Tag Archives: Photos.app

fixed : save Instagram pictures to Photos.app on macOS

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Question :

I came across some group photos on Instagram that I am on but that I did not take and/or post myself. I would really like to save them to my Photos.app but I can’t figure out a way to do that…

How do I do that ?

Answer :

Yes, this is possible, but… DO NOT use any app on your iPhone, iPad or Mac that needs your Instagram login credentials to do that !! as by doing that, you are granting third party access to your Instagram and you are thereby making your Instagram account extreme vulnerable to hacking, fraud and identity swapping !!

Instagram has made it impossible to save pictures from within the Instagram.app (either on iPhone, iPad or Mac) so the only ‘good’ way to do this is via the website. To do so, do this :

  • on your Mac, open the Photos.app
  • then, open Safari and in the top menu bar goto Safari > Settings > Advanced
  • in the “Advanced” window, make sure that there is a checkmark at “Show Develop menu in menu bar”
  • now, close the Settings and goto http://www.instagram.com
  • login using your account name and password
  • scroll through the pictures and select one that you want to download / save to Photos.app
  • now, in the top menu bar goto Develop > Show Page Source
  • the underwater screen will now appear in the bottom half of the browser window
  • inside the underwater screen, in the menu on the left, click on the folder named “Images”
  • now, in the main past of the underwater screen you will see just the pictures of your Instagram page
  • scroll through these pictures and when you find a picture that you want to download drag&drop it to Photos.app’s main screen and it will be imported to your Photos.app (note that you could also drag&drop the image to your Desktop or any folder in the Finder to save the picture to your Mac)
  • repeat this drag&drop action for every picture you want to download
  • when done, close Safari
  • now, goto the Photos.app and in the menu list on the left, click on “Imports”
  • then, on the main part of the Photos window, all recently imported pictures will appear
  • scroll down to the very bottom and you will see the pictures you have imported from Instagram
  • from here on, you can use the downloaded Instagram pictures however you like…

…that’s it !

enjoy 😉

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fixed : Save Images option disabled in Whatsapp ?

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Question :

Normally, on my iPhone, when I get a Whatsapp-message with a great photo or image, I can click on it, then click the Export-button (the ‘square with an upward arrow’ icon, bottom left) and I get the Save-option.

But when I get a batch of images/photos in one WhatsApp-message I can click on one of them and I will get the Select-button (top right)… then I can select the images/photos I want to save, but when I click the Export-button (bottom left) now… I don’t get the Save-option…

What am I doing wrong ?

Answer :

Simply put : it’s a limitation of Whatsapp. It’s limited to saving a maximum of 5 pictures/images at the same time.

The process for saving pictures you are describing is correct, but just try it yourself : Select up to 5 images and you will see the Save-option, and if you select 6 or more images, you will not get the Save-option any longer…

So… to save multiple images from one WhatsApp-message at the same time, do this :

  • Click om the Whatsapp message that shows multiple images in one
  • when the screen opens where you will see all images below each other, click the Select-button (top right)
  • now, in each picture a small circle outline will appear in it’s top left corner, and click those to select each picture (the circle will turn blue and a white checkmark will appear inside it)
  • if there are up to 5 pictures in total, you could also click the SelectAll-button (top left)
  • if there are 6 or more pictures, select the first 5 manually
  • then click the Export-button (the ‘square with an upward arrow’ icon, bottom left) and click the “Save 5 Images”-option from the menu
  • these 5 images will now be saved to your iOS Photos.app
  • Now, repeat this procedure for the next 5 pictures, and keep repeating this until all pictures are saved

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

fixed : edit Photos.app pictures in Photoshop

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Question :

In iPhoto I used to be able to edit my pictures in Adobe Photoshop. In the current Photos.app it automatically opens the built-in editor that can’t do everything I’m planning to edit (like cutting out or blurring out some parts of the picture). And when I click on the ‘Other…’-button (the circle with 3 dots in it – inbetween the Info-button and the Heart-button) I do get some editing options like Markup and searching the AppStore to find an editing app, but Photoshop isn’t listed… even when clicking “Manage…” there’s no way of adding Photoshop…

What is the easiest way to edit pictures from my Photos.app database in Photoshop ?

