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.
Tag: macOS
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
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
What’s New in HoudahGeo 6.1?
HoudahGeo 6.1 builds upon last year’s HoudahGeo 6 release to bring you the most comprehensive photo geocoding and geotagging solution for Mac.
KESTREL Weather Log Files
HoudahGeo 6 can add weather information – ambient temperature, air pressure, and humidity – to your photos. Such data can be recorded using KESTREL Drop devices. HoudahGeo 6.1 adds support for more variants of the KESTREL CSV log file format.
Weather Data From GPX Files
Some GPS devices can record weather information along with tracklogs. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now read weather data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.
Scuba Dive Data From GPX Files
HoudahGeo 6 can add scuba diving information like depth below water to your photos. Typically this information is obtained from UDDF dive log files.
Some dive computers and dive logging software can create GPX tracklog files. HoudahGeo 6.1 can now dive log data from GPX files that use the Garmin TrackPointExtension format to store such data.
Apple Aperture on macOS Catalina and Big Sur
HoudahGeo now works with Aperture versions modified by Retroactive to run on recent versions of macOS. Read more…
Further Enhancements
Adobe Lightroom: HoudahGeo now supports Lightroom libraries set up with symbolic links to preview files.
Apple Photos: HoudahGeo now reads malformed XMP sidecar files created by the Export Originals function of the Apple Photos application.
Performance: HoudahGeo 6.1 improves performance when working with large projects.
Window Layout: HoudahGeo now remembers the width of the media browser and inspector panes when switching between processing steps.