The last major update to Apple’s impressive Photos app was in macOS High Sierra, but the company continues to incrementally improve the app.
New features that come with Big Sur include support for the ProRaw format used by the iPhone 12 Pro phones, a vibrance tool, video editing, better gallery-view layouts, and superior Memory movies.
Apple Photos is an Editors' Choice winner for free photo editing software on the Mac.
Getting Started With Apple Photos
Photos comes preinstalled on Macs running recent versions of macOS, so there's no installation to worry about.
In fact, you can't uninstall it without taking extreme measures that include command-line operations.
Furthermore, if you take the unwise move of uninstalling it, your system may behave erratically.
Of course, if you want to work between operating systems, you’re out of luck; for that, we suggest checking out Adobe’s software, which is cross-platform.
Adobe Photoshop Elements is a good place to start, if you're not looking to go full Photoshop.
On first run, a message box touting the new features appears, and the new Photos app may update your library.
This only took a few seconds, since I only had about a hundred photos on my test system, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 3.1GHz Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM.
Apple Photos' Interface
Apple Photos’ UI is clear and easy to navigate.
Your tools are always available—both the organizing left sidebar, and, when you get into the editing interface, all the adjustments in the right-side toolbar.
That sounds obvious, but in previous versions, if you wanted the Levels adjustment, for example, you had to add it as an option—every time you opened a new photo.
Gone now are the viewing mode buttons across the top.
Instead, you navigate entirely from the left rail menu.
That’s always present except when you're viewing a single image full screen.
Even then, you can push the cursor to the left to display it.
That rail includes all your organization options, including Memories, People, Places, Favorites, Recents, and Imports.
Below this, the Media Types categories let you, for example, view only Live Photos you've applied the Loop effect to, it's right there in the rail.
Sometimes a clear face isn’t identified, and, in that case, you can add it via the Info panel (which we’ll look at next).
Photo Info, accessible when you're viewing a single photo, appears as a dialog in the center of the image, not as a sidebar—the way it does in Lightroom and Microsoft Photos.
I find the sidebars more convenient, since the dialog covers part of the photo you're trying to look at.
The info box shows details such as camera model, exposure settings, optional keywords, tagged faces, and a map, if location data is available.
With Big Sur, you get the ability to add a caption in this panel, which roams to any other Apple devices on which you view the photo.
You don’t have the option to view full EXIF data, however, as you can in Lightroom.
Full-screen view is nicely implemented, and, thankfully, you can zoom whether you're viewing or editing.
However, I miss the ability to quickly compare the edited image with the original or to compare versions side by side, which many photo editing programs have.
Importing and Organizing Photos
When you stick a memory card into a card reader connected to your Mac (or into the SD slot if you’re lucky enough to have a Mac that has one), Photos usually pops up its Import screen.
It can handle raw camera files from popular digital cameras, including more-recent format like Canon’s CR3 and Nikon’s NEF.
There’s now even a left sidebar option to just show raw photos.
Of course, those now include the ProRaw format used by iPhone 12 Pro models, which combines the iPhones processing that creates a superior image from multiple shots.
Though you can shoot in raw mode with apps like Lightroom Mobile, those shots are inferior (especially in that they’re less clear), since they lack the computational processing that ProRaw takes advantage of.
Otherwise, editing ProRaw in Photos is no different than with any other raw camera file.
The Library page simply groups your images by date.
You can zoom from years to months to days.
The display is improved in the last few version updates: The display highlights some photos larger than others so that it’s not just a static grid of same-size image tiles, and Live Photos and video play right in the Library view.
Your only option at import is to choose whether to delete images from the memory card after import, which we don't recommend, since you may want the photos on another system, the import may fail, and you can always format the card in your camera, a better option.
If you want more options on import—such as keyword tagging, file renaming, or applying presets—look to a more powerful tool, such as Lightroom or CyberLink PhotoDirector.
There are a few ways to see your iPhone photos in Apple Photos on the Mac.
