pictures vs photo

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with upgrade on MBA Yosemite 10.10.3......I now have Photos App instead of iphoto. no issue there.

i have some pictures in Picture Folder and some videos in Video Folder. Can't remember how i copied them over.

recently, when connecting my iphone to MBA and copy pics...it seems that Photos App takes over and wants to import both pics and videos to that folder. not exactly sure difference between Pictures Folder and Photos...other than photos allows sharing (am presuming with other Mac products I have) and editing, making slideshows etc.

in windows, i knew my way around perfectly. would just open windows explorer and could select, drop/drag anything anywhere. Sure do miss that explorer function...i knew the tree structure very well and where all files were like the back of my hand.
With Mac quite a bit different.

can anyone provide some 'easy' way to understand how to move files in pictures and video files to photos
and how to move all files in photos to my external drive.... as my storage is only 128GB and fast filling up. I chose not to upgrade to more as I thought it would be so easy just to copy to external drive. And maybe it is...just have not worked on that yet.

i purchased a book "switching to the Mac...the missing manual' Yosemite Edition by David Pogue, it is pretty detailed and difficult to find answers specific to MBA rather MBP or Apple Computer.

what i really need is a yosemite apple course where I can attend and get hands on and personal help. of course, that is not available in my location.

I am sure someone here can help
 
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I came over from the "dark side" about 2 years ago. I still have Windows at work but I have added a mac pro and macbook pro to my work computers.

I found this forum and read everything I could find on here. I also asked a lot of questions on the forum. There are a lot of knowledgeable people here who will help.

I too tend to purchase books to learn new things and I did pick up a few on OS X but I learned more on the forum than I did from the books. It is kind of like the people here know what really works and the best way to do it.

As for Photos. I don't tend to use it. I guess the confusion of it escapes me. I let my iphone sync with my MB Air. Other photos I have imported into a photos folder and let the photos app import them. You can delete from the folders. I guess I need to know what you are confused about.

Drop and drag is the same in OS X. Deleting does require dragging a file to the trash - which was a change for me who was use to deleting a file not dragging to the trash.

Ask questions. And keep playing with it. There is a learning curve.

Lisa
 
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Deleting does require dragging a file to the trash - which was a change for me who was use to deleting a file not dragging to the trash.

You can delete with command+delete also. Just make sure to empty the trash after deleting in order to free up the space. I think OSX doesn't free up the space until you empty the trash, even on external drives also.

As for your first post Lori, sorry I can't help much as I use Lightroom. I do know that when you import images in Photos the location is a bit hard to find but they are in Pictures > Photo's Library > Show Package Contents > Masters.
 
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thanks lisa
so what is the big deal with photos??
one can just have all pictures in Pictures folders and all videos in Videos folders...just like in Windows.
so would you say that Photos is similar to photo organizer like Picassa? I never liked using that because the program labeled and put folders where it wanted to and not in the same order and location as I liked.

mayb i do not need to use photos at all......
i rarely do a slideshow or editing. sometimes would like to print a picture and if I do, i presume (tho do not know) if I can copy them into photos and do what that app offers. OR copy to thumb drive and take it to local photo printing place.

i did do a lot of video editing in Windows using adobe prem elem and may want to do more of that later when I figure out how to do in on my MBA...if that is possible.

and I agree...i find out and learn much more on this most wonderful site than one does reading the many HELP books out there. I only hope that in future, I can help others out as many of you do.

thanks imfromwales
i shall look into that url and see if i can see my pics, maybe from there i can figure out how and where to move files from photos to Pictures folder and videos to Video folder.

I really like to know WHERE my files are located...guess that is my old Windows habit
i found valuable. Macs run little differently and I need to learn to let go of those old staid Windows habits that are of not as much use anymore on Macs.

Converting.......
as you can see, I still have my Windows brain on a lot but having fun learning how to take it off in order to make room for a new Mac brain. lol lol lol
 
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I really like to know WHERE my files are located...guess that is my old Windows habit
i found valuable. Macs run little differently and I need to learn to let go of those old staid Windows habits that are of not as much use anymore on Macs.

This is the beauty about OS X. It puts what it needs to where it should be. I see in your above comment, about "being like Picassa", I haven't used that, and most of my photos where in Aperture (now I'm looking for another DAM) but when you imported into iPhoto, OS X did all the sorting and filing for you, and all you had to worry about was using iPhoto. When you imported into this, it kept them in a Database, called iPhoto.iphotolibrary.
Now you couldn't dig into that to get your images, you needed to open iPhoto up, and then export what you wanted. Photos is now the same. You need to work out of the App, not the Folder.
OS X is great like this, because it takes the organising away from you and does it itself.

Converting.......
as you can see, I still have my Windows brain on a lot but having fun learning how to take it off in order to make room for a new Mac brain. lol lol lol

Its a learning curve, but you do really need to get out of the Windows way of thinking.

If you read books, the Missing Manuals, found cheaply on Amazon, are the best resource IMHO. They are written by the experts, but in layman's terms. David Pouge is the Author to look for in any of their OS X Missing Manuals.

