Hi Gary,
I’m moving from windows to Mac OS. All my photos are saved under MyPhotos in windows. I did use photoshop to place them there, and all photos are saved as jpegs (not photoshop format).
I have heard two different ways to move the photos over to Mac. Manually just copy paste and the other is to use Photos import feature.
Seems like people are saying both work, but a guy I normally trust says to use the import feature. He claims the import feature will make sure that the Photos grabs the correct date (photo creation and not the file creation date).
That makes a big difference! And I really want the date the photos were actually taken to be in Mac Photos.
What way do you suggest getting my photo collection transferred over? And could you please hold my hand on this and give me the step by step for whatever method you suggest?
Thank you!
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Eric
You can't just copy and paste into Photos. You can drag and drop image files to import them. I assume that is what you mean.
I think these are the same thing. Dragging and dropping is simply a shortcut for using File, Import. I don't see any different when I try one and then the other. But I'm not using Photoshop-exported images from Windows either.
But it is easy to experiment. Try it with one photo. Drag and drop it into Photos. Check it out. Then try it with Import and examine that one. Or, do it with two similar, but different images and compare them. If you see an advantage to File, Import, then go with that.
What I meant was going to \finder\picture\photos library and putting my photos in that way vs importing. Coming from windows I would want to hook up my external HDD to the Mac and then copy those photos (folders with all my jpegs files) and paste them into the photos library.
I’m guessing that is not the way to do it? Importing is the route to go? I already have my photos (jpegs) organized in folders (like vacation 2010, etc) will importing keep them in the folders? I guessing no.
Eric: You mean opening up the Photos Library in the Finder and putting the images directly in there? No, definitely don't do that. You aren't supposed to access the library directly like that. I'm not sure it would work at all because there is a lot more to adding a photo to your library than just putting a file in the proper place. It may actually corrupt your library completely if you mess with the structure of the library.
Importing a bunch of files won't keep the album structure. But you can easily do that by creating an album in Photos for that folder, then dragging and dropping one folder into that album. The photos will be added to your library and included in that album at the same time. Just do that for each album.
Thank you so much!