This 5-minute guided tour of Photos Workbench rushes you past all the landmarks and leaves you wanting. The tour guide encourages you to download Photos Workbench to satisfy your curiosity.
Batch Change Photo Titles using Photos Workbench
In Apple Photos, titles can hint at what is in a picture or where and when you took it. Descriptive titles are one of the resources we can use to organize and find photos.
Photos Workbench offers several methods of adding descriptive titles to photos:
- Find & Replace Text: Change existing titles
- Name Format: Build titles from text and tokens
Custom names can include a date and counter. The counter numbers the photos in their current order. Sort photos by date or arrange them manually to number the images by topic or order of preference.
Let’s see Photos Workbench in action.
Add Locations to Photos Using Photos Workbench
Photos Workbench offers several methods of adding locations to photos:
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- Drag-and-drop photos on a large map
- Automatic geocoding use a track log from a GPS device or iPhone app
- Incremental geocoding places photos along the path you traveled
Location information will allow Apple Photos to show your images on a map. It will help you look up images that you did not otherwise file or tag.
Knowing – and showing – where you took a photo adds to its “story”. On the map in Photos and Photos Workbench you get a bird’s-eye view of where you took your photos and the route you took to get there.
Let’s see Photos Workbench in action.
Introducing: Photos Workbench
Photos Workbench is a companion to Apple Photos on macOS. It helps you organize, name, and compare your photos.
What’s New in Tembo 3.0?
macOS 11 and 12 have introduced a dramatic new look representing a significant aesthetic departure from previous macOS versions. Tembo 3.0 adopts this refreshed Mac user interface with a fine-tuned new look, a new icon, and a redesigned toolbar.
Moreover, Tembo 3 adds support for Macs with Apple Silicon processors. It gives you the best performance on the latest Mac hardware.
Apple Mail Plug-in
Tembo 3.0 can again search Apple Mail messages.
Starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple Mail messages are no longer available through the Spotlight index used by Tembo .
Tembo 3.0 can nonetheless find your Apple Mail messages. Tembo installs a plug-in that runs within the Mail application. This plug-in allows Tembo to include Mail message files in your search results.
Enhanced Grid View
In Grid view, you can turn on additional file information which will display information like an image’s size, f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, and other metadata directly below the file name.
File Tags
Your favorite file tags are now available from the context menu. Customizable keyboard shortcuts allow for quick tagging.
Further Enhancements
- Search By Date: Tembo 3.0 adds new options to search for files by time frame
- Options: New options menu to quickly adjust your search parameters. Set default options in Tembo preferences
- Apple Silicon: Tembo 3.0 works with the latest versions of macOS and fully supports Apple Silicon Macs
Non-Recursive Search: Find Top-Level Files Only
HoudahSpot searches “recursively” descend into subfolders: results will include files from the folder where you are searching as well as files from folders nested within that folder.
In HoudahSpot you can list folders where you want to search. You can also exclude folders (and their subfolders) from the search: just drag the folder from the breadcrumb path at the bottom of the HoudahSpot window to the Locations/Exclude list.
In most cases, you want search results to include nested items. You have organized your files in a folder hierarchy and are using a search tool to find files anywhere in a folder tree of related files.
Sometimes you want to see only results from the top-level folder. You can repeat the above procedure to exclude more folders. Excluding all subfolders, one by one would be tedious. We will use a filter instead. Continue reading Non-Recursive Search: Find Top-Level Files Only
HoudahGeo 6: A New Way of Lining Up Photos with a GPS Track
Automatic geocoding in HoudahGeo matches photos to a GPS track log. A track log is a record of where you have been. A GPS app or track logger records your current position and the current time. It does so every few seconds and thus creates a breadcrumb trail of your travels.
