SMUG Meeting, June 16, 2020
Meeting notes by Kathleen Charters
Q&A
Photos (database specifically for photos) vs Pictures (a directory) vs Preview (quick look at a file); how to move a file from Pictures to Photos will be covered.
Adobe Lightroom – a program for photographers to use a computer as a light room for making adjustments to photos.
Zoom is not secure – started in 2011, has history of issues with security, TidBits has a chronicle of these challenges e.g., stealing credentials; user and presenter controls can be exploited; more secure one-to-one is FaceTime; have to reboot the computer when done using Zoom in order to use other programs such as Skype; advantages: works on Mac’s and Intel machine, free or low cost, Zoom is a compromise on how much control users can have, e.g., raise hand function to ask a question; if work for Federal government may be prohibited from using Zoom; Lawrence has a free app to remove Zoom after a meeting so it is not a security threat – AppCleaner, this means you have to reinstall Zoom before the next meeting, finds all places an app has stored things; different from Clean My Mac which is a subscription service; to Google: “AppCleaner Mac”’ see Lawrence’s article on Spring Cleaning; another is MacKeeper which is obnoxious; Zoom is not encrypted all the way but FaceTime is encrypted end to end, can do multiple calls but have to invite people one at a time which is tedious; Zoom allows one invite for all parties; Zoom alternatives: Skype, Google HangOuts, FaceTime.
Anti-virus Web Root not compatible with Catalina OS; Mac OS has built in measures to prevent malware on machine; malware may not affect Mac, alternatives: Malware Bytes, one version is free and adequate for most, will allow a scan of a Mac for malware; there is also a paid version; nuiscenceware can hijack browser and change search engine preferences e.g., to Bing; if does not affect the Mac still do not want to send it on to a person with a PC; bad to send ransomware on.
Mac OS X virus in circulation: 0; there are malware programs that do not replicate, so not a virus but still cause issues; Apple built in controls prevent this; Alternative: Avast, by a European country with a totalitarian government not interested in privacy.
Upgrade concern: Adobe Creative Suite is old, so it does not work on 64-bit systems; InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom – a security issue to not use the latest OS.
[Missed discussion on how to maintain backward compatibility.]
Sabrina – library status for meetings next month unknown; expect social distancing to still be in effect; not sure if possible to have some in-person and rest on Zoom; SMUG elections pending.
Presentation by Lawrence on Photos
Display by selecting files and then Get Info to get camera, size, etc, using Preview; program on a Mac to look at files.
Make a copy by holding down the file and dragging it so can edit the copy; Preview will allow you to adjust the size of the photo, it can take a large original and reduce it to a smaller size and send it as an attachment to an email message; can add an oval and change the color of the oval with Preview.
Using Finder, select the photo and change the color of the tag.
Using Preview can add a comment, rename a file, show the actual size of the photo, and see details.
Can select all files in a folder and open all at once to rapidly scroll through; can name the photo, if you have a series, can retain the number so you can differentiate.
Finder can be viewed as a thumbnail and can be increased in size using the slider at the bottom of the window.
PhotoZap
Photos – All Photos – select “i” for the number of photos; can look by chronological order, can view by categories.
Atomically makes “memories” by grouping photos taken at the same time.
It can be viewed by people, by places where the photo was taken.
iPhone stamps with latitude and longitude, so it can show on a map where photos were taken.
Can select a photo and make it a favorite by selecting a heart.
Imports – can select a group of photos.
Can display by type, e.g., movies, selfies (photo taken with a front-facing camera on an iPhone).
Live Photo captures 2 seconds before and 2 seconds after the photo and creates a video clip.
Portrait setting blurs the background, creating a more dramatic effect.
Panorama – large and wide.
Time-lapse – shows movement.
Slow motion.
Burst -.
Screenshot – e.g., a map from a robot.
An animation is a series of still photos combined to create an animation.
The above items are created automatically.
Can manually create albums and name them; to create an album, on iPhone with iCloud Photo Library, will create an album by photos taken at the same time.
Can import files, can review them, and select before importing or select all photos; example of photos from an SD card from a camera put into a folder and imported from the folder into Photos.
