A comprehensive review of Photos on the eve of its alleged first major upgrade

Over at AppleInsider they say Apple is about to introduce new more advanced photo editing capabilities for both iOS and OS X. That is great news. And way over due in fact. But let’s take a look at what is already there. And what are some of my thoughts after using Photos for a year.

Here’s a slightly out of focus headshot of my bunny. This picture is edited using Photos on OS X.

All of my photography is on iCloud. All of the editing is done in Photos. Mostly on iOS. I have changed my entire workflow and I have never been happier. Most people are not aware of this but Photos actually supports RAW even on iOS. All edits are syncronized and reversable. As well as non-destructive for jpeg images — this means the changes are applied only once every time a change is made to minimize loss in quality.

Photos is great. You can use it but nothing else, even for professional work. I have an iPhone 6s Plus so I don’t even need the laptop. The iPhone’s screen is big enough and I trust it’s colors enough so 90% of all my edits I could do on the spot after importing.

Lightning to SD card reader

At the core of my operation is the SD card reader for iPhone. I try to import pictures as soon as posible — For backup as well as freeing myself from having to do that later. I used to forget to process, sometimes, entire trip’s worth of photos. Or people would bug me for months to share some shots.

Importing to my iPhone also synchronizes the photos with my laptop. This comes in handy if I want to edit back at home. In fact this happens only when I need to tweak white balance — which is what I wanted to talk about all along.

The same bunny shot unedited. The lighting was tough.

There is the issue of white balance correction. It’s missing from the iOS version of the app. Noise reduction and a few other tools that don’t really work are also missing. But the white balance is the most important one for me.

There’s no WB in Photos on iOS. I sometimes play with the Color cast setting but it isn’t the same.

Digital cameras can produce images with very predictable results except in challenging lighting conditions. Which is why most people shoot RAW. It gives the opportunity to correct the white balance to a degree I sometimes feel as magical.

White balance picker tool is pure magic. Please note I am aware the white balance is still off. At the end that’s what I chose for this photo.

It is frustrating that I still cannot ditch my laptop alltogether in favor of editing solely on the iPhone. But that doesn’t make Photos any less briliant. I haven’t missed Lightroom nor Aperture even for a moment this past year. And it tells more than a missing feature we might actually get as soon as next week.