For a while now, I’ve been using Dropbox as my photo management solution.
It’s not the cheapest thing on the planet, but it works for me. However, with Photos for OS X coming soon, I’m re-thinking my long-term strategy.
Apple has to prove to users that it can sync and stream photos, but if the system will work the way the company says it will, it looks compelling. So compelling, in fact, that I’m already thinking about my migration strategy.
On last week’s ATP, John Siracusa spoke about his photo management solution, iPhoto. He’s spent hours and hours over the last decade fine-tuning his metadata, making it easy to dial in to a small set of photos using time, location, ratings and even facial recognition.
That discovery isn’t possible using just the file system. While I have Hazel name my files by creation date and I sort them into folders, finding the right photo usually means thumbing through Finder with Quick Look.
With Photos on the horizon, I’m seriously considering importing my 66 GB photo library and hammer out some metadata work in iPhoto, then transition to Photos.app when it’s released.
Update: Jordan Patterson brings up an excellent question:
@ismh do you plan on waiting for photos on the Mac or will you use iOS to import unit iCloud photo library?
— Jordan Patterson (@JordanPatterson) July 8, 2014
The split launch thing Apple’s doing here is going to be annoying. Hopefully the Mac OS X application will be released as a beta when iOS 8 is launched.