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iCloud Shared Photo Library: Everything You Need to Know
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Agreed, but I would add that I do want access to all photos at all times. This does mean I want to sit looking at them all (!) but when out and about at gatherings of friends and family I want to be able to pull up pictures of events or people at will.
I've read this article through a couple of times. How is this any different to the current system where you can have shared libraries on your mac and share them with family members via the icloud?
Sorry if i'm being an idiot.
Sorry if i'm being an idiot.
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I am not aware of a "custom system to have shared libraries on your Mac and share them with family".
I think you are referring to shared albums. Very different.
Sorry that was a typo, it should have said "current".
So how is it different to shared albums?
Examples:-
1. From the OP article: "Each person invited to participate in an iCloud Shared Photo Library can add, edit, caption, favorite, and delete photos, just as if it were their own photo library. There are no limitations, and all participants have the same permissions". This is not the case for shared albums.
2. Photos in shared albums are reduced resolution.
They are very different use cases. I have no hesitation about creating shared albums with all and sundry friends and relatives, but I would only share my library with my wife, because nearly all our photos are common interest and I trust her not to mess it up.
Years ago my wife used my Apple ID which meant the iCloud Photos library was identical on all our devices. I could manage and edit it for both of us, but she could as well if she wanted. When she got her own Apple ID that stopped. Shared Library brings it back (except for the lack of sharing of folders/albums which kills it for us if intended).
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Does the guest have to have iCloud Photo Library turned on to join a host’s Shared Library? My partner stores photos on device.
iPhone > Lightroom app > Settings > Import > Auto add from Camera Roll on both my and wife's phones.
You also need iPhone > Settings > Lightroom > Allow Lightroom access to Photos, and camera.
Maybe my "automatically sync from Apple iCloud Photos libraries to the Adobe Library" should more accurately have said "automatically sync from Camera Roll"
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only problem with Lightroom is you loose depth data and Live Photos. I'm not sure why they refuse to implement those things. iPhone is the #1 camera in the world and those are major features.
You certainly lose Live Photos which I am fine with. I am not sure what "depth data" contributes but relieved that Portrait Mode blurred backgrounds are preserved.
Fantastic feature, just what
I needed so often, especially on holidays. We’re in Italy and the other day I was coerced into AirDropping 850 photos (shot in the last 5 days) to my wife’s phone for her curation. I had to AirDrop 200 photos at a time, in 5 batches, it took ages. This auto sharing feature will be used a lot.
I needed so often, especially on holidays. We’re in Italy and the other day I was coerced into AirDropping 850 photos (shot in the last 5 days) to my wife’s phone for her curation. I had to AirDrop 200 photos at a time, in 5 batches, it took ages. This auto sharing feature will be used a lot.
I agree that I want all pictures available on my device, as I won't know up front what pictures I will want to show. But I might agree to not having all images available on my device if the price of the device became too high to keep all pictures. I would however not ever agree on having my pictures spread across 2 or more different solutions where I would have to magically know based on some characteristic of the image in what system to find it. @mansplains pushed towards such a system, where different images are in different systems. That is the biggest horror to me.
Ah, I get it. Thank you for this information. Automatic import is a feature of the app on the phone. I was looking in Lightroom Classic, and therefore didn't find anything. I will have to sit on this for a bit. I have the photography plan, that comes with just 20 GB of space. I'm not sure about spending another € 11,58 per month on additional space in the Adobe Cloud. I only use Lightroom Classic, which stores my images in a folder that is part of my iCloud space, where I have more than enough space. I need to consider how much pain there is, and if that is worth the additional cost (or not).
I would disagree with the characterization that I pushed a system. To me, paying for cloud photo storage is dirty. All of these companies are holding your memories hostage, so I prefer to keep a solid amount of my library on a hard drive. It doesn't take any "magic" to find an image if you know how to organize a filesystem. This solution works well for me and I offered it as an alternative to needing to pay indefinitely to access your memories over a lifetime. It's not worth it to me, it is to some. Either way, both options are far better than the analog library of old, so I think of this "biggest horror" as very narrow-minded.
If a member of the Shared Library takes a screenshot on their device with the Bluetooth proximity or Home features on, will it appear in the Shared Library? I’d hope not.
Likewise, would a photo taken with the front-facing camera appear in the Shared Library under the same circumstances?
Likewise, would a photo taken with the front-facing camera appear in the Shared Library under the same circumstances?
Thanks for the great article and discussion all. Made the thing a lot clearer for me.
I am curious towards how all sorts of media and info added to the library is supported, like existing edits, with plug-in editors, or whether sharees get these pics in their originals on their macos library (expect not) or suddenly get their keyword list ecpanded, but I do feel heard by Apple with this.
I am curious towards how all sorts of media and info added to the library is supported, like existing edits, with plug-in editors, or whether sharees get these pics in their originals on their macos library (expect not) or suddenly get their keyword list ecpanded, but I do feel heard by Apple with this.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your suggestion. Re-reading it, I'm not reading what I am understanding now. Thanks for explaining again.
I am not paying extra for the cloud photo storage. I need more than 200 GB for my family for iPhone and iPad backups anyway. In a way, I am using the "free" storage that I have anyway. Same for my Dropbox that I need anyway. By storing images in both iCloud and Dropbox, I have several copies of my images, which takes care of backup needs. But I do have a problem with this: I am maintaining my images twice. Therefore I have accepted that I have one organized copy (in Apple Photos) and one unorganized copy (in Dropbox). So I have been living the horror that you find narrow-minded already. By not organizing the second system (the backup system) I no longer have this pain, but at the risk of losing my organization if Apple ever messes up. But Apple Photos is the primary system that I use to share images with others, so that is where I focus primarily.
Organizing images in a filesystem is not very practical. A filesystem assumes that each image can be assigned to a single album/folder. That is true for about 10% of my images. For all other images, multiple albums/categories apply to each image. I do have my images in a folder structure, and over time I have found myself restructuring because the structure was perfect for yesterday's need but not for today's need. Albums (Apple Photos) and Collections (Lightroom) solve this by allowing images to be part of multiple groupings without duplicating images. I do still have a folder structure on my filesystem, but it depends on the pictures I am looking for how easy they are to find, given today's structure.
So, my response is from extensive experience, and from what works for me. If you find that narrow-minded, fine with me. There isn't a single solution for everyone.
Thinking more I am now convinced that not sharing the folders/albums is by design, not a bug.
The difference is all about the starting point.
Sharing a Library which starts with few or no photos, it makes sense not to include folders and albums. Let everyone create their own if they want to, don't impose an organisation.
Sharing an existing 80K library with 600 albums it makes total sense to include them.
If correct, this is bad news for couples like us who will inevitably be in the second category.
The best I can hope for is an option.
If you’re right the info per-photo may be preserved but info across multiple photo’s may not. One could convert album names to tags, and create smart albums based on these tags. But Apple could just as easily have done this as well for us…
You're right. Photos metadata is shared so the recipient could create an organisation via keywords etc but a big job for 80,000 photos/600 albums.
do you know by any chance whethe ios 16 shows the albums a photo reside in? That is a missing one from my list
I am not in a position to answer that, but if you are asking whether Shared Library in iOS16 or iPadOS16 will show the albums when macOS13 does not, I would very strongly expect not.do you know by any chance whethe ios 16 shows the albums a photo reside in? That is a missing one from my list