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Has Photos on macOS Big Sur become useful?

Exodies

By Exodies
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iRandom

iRandom

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Executive Summary: I've been using Photos + RawPower + Pixelmator in place of LR + PS for almost a year now. But it isn't for someone who processes a high volume of photos, makes extensive use of local adjustments or does a lot of LR+PS round tripping.

Rambling Details: One of my main motivations was that I wanted the Photos Library/iCloud Photo Library to be my primary library since it is readily available on all my devices and easily accessible via the share button. This Photos + RawPower + Pixelmator workflow works well for me, but I never did much in PS and I'm shooting more with my iPhone than with my Q2 so I prefer a solution that seamlessly handles Live Photo, Portrait Mode, video and the various other features of the iPhone camera. RawPower is an essential part of my workflow for the Q2 photos. It brings more powerful RAW editing capabilities and batch editing. RP can operate directly on the Photos Library/iCloud Photo Library which makes for an efficient process. I occasionally use Pixelmator for things like ML noise reduction, face replacement, adding text or adding an effect. 

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zeitz

zeitz

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From Apple's website  - "Create standout photos with expanded editing capabilities, including an improved Retouch tool powered by machine learning."  And "The improved retouch tool in Photos requires MacBook Pro (15-inch and 16-inch models) introduced in 2016 or later, iMac (Retina 5K models) introduced in 2014 or later, iMac (Retina 4K models) introduced in 2017 or later, iMac Pro (all models), or Mac Pro introduced in 2013 or later."  I guess if you use an older machine or a MacMini you are out of luck.

The totality of information I could find on Apple's website is attached.  (Footnote 13 is the second quotation above.)

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Braaamer

Braaamer

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Am 15.11.2020 um 18:05 schrieb iRandom:

Executive Summary: I've been using Photos + RawPower + Pixelmator in place of LR + PS for almost a year now. But it isn't for someone who processes a high volume of photos, makes extensive use of local adjustments or does a lot of LR+PS round tripping.

Rambling Details: One of my main motivations was that I wanted the Photos Library/iCloud Photo Library to be my primary library since it is readily available on all my devices and easily accessible via the share button. This Photos + RawPower + Pixelmator workflow works well for me, but I never did much in PS and I'm shooting more with my iPhone than with my Q2 so I prefer a solution that seamlessly handles Live Photo, Portrait Mode, video and the various other features of the iPhone camera. RawPower is an essential part of my workflow for the Q2 photos. It brings more powerful RAW editing capabilities and batch editing. RP can operate directly on the Photos Library/iCloud Photo Library which makes for an efficient process. I occasionally use Pixelmator for things like ML noise reduction, face replacement, adding text or adding an effect. 

I can only confirm what you’re saying: The seamless integration between the iCloud Photos Library with RAW Power is very hard to beat for those that also prefer Apple Photos as their DAM for the full availability of the full availability of the photo library on all Apple devices. I have subscribed to a 2 TB iCloud family plan so I can even dump all my raw files in there. Ok, it costs but is a lot more flexible than an Adobe subscription. Admitted, if you need all the functionality that the Adobe suite offers, this combo may be too limited. For the occasional local healing, I just use Apple Photos.

And now I will admit that I don’t own a Leica yet, but I am saving for an M10-R. Hence I would like to ask how well the Apple raw engine (which is also the basis for RAW Power) deals with Leica M(10(-R)) raw files? Has someone compared the demosaicing results with Adobe Camera Raw or Capture One.

Thanks,

Erik

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poli

poli

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I use both Raw Power and Capture One. I love the simplicity of RP, easy and understandable UI. And the speed! Another plus, it is already running natively under M1 chips. But Capture One has more possiblities. The main thing I miss in RP is the use of layers. RP doesn't offer it. And somehow I do think the results of Capture One are better. 

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Braaamer

Braaamer

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Layers and local adjustments are not offered by RAW Power, that’s true. Personally, I don’t use these things, local healing very rarely, eg very rarely to remove the blinking lights of an airplane in a night sky. The reduced air traffic is a blessing here. 🙂

For those that make use of all the bells and whistles, RAW Power may not be the right choice. 
 

Once I will have the Leica, I’ll probably do some comparison between RAW Power / Apple’s raw engine and a trial version of Capture One. 
 

Concerning Adobe, I once had a pretty comprehensive package incl. Lightroom and Photoshop installed on my work PC, and just the startup process with license checks or whatever they thought they have to do online irritated me to the point that I removed all of it. 

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Doug A

Doug A

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Because Photos is a parametric rather than a pixel editor it can't do a proper invert of my digital camera "scans" of my negatives. Yes, I know that I can slide the black and white levels to their opposite ends of the histogram in programs like LR but then all the related controls are reversed, besides which I can't make Photos do even that. I've been happily using Affinity Photo for several years now. 

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Hanno

Hanno

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I found as well that Apple's Photo has become wonderfully pleasant and efficient to use. If you need only global adjustments and quick edit for social media, it does the job quite well. Easy and intuitive to use, and seamless integration between desktop, laptop, iPad and phone.

Attached I dug out 2 portraits, first one taken on a M10 and second one on a SL2. The JPEG are taken as the raw file appeared once opened, without any other processing. First one out of Photos and the second one out of Capture one.

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Hanno

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Hanno

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Hanno

Hanno

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I found the quality of Photo's raw processing quite good, and easy to adjust and rebalance colour casts. One can see a slightly yellowish cast on Photo's raw processing as compared to Capture One, but all is fixable in processing. I am sure Raw Power provides even better global adjustments/processing capabilities than Photo’s and no doubt that Photos remains a very user friendly DAM.

It is just that Photos / Raw Power is not the right tool for portraiture when local adjustments make the whole difference. For that Capture One Pro 21 is personally my go-to.

Below the version of these 2 portraits post processing with Capture One.

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Hanno

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