How can I set photos to convert JPEG files to HEIF. I want to set it to convert the whole library, Is it possible?
I have a memory problem, not enough space. I will move all unnecessary items to iCloud storage then start the conversion.
Thank you Gary, you provide a great service to the Apple community.
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Gerry Harrison
Not easy to do, and you shouldn't try. The problem is the JPEG file is already compressed. If you try to compress it again, you'll lose quality and end up with a worse photo than if you had started with HEIF.
To understand, take for instance a novel. Say someone reads a 300-page novel, then summarizes it down to 10 pages. You get the plot, all the major characters, etc. That's like the camera taking a photo and then compressing the information it has captured into a JPEG image.
Now suppose you ask someone else to summarize the book again. But instead of the book, they have just read the 10-page summary. They are basically just rewriting the 10-page summary. While the summary of the summary will probably still tell the basic story, you can bet it will be inferior to the first summary written by the person who actually read the book, right?
That's basically what happens if you take the original image as seen by the camera (aka RAW), compress it once (JPEG), and then compress it again (HEIF). So you don't want to do that. By all means start using HEIF now for new photos, but leave your old photos as JPEG.
As for saving space, where are you running into that problem? is it space on your local drive? Sounds like it. The "Optimize Mac Storage" setting in Photos, Settings, iCloud comes in. This is exactly what that setting is for.
Thanks Gary, I understand. Please excuse my ignorance but is there a way that I can start a new Photo lib that will save photo media in a HEI format from camera to computer? My plan is to share family pix, I make a slideshow, add voice over and create aMP4 file. This file I compress using Wondershare Uniconverter, does the compression of a MP4 file also reduce quality, Wondershare states that the quality is good?
Gerry: Don't start a new library. Having multiple libraries will cause all sorts of issues for you. You just go into your camera (is it an iPhone?) and change the file type for new photos to HEIF. However, if it is an older non-iPhone camera, it may not have that option. In that case you have no choice but to stick with JPEG.
If you are creating a video slideshow, note that videos are lower resolution than pictures. For instance an iPhone 15 produces 4032 x 3024 photos. But a 4K video is only 3840x2160 and HD is 1920x1080. Then compression reduces the quality even more.