EDIT: here is a good article from iMore about everything Photos for OS X Photos for OS X faq ~ iMore by SERENITY CALDWELL
 
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I get where you are coming from. I have to keep my photos in folders because we have so many at work from events we hold. And I have terrabytes of videos. I share them between a Windows 7 editor and a Mac Pro editor. I have all the drives shared and through the magic of our Windows server software I can read and write to the drives on either computer regardless of the drives formatting.

But I do not use Photos on the Mac Pro because of the two different operating systems and the need to share. I have a method of sorting that I have used for years and it works well for me.

On my MB Air the personal photos on it are in Photos and I let it do its thing when I import from my iPhone. I like the way it will sort and assemble.

Lisa
 

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Thanks for the reminder about that page TM I saw it last night while looking for something else about Photos. IN the process I found this article How to use Photos for OS X: The ultimate guide | iMore Some of the information overlaps but I don't think it is all the same.
 
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I get where you are coming from. I have to keep my photos in folders because we have so many at work from events we hold. And I have terrabytes of videos. I share them between a Windows 7 editor and a Mac Pro editor. I have all the drives shared and through the magic of our Windows server software I can read and write to the drives on either computer regardless of the drives formatting.

But I do not use Photos on the Mac Pro because of the two different operating systems and the need to share. I have a method of sorting that I have used for years and it works well for me.

On my MB Air the personal photos on it are in Photos and I let it do its thing when I import from my iPhone. I like the way it will sort and assemble.

Lisa

TBH Lisa, if it wasn't for how integrated Photos/iPhoto is with iOS and OS X, I would do the same. All my important images that I take using my Nikon, all go into Aperture, and even then, it does a awesome job of organising, once you have a workflow going, and you make the Projects, Albums and Folders. I wish this sort of customising could go into Photos/iPhoto.
I only use Photos for all my iPhone/iPad images, and because of how they are taken, and with what App, I let it do what it does. If I need one of those images within a month, I know its going to be at my finger tips, and front most.
All the others, I don't mind scrolling through the images, as I still have the knowledge of when about they were taken.

Even Photos now, if you bring up the SideBar, all you iPhoto images, are in a Album named iPhoto, and when you expand that, all the Events you created in iPhoto are there named as they where in iPhoto.

At the end of the day, if iPhoto or Photos wasn't here, I would be happy to Folder mine up for search purposes.

Thanks for the reminder about that page TM I saw it last night while looking for something else about Photos. IN the process I found this article How to use Photos for OS X: The ultimate guide | iMore Some of the information overlaps but I don't think it is all the same.

Yea. I like looking at iMore, so much so, I RSS feed them to my Leaf App. Rene Richie knows his stuff, while also not being a FanBoy about it all. He has the sense to be critical, when the need is there.
 
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imfromwales
you mentioned..... Photos the location is a bit hard to find but they are in Pictures > Photo's Library > Show Package Contents > Masters.

i tried to find this location and could not. was not sure where to go. i opened pictures folder and did not see any folder photos library so was at a loss.

not a big deal...i think eventually i will figure this out. else i can always come back for more into.
 

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Lori, just try again. Go to Photos in the side column of any Finder window, scroll until you see Photos Library.photoslibrary, select that by right clicking on it and you will see in the menu Show package Contents, select that. You will then see a list of folders, open Masters and you will folders marked as years, in them you will find months and in them you will find dates corresponding to the day you took that photo.
 
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For many years in Windows (decades) I kept our photos in folders. When I switched to Apple it was wierd to surrender into letting Aperture import them all into its managed library, then it took me quite a while to organize them into folders, projects and albums. Once that was done I relaxed and let the system do its thing, but still had clunky workflows.

Photos/iCloud Photo Library has been a brilliant game-changer for me. I imported my Aperture library into Photos, spent a few minutes sorting the imported albums into folders and subfolders, and then suddenly realized I no longer needed my clunky workflows. My original photos are there if I need them, but most of the time I can work with edited versions. When I take photos with my IPhone or iPad, they appear in Photos on all of my devices. Easy to import and export images. Easy to build new albums. The edit tools in Mac Photos are pretty much all that I used in Aperture. The optimization process saves space on my iDevices yet makes my whole photo library accessible from them.

I guess my point is that if you find Photos/iCloud photo library confusing, give it a chance. The learning curve is not steep or long, and Apple clearly has put a lot of thought into the system. Let it do the work for you.
 
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thanks demapples
yes i am not very comfortable with photos and its albums and projects. will work on that.

i am a bit of control freak and like to KNOW where files are, where they go and how they get there. Guess will have to relent and let apple to its things. tis a hard thing to do.
once i get what i have sorted and know how it works then i will feel more comfortable with it all.

i do not know if I have Aperture on my MBA...as I have never seen nor used it to my knowledge anyway.

tho i wonder, with photos being so wonderful and all is done for you, easy peasy
....what is the PICTURES folder purpose for?
guess matter of preference...i am still trying to figure out which preference i am going to choose.
thanks for your comments
 
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If you don't use Aperture, just substitute iPhoto for Aperture in my post. As far as I am concerned, the Pictures folder is simply the default place where Photos, iPhoto and Aperture libraries reside. I manually store other images there too, just for convenience.
 

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