You can sync your iPhone using iTunes, sync photos to iCloud, or plug the phone into the USB port, which reveals the Import button at top right.
You could also use the separate Image Capture utility, but if you go this route, Photos isn't offered in the file's Open With list in Finder.
Also, when I imported this way, my Live Photos were imported as stills.
If you sync instead, you can edit Live Photos with the editing tools mentioned below.
Once you import your photos, the application offers respectable organization capabilities, much of which are automatic.
You can apply ratings, keyword tags, and locations to any photo, as well as designate favorites with a heart icon.
The automatic organization is best exemplified in the Albums view, in which you find your photos grouped by People, Places, Screenshots, and Selfies.
Of course, you can create Albums as well.
Editing Photos With Apple's Software
Even before you start editing, you get choices of Rotate, Auto Enhance, Share, and Favorite (the heart icon) from the view of all photos.
To get to the editing tools, you select a photo and click Edit, all the way on the top right.
A panel of tools opens on the right, and the background turns black, which is helpful for letting you concentrate on the image for editing (though you won’t notice this if your Mac is set to Dark mode).
Across the top of the editing screen are three main choices: Adjust, Filters, and Crop.
To the right are more quick-edit options, including Auto Enhance, Heart, Info, and Rotate.
A three-dot icon lets you add external photo tools like Perfectly Clear and Picktorial, and though the list of plug-ins isn't as extensive as what's available for Photoshop Elements, you can find a bunch more if you hunt around the web.
Once you finish with the external app, the photo corrections are preserved in Apple Photos.
The Enhance auto-correct tool is among the best we've tested.
Auto-correct tools generally brighten most photos, but Apple Photos also knows when an image needs darkening, instead.
Something we really appreciate about this tool, too, is that it shows you exactly what adjustments are changed, a trait shared with Lightroom.
The Brilliance adjustment reduces highlights and pumps up shadows simultaneously, which can really help an image look better balanced.
In addition to this, all the lighting tools we look for are present: Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast, and Black Point.
There are controls for Definition Histogram, Levels, Noise Reduction, Sharpen, and Vignette—these always accessible from drop-down menus in the right panel.
Curves is another pro-level tool, which offers a powerful way to adjust image tones that some photo fans can't live without.
Two things we appreciate about the way Apple Photos adjustment sliders are implemented: They show you exactly how your photo looks with the adjustment in small thumbnails above the controls, and double clicking returns them to the unaltered state.
One more, and this is a brilliant legacy from dear departed Apple Aperture: Holding the Option key while making an adjustment lets you extend its range beyond the ends of the slider.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for all of the adjustments; to my chagrin, it doesn’t work for Highlights, which I so often want to reduce more than is normally possible.
All this brings the app into the territory of enthusiast photo editing software.
Noise reduction works as well as it does in most of the competition, effectively smoothing out graininess.
But there are no parameters aside from strength; Lightroom adds luminance and chrominance controls.
Missing are any chromatic aberration fixing, lens-profile-based corrections, or perspective and geometry tools.
For those, look to DxO PhotoLab or Lightroom.
Gone are the fancy color sliders of iPhoto's corrections for White Balance, but you still get the ability to use a dropper to set white balance based on neutral gray or skin tones.
This beats what’s available in the $99 Topaz Studio.
New for color adjustment is the Vibrance slider.
According to Apple’s help resources, this “Adjusts the color contrast and separation between similar colors in the photo.” I would simply say that it provides a more realistic juicing-up of the colors than simply pushing the Saturation slider does.
Another tool is Definition, which, similar to Lightroom’s Clarity slider, adds midtone contrast and edge sharpness.
A right-click option lets you create a duplicate of your current edit, which is helpful.
I also like the Revert to Original option button and right-click choice, for those times when you just need to start over.
Each editing group has an undo arrow of its own, another helpful touch.
Crop also offers straightening, with an on-screen protractor for angle measurement.
