As your collection of photos grows in size, knowing these tips helps you find that shot you want and reduces frustration. These tips primarily focus on the Photos app on a Mac.
- How to find a particular image. Search with a description, “John surfing” and it will find relevant results using Apple Intelligence.
- Use a keyword. When you click on the “I” (info icon, Photos displays the metadata you have. If taken with your own apple device will reveal more information including a map. If the picture was shared, less information is available. In the Info window you can add a title, caption and keywords to make things easier to find in the future.
The following tips refer to items in the Sidebar in Photos on a Mac - Find using Map (look in Sidebar) – If sufficient metadata is available then your pictures will appear in albums on a map. If you click on an “album” it will open into more albums. This view varies on how wide an area you are looking at.
- In People and Pets (in Collections section) double-click on a thumbnail to view multiple shots of the same subject. Click Add Name, type in a name, then click Done. You can scroll below the shots of the named subject and click Review More Photos.
- Memories – You can use Apple Intelligence to create a Memory Movie using a simple text description. Click the Memories collection and double-click “Create a Memory Movie”. Describe the memory, such as “fishing trip in North Carolina”, then press Return.
- Smart Albums – Set up an album to automatically include photos that match specific criteria. Go to Albums, click “+”, and choose a criterion such as Selfies to gather front-facing camera shots.
- Use Photos to adjust your pictures for better results. Open a photo and use the Edit button to give access to a number of tools. You can modify Light, Color, Black & White and other attributes. The changes take place immediately so you can see the results. The vertical slider bars will give you granular control. The Tab Bar with Adjust, Filters, Crop and Clean Up offer even more adjustments. It will take some experimenting and experience to uses these. Press Reset if you don’t like it.
- Cleaning up – sometimes people walk in your photo or other object are in the way. Use Clean Up to erase unwanted objects. Apple Intelligence helps make it easy. Tap Clean Up icon and it make take a few seconds, then use your finger (on IOS) or your mouse on a Mac. This is like magic. Draw an “circle” around what you don’t want and Photos will remove it.
- Filters offers you a number of creative preset filters to try. Tap Edit and then filters.
These are just a few possibilities to explore. See the July issue of Mac|Life for many more tips. You can access this and hundred more magazines and newspapers via an Apple One subscription.