Answer :

The option to edit your Photos.app pictures directly in Photoshop is still available, but it’s somewhat hidden. To get it, do this :

  • in Photos.app select the picture you want to edit (if you are in the built-in editor already, click the Done-button top-right)
  • make sure the correct picture is shown enlarged, that the menu-list (Photos, Memories, People, Places, etc.) is shown at the left, and that the Edit-button is shown top-right
  • ALT-click on the picture (right mouse-click) and the popup-menu will be shown, then click on “Edit With”, then select Adobe Photoshop [ or goto the top menu-bar > Image > Edit with > Adobe Photoshop ]
  • so… the picture you want to edit will open in Photoshop, and you can edit it there
  • now, when you save the edited picture in Photoshop, it will be saved in Photos.app [ the version of the picture in Photos.app will be updated to the Photoshop-edited version ]

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

fixed : put Photos database on external drive to save space

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Question :

My internal HD is too full, so I want to make room for macOS to run smoothly again. As my Photos.app database is huge, would it be possible to move that database onto an external HD that is continuously connected to my Mac.

Is there any option to do so ?

 

Answer :

Yes, it is possible to move your entire Photos.app database to an external HD. Apple does explicitly recommend to use an external HD that is connected to your Mac directly with USB, ThunderBolt or FireWire. (and Apple explicitly recommends against putting your active Photos.app database on a wireless drive or network drive)

To do this, do this :

  • get yourself an external HD, preferably one that is using a fast cable connection to connect to your Mac ; Samsung currently has some small and very good external HDs using USB-C for this : Samsung T5 Portable SSD
  • plug the external HD into your Mac
  • goto Applications –> Utilities –> Disk Utility
  • open Disk Utility
  • reformat the external HD as “Mac OS Extended”
  • now, in the Finder, create a new folder on the external HD named Pictures
  • then, in the Finder, goto Users –> [your name]  –> Pictures
  • then drag&drop the Photos Library file to the external HD you have just created
  • …this may take a while
  • when done, open the Photos.app while pressing the [ALT]-key
  • in the Choose Library window that opens, click on the “Other Library”-button
  • from the pulldown Finder window, choose your new external drive –> Pictures –> Photos Library
  • then click the Open-button
  • now Photos.app will start up using the Photos Library on the external HD (and it will keep using the Photos Library on the external HD as its default library from now on)
  • check inside Photos.app to see if all your photos are now available (there’s no reason why they wouldn’t but just to make sure…)
  • now start using this setup as your new Photos.app setup, and if you don’t run into any problems in a few weeks (or even months if you need to) you can delete the Photos Library that was in the Pictures folder in your Home folder on your Mac’s internal drive to clear up some space

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

fixed : finding faces in imported old iPhoto pictures

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Question :

I have imported my old iPhoto database into Photos.app as you described in your post on this subject. [click here to view the original post] But now I’ve got them into Photos.app it turns out that the faces I had tagged when I was still using iPhoto are not automatically recognized by the Faces function of Photos.app…

Is there any way to solve this ?

 

Answer :

Yes, there is, but it’s not as easy as you might have hoped…

There are 2 sides to your question, so let’s answer both separately :

  1. How to find people in pictures imported from iPhoto ?
  2. How to get people from iPhoto pictures into Photos.app Faces database ?

HOW TO FIND PEOPLE IN PICTURES IMPORTED FROM iPHOTO ?

When you import an iPhoto database into Photos.app the faces you had tagged way back then are not recognized as Faces, but as Keywords… so the easiest way to find pictures of  these people is this :

  • open Photos.app
  • click on “Photos” in the list on the left (the top option, in the Library chapter)
  • then click on the “Showing: All Items”-button (top right, just below the “Search” field)
  • from the pulldown menu, select “Keyword Manager”
  • in the separate “Keywords”-window that pops up, in the bottom part, named “Keywords” you will find labels with all the names of the people you had tagged in Faces of iPhoto
  • select the label of the person you were looking for (don’t mind that the label is greyed out, in this situation they are still selectable) and drag&drop it into the top part, named “Quick Group”
  • then click on the red button top left to close the “Keywords”-window
  • now, back in the main view of Photos.app, click on the “Showing: All Items”-button (again…)
  • from the pulldown menu, select the name of that particular person at “Show Only Keywords”
  • now, you will only see pictures with this particular person you where looking for
  • scroll through the photos and find the pictures you were looking for
  • remember to put the “Showing Only: …”-button back to “Showing: All Items” before you quit Photos.app

HOW TO  GET PEOPLE FROM iPHOTO PICTURES INTO PHOTOS.APP FACES DATABASE ?