You get the standard aspect ratio presets like 1:1 and 16:9, and there's' even an Auto option, if you want to let the program decide how to crop and level your image.
This gave me one funny result in testing, leaving a person's head parallel with the image edge, but with everything else was skewed since he was leaning.
But for most photos, it did a decent job, though the crops aren't as aggressive as some of Microsoft Photos or Photoshop Element's automated suggestions.
Of course, you don't have to accept any program's auto-crop suggestion, but it can be useful to see what a program considers good options.
The program includes nine Filters, and you use Photos' light and color adjustments after applying a filter.
The filters are meant to enhance the image rather than apply zany looks.
You get Vivid and Dramatic, each with Warm and Cool choices, and three tasteful black-and-white filters.
They're now adjustable with a Strength slider, as are Photoshop Elements' highly adjustable filters.
Blemish removal has improved in Big Sur, and it now lets you select a source area.
But even without doing that, its new use of AI to figure out how to replace the blemish worked extremely well in my testing of the Retouch tool, even with dark glasses near the skin I was replacing.
Apple Photos' Red-eye correction continues the fine tradition of excellence familiar from iPhoto.
Its automatic mode finds the eyes and yields well-delineated, jet-black pupils.
Video Editing and Live Photos Tricks
Like Windows 10’s included Photos app, Apple Photos lets you edit video content as well as still photos.
Not only can you apply any of the lighting and color adjustments, but you can also apply filters and crop video content.
Not available for video are red-eye correction and retouching, which makes sense if you think about it.
The most fun iPhone users will have with the Photos app comes courtesy of three very cool effects that only work with that type of content: Loop, Bounce, and Long Exposure.
The first two are actually video, or animated GIF-type effects.
Loop does what its name implies, repeating the short video endlessly.
But rather than just being a simple repeat, however, Loop adds transparency to moving objects between plays, for an affecting, ghostly look.
Bounce plays it forwards and backward and is most fun with actions such as diving into a pool; it also looks great with fireworks.
Long exposure has a couple of good uses: You can use it to blur background motion, such as car traffic, or to make a stream or waterfall look glassy.
You can see examples of all these in our story on iOS 11 Photo Tricks to Try Now.
You can also trim the ends of a Live Photo if the beginning or end detracts from the main event.
Unfortunately, this trimming doesn't apply to the effects detailed above.
Finally, you can choose which still image appears for a Live Photo when it's not being viewed with motion, for example, if you share it with someone who's not using Apple hardware.
I've found that the Live Photo algorithms usually pick the best frame as the still, but there are cases where you may want to change it.
Smart Search
Like Flickr, Google Photos, and Microsoft OneDrive, Apple Photos has the nifty capability of letting you search based on object categories.
For example, type "dog" or "tree" to see all your shots of dogs or trees—and very quickly.
Unlike Flickr and OneDrive, though, you can't view a page of all the categories detected with the automatically generated tags.
And none of these is perfect: Apple Photos categorized a furry goat as a dog in one test.
Adobe's Photoshop Elements takes this concept even further, letting you, for example, view all your photos that contain dogs and trees.
It's the same with tagged people photos: Elements lets you combine searches; Apple Photos doesn't.
You can now search by file extension in Photos, but not by f-stop, focal length, lens, or even camera model.
Memories
Automatic curation of albums has been appearing in photo software for a while.
We've seen it in Microsoft Photos, Google Photos, and now Apple Photos.
You can view a Memory either as a gallery or a video, and you can choose from an expanded repertoire of background music (which adjusts to the length of the video) as of Big Sur.
The video produced is not in any way editable, unlike those Microsoft Photos creates for you, and the same holds for the Memories galleries (note also that not all the photos that appear in the gallery appear in the video).
In the long tradition of video software, the app crashed one time while I was playing a Memory video, an occurrence that’s even more commonplace while using Microsoft Photos.
For comparison, Microsoft Photos has auto-created some duds for me, but it's...
