sync off. In this setup every child can use this one computer in turn. I contacted Adobe and they agreed that this setup is not against the EULA. However, photos and videos are accessible only on that one computer, thus violating requirement #2. But it may be an interesting option for other users.
So, what do you think?
Photos and videos shot on their iPhones and iPad are stored in the Apple System Photo Library that is linked to their iCloud account, and are thus synchronised across their devices.
The essence of the workflow solution to be devised/chosen is to move older photos out of their synced Apple System Photo Library to another location. To cut to the chase: the current #1 solution I'm considering is to create a second Apple Photo Library on hard drive, which is not sync'ed in any way. So we have:
- recent photos and videos in the Apple System Photo Library
- older photos and videos in the second Apple "Older Photos" Photo Library
But could there be a better solution? I ask for your insights .
Requirements:
1 child must be able to manage the workflow without parent intervention, in order to preserve parent time and energy assets
2 all photos and videos, including the older photos moved out of the Apple System Photo Library, must be accessible on a computer of choice
3 child wishes to have edit functionality for recent and older photos
4 special "containers" like slomo, live photos and even RAW must remain intact after the move operation
5 absolutely no solutions that involve Google, Facebook or Microsoft products (yes I know Google photos is a massively functional solution but ... no)
Available hardware:
- three iPhones and three iPad 2019 minis, a pair for each of three children, each currently running iOS 13
- Mac Pro Late 2010 running High Sierra (no option to upgrade to Mojave or later) that they can use in turn
- Family Macbook Air which is also used at school on a regular basis
- iCloud account for each, installed and syncing well on all of the above devices
- photo library active on all devices
- 5GB free iCloud space
My current #1 solution in detail:
- Maintain Apple System Photo Library to be active on all devices so photos and videos continue to be sync'ed across iPhone, iPad and Mac
- Maintenance and edit procedures to be operated by the child on one of the Macs using the Photos app
- Create a second Apple Photo Library on one of the Mac computers
When photos need to be moved:
- Make sure all photos in the Apple System Photo Library are completely synced
- Follow this Apple Support article (read from 3rd paragraph) to "export unmodified originals" to an export folder on hard drive. Export "unmodified" makes sure the original formats are exported, but edits are lost so the user must agree to start the editing process not before the export.
- Switch to destination (older photos library) and import the originals by dragging the export folder into the library
- Inspect imported files
- delete the export folder or back it up to NAS just to make sure
- If need be, move the older photos library to a USB SSD drive for portability. The main caveat is that Apple may update a photo library on newer MacOS versions, so once it is moved from say a High Sierra system to a Mojave system (and updated) it may not be readable on the High Sierra system any longer.
Lightroom options
As Adobe allows simultaneous use of their software on two computers, there is a Lightroom option. I set it all up on the Mac Pro and it works. In this setup I logged in to each Mac Pro child account, opened Lightroom and entered my own Classic CC subscription credentials. I created a personal library for each child, CC sync off. In this setup every child can use this one computer in turn. I contacted Adobe and they agreed that this setup is not against the EULA. However, photos and videos are accessible only on that one computer, thus violating requirement #2. But it may be an interesting option for other users.
So, what do you think?