HoudahGeo figures out where you took a photo by matching the timestamp on the photo with the times in the GPS track log. While the GPS device gets accurate time information from satellites, your camera clock is probably not accurate. Most cameras also do not record time zone information: the photo coming out of the camera may say it was taken at 12 PM, but there is no telling if that is to be understood as 12 PM east coast or west coast – a 3-hour difference.
Timestamps in HoudahGeo
HoudahGeo needs to know the exact time a photo was taken. That is why HoudahGeo asks about camera clock settings when you import images.
There are 4 ways you can tell HoudahGeo about your camera clock settings. The first 3 are found in the Load > Camera Setup… panel. This panel pops up automatically when you import photos that lack time zone information.
You can skip Camera Setup… – accept the current settings – and proceed to import more images and GPS track logs. We will correct the camera clock settings later by matching a key photo to a spot on the track log. Continue reading HoudahGeo 6: A New Way of Lining Up Photos with a GPS Track
macOS Monterey Compatibility
This year’s macOS upgrade focusses on improvements to Apple’s own applications. macOS Monterey does not bring major design or technical changes likely to cause problems for existing applications.
It should nonetheless be wise to hold off upgrading for at least a couple of weeks and give Apple a chance to fix remaining bugs.
HoudahSpot
HoudahSpot 6 was updated last year to adopt the new design introduced in macOS 11 Big Sur.
HoudahSpot 6.1.7 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.
HoudahGeo
HoudahGeo 6.1.1 has been tested to work with macOS 12.
An upcoming update will address a few minor bugs discovered during testing.
Tembo
Tembo 2.6 has been verified to work with macOS 12.
Tembo relies on the Spotlight index to find files. On macOS Catalina or later, Apple Mail messages are no longer accessible through the Spotlight index.
CustomShortcuts
CustomShortcuts 1.1 has been updated to look and work great on macOS 12 Monterey.
CustomShortcuts is a free download from our web site.
Type2Phone
Type2Phone 3.1.2 has been tested to work with macOS 12 to connect to devices running iOS 15.
Efficient File Searches using Filters
HoudahSpot uses the Spotlight index maintained by macOS. This allows for lightning-fast file searches and enables HoudahSpot to find all kinds of files by name, text content, and metadata.
Spotlight does have its limitations. Some of these affect HoudahSpot. While HoudahSpot lets you combine any number of search criteria to hone in on specific files, you however cannot find or exclude files by their path.
You can, of course, use HoudahSpot to search in multiple folders at once. HoudahSpot also allows you to exclude folders from your search.
You do, however, need to list the folders you want to search or exclude. Since the Spotlight index does not know about file paths, you cannot set up a criterion on file paths.
For example, you cannot configure a search to ignore all files where some parent folder is named Temporary. You’d need to explicitly list all such Temporary folders.
Fortunately, HoudahSpot can filter search results to hide unwanted results. A single filter can prevent all Temporary files from cluttering up your file search.
Working with Apple’s Aperture on macOS Catalina and Big Sur
In June 2014, Apple announced that the development of Aperture had been discontinued. Though the Aperture application would continue to work for years to come, it was time to plan to move on to a different photo management tool.
HoudahGeo can help with the migration process. Before moving away from Aperture you will want to safeguard geotags and other metadata currently stored with Aperture. HoudahGeo can copy these to industry-standard EXIF / XMP tags embedded within your JPEG or RAW image files. These geotags will be available for other photo management and editing tools to pick up.
Starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina, Aperture is no longer compatible with macOS. For many, this was a major reason not to upgrade their systems past macOS 10.14 Mojave.
Sticking with a dated version of macOS however, is not always practicable. Fortunately, there is another solution. The open-source Retroactive tool allows you to run Aperture and other discontinued applications on macOS Catalina and Big Sur. Thanks to Retroactive you can continue to use your favorite photo organizer. You can also use Retroactive Aperture to check your Aperture library after having migrated to a different tool. There may be an edit you would like to refine rather than start over elsewhere.
Continue reading Working with Apple’s Aperture on macOS Catalina and Big Sur