After you have created keywords for people you were searching for in Photos.app, you can start to get them into the Faces database of Photos.app… to do that, do this :

  • make sure that the button top right is labeled “Showing Only:…” (in which the dots are substituted by the person’s name)
  • now, dubble-click on a photo that the person is in
  • the photo will enlarge and all faces that are recognized as faces will have a circle around them with a label below them saying “unnamed”
  • if the face of the person you had in mind does have a unnamed-label, click on the label and substitute the “unnamed” by typing the person’s real name over it
  • if the face of the person you had in mind did not get a label automatically, you will have to add it by hand… to do so, do this :
    • click on the “info ( encircled i )”-button top right
    • in the popup window that opens, click on the “plus ( encircled + )”-button
      • make sure that you do this when the name tags are visible in the photo, else it will have no effect
      • if the name tags aren’t displayed, click anywhere on the picture and they will reappear
    • when you click the “plus”-button, a circle wit ha name tag labeled “Click to Name” will appear in the middle of the picture
    • drag this circle over to the face of the person you would like to tag
      • if the circle is too big or too small, you can adjust its size by moving the dot on the right side of the circle
      • if for some reason you want to delete the circle, click on the X-sign on the left edge of the circle
    • then click on “Click to Name” and typ the name of the person whose face is in the circle
    • when done with this picture, proceed to the next picture by swiping from right to left
    • when done with tagging, go back by double-clicking anywhere on the picture
      • after that, you can even get out of the selection of this particular person’s photos by going to the “Showing Only:…”-button and changing it into “All Items” (so the button will say “Showing: All Items”)

Yes, it a painstakingly labor-intensive job to put all those name tage back in to each and every old picture, but you will have to do this for a lot of old pictures before Photo.app’s own Faces function will start to recognise and label people in those old pictures automatically…

enjoy 😉

 

fixed : quickly rotate a movie file in macOS 10.15 Catalina

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Question :

I have a movie-file that was shot on an iPhone in portrait-mode, but I think it will look better  when viewed in landscape-mode. It’s a video of you cat playing on the carpet, shot from above, so both portrait-mode and landscape-mode are okay for viewing, but as we prefer to view video’s on out TV it would make more sense to have it in landscape-mode.

How do I do that ?

 

Answer :

In MacOSX and OSX rotating photos was easily done in iPhoto or Photos.app, but rotating video couldn’t be done in iPhoto or Photos.app – that had to be done in video editing software like iMovie, or a dedicated video-rotation-app.

In macOS 10.15 Catalina, rotating video 90 degrees can be done extremely simple in the Finder :

  • open the Finder (click out of all apps until you have only the Desktop to look at)
  • open a New Finder Window by typing CMD and N keys on your keyboard simultaneously (or goto Finder > File > New Finder Window)
  • locate the video-file (if you know it’s name, typ it in the Search-bar, else browse to the file if you know where it’s located)
  • then click on the file name to select it
  • the video preview will now come up on the right side, with various info and some buttons below it
  • to rotate your video 90 degrees counter-clockwise, click on Rotate Left
  • to rotate your video 90 degrees clockwise, press the ALT key on your keybord and click on Rotate Right (in the same spot where the Rotate Left button used to be)
  • then wait for the processing to end…

…and you’re done 😉

That’s it – enjoy !

fixed : merge persons (faces) in Photos.app

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Question :

While going through photos in Photos.app, I opened the People-library to see if there were any new faces that I should identify to connect them to the right person.

To my surprise I found that some people had 2 separate entries in the People-library : they were listed once with a group of photos with them in it, and another time with another group of photos that also had them in it, but the 2 groups were completely separate.

Is there an easy way to tell Photos.app that both are the same person ?

 

Answer :

The easiest way to make Photos.app see both groups of photos as referring to the same individual is to merge the 2 entries,. To do so, do this :

  • open Photos.app
  • listed at the left of the window that opens, you’ll see ‘Library’
  • select the ‘People’ chapter from the list
  • in the window that opens, you will see thumbnails of various people, each representing a group of photos that are identified to have that one person on them
  • if you see a duplicate (i.e. if you see that any particular person is listed twice), select one, then press [CMD] and select the other one with this person in them
  • then right-click on the last thumbnail (of the 2) you have selected and select ‘Merge 2 people’ from the dropdown menu
  • now, both entries will be reduced to only one with all those photos in it

That’s is !

enjoy 😉