Files/Photos

[richardb]

I am trying to envision possibilities for taking advantage of the fact that Nitro and Raw Power can work with both Finder Folders and the Photos app. In my case, I could see using Folders for the initial culling, editing and finalizing images and then exporting the finished image to Photos and use Photos as a less cluttered library for sharing, viewing, etc., leaving the originals and ok but not finalists in the Browser. Does this make sense? Are there other ways to take advantage of the fact that Nitro and Raw Power can work in both worlds or are we better to stay in just one of the two? At present I am using On1 Photo 2022 as my primary raw editor and DAM but it’s in need of an update sooner rather than later and my Browser Folders are increasingly cluttered with originals and various versions of edits so am considering Photos/Nitro (or maybe Raw Power) as the repository of the finished products.

[Nik Bhatt]

Yes, using file system folders and the Photo Library is a powerful workflow. Quite a few people do that. In fact, Nitro has a specific feature that lets you export originals + ratings + edits between the two systems. So you can edit in a Finder folder and then add the original + all the edits to the Photo Library (or vice-versa) – meaning that you can continue editing non-destructively if you like. Of course, you can also just export a finished image to the Photo Library as well.

[Gary Small]

Richardb’s postulated workflow is similar to what I do. To import Fuji X-T5 RAF files and iPhone 17 Pro Raw (DNG) files into “Photos” would be a failed “IQ” test for me, since Photos won’t process Fuji Compressed Raw and in any case the file size (along with the iPhone DNG files) would bloat my iCloud storage, even after culling.

I store those original files in yearly folders. I use the Finder to batch rename the files “YYYY_MM_location_sequence). Nitro can do this too, (I like the underscore _ separator better than the hyphen -), but mainly, I also add Finder tags at the same time. I use Photo Supreme for folder asset management which will read Finder tags and automatically add identical Keywords (Graphic Converter can do this too, but it is an extra step with additional software). I then add those new photos to Nitro for editing (and additional keyboarding) and finally use the export direct to Photos using HEIC files. I would RATHER export using JpegXL (better compression and 16 bit color capable), but Nik hasn’t committed to add that option.

Once the exports are in Photos, I might use some of the 3rd party extensions (on1, Luminar Neo etc) to do final tweaks. The main thing is that the original (large) files are stored on local drives accessible to Nitro if re-edits are desired, and iCloud Photos manages the small processed photos and are globally accessible to my devices.

[richardb]

One of my reasons for wanting to save baked in edits in addition to the originals with non destructive edits comes from past experience. In moving from ACDSEE on Windows to Aperture and then LR on Mac and then to On1 Photo Raw (with potential move to Nitro and Photos in the works), the “non-destructiveness” of my edits was lost with each and every change of software, with most of those changes being driven by other factors.

[Nik Bhatt]

I haven’t committed to JPEG XL because Apple has not the ability to export into that format yet. I rely on macOS / iOS for export because they handle metadata insertion and the rest of my system uses those same services. I was surprised they didn’t add it in Tahoe / iOS 26. Maybe next year.

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