Questions
When put into an album adds organization but does not move the photo; if deleted from the album just removes it from that organization but does not delete the photo.
When importing into Photos, put a copy of the photos there.
Catalog programs have pointers to the original; if you delete the original, it no longer exists.
Adobe Lightroom catalog can break the path to the photo, so you cannot find it; if you change the path cannot find the photo.
Can move the catalog with the photos from one disk drive to another.
Mac mini running OS before Catalina (64-bit only) is not going to hurt photos when upgrading to the current OS; new OS will come out in the fall, and you do not want to be two OS versions behind; Photos is 64-bit now and has been for years.
Photos program may look and work slightly differently when going from a 32-bit to a 64-bit OS, but there is not a huge difference.
Photos Indexing of photos is automatic; when importing and cleaning up, the default view is chronological; this may take time if you make a lot of changes or import a lot of photos; face recognition, shape recognition, time, date place are indexed, and this may take a while.
If you have an external drive with photos, if in a folder can retain the structure and will name the folder.
Test of new machine, launch photos, and export all to the desktop and see how fast this happens; new machines do this really quickly; importing takes more time, especially if in several volumes.
The internal hard drive is not large enough; drag the photo library to an external drive.
Hold down the Option key when launching Photos; the program will ask if you want to create a new library.
When labeling a photo, how much goes with the file? When exporting, this is part of the photo, but you need to use a program that can read the EXIF format to see it; e.g., when publish can put the copyright there; alternatively, you can rename the file to indicate who the person is and when the photo was taken.
When moving photos taken over the last 15-20 years, when moving to a new machine, the dates get scrambled. New copy will have the date the copy was created, even though the original was taken earlier; used the transfer program to move the files.
The way to tell Photos to index is to leave it open; it will do this for as long as it is open. Stops if you close the program.
Select information to see how much room the photos take up, if synch to iCloud will tell you when exceed storage capacity will have the option to purchase more space in the iCloud; then can automatically synch across devices; if turn on iCloud storage can share among all devices but may cost additional money if do not have enough capacity; the photo deleted from iPhone is a reduced size placeholder while the full sized image is on the computer; some phots are situational and can be deleted when no longer useful.
If you re-save the file will have the date it was saved and is a copy, while the original still exists, this creates duplicate photos.
How to have map locations of photos where you did not go, e.g., a photo sent by Messenger and saved will retain the location data of where it was taken.
Can search for shapes in Photos; e.g., airplanes, penguins, tables.
Create an album manually, select the photos and drag them into the folder; move a characteristic into a folder to arrange them, but the original stays where it was; if you delete the album will still have the original photo.
Google Photos – free, creates albums automatically, uses iPhone GPS information, indexes and shares descriptions; based on crowdsourcing, uses AI to identify photos according to a characteristic; iPhotos is private, Google Photos are public.
Preview does not have much granularity. When sending photos, be careful about size so do not to suck up all the data in the recipient’s data plan.
From the folder select file and can make the photo the desktop, can do this from system preferences; hold down (shift + command + 3) to take a picture of the desktop.
iPhone storage: get a message about saving space by downloading attachments and deleting the file; to save, use “select all” to select all e-mail messages, select “save attachments,” create a folder, and save to that folder.
Messages – go to Settings -> Messages -> message history, can set how long to keep messages, e.g., set to 30 days, and will automatically delete anything older.
Q&A
OnePassword works with Safari; if not installing, delete the app and start over by downloading it again.
Next meeting topic?
Mac 10.16 developer signs non-disclosure agreement, not able to discuss this yet.
World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) conference next week – keynote address streamed.
How to upgrade to the current OS – 2 articles on the SMUG Website will help. Is your machine ready for Catalina? Can audit software to see if ready to make the move; new OS will come out this fall, hard to maintain security and use new features if we do not upgrade.
Apple TV – how to use this? Plug into compute, TV, attach to WiFi, can stream, can get Apple TV service and watch new programs; do not need cable TV – can use YouTube app on Apple TV; the control is tiny that comes with Apple TV so can use an app on the iPhone to make it easier to control; you can tailor what you see.
Next Month
Meet on Zoom next month.
WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference), and if time is available, will cover more on photography or do more Q&A.