Workflow for storing photos from multiple iPhones + camera on Mac? What s/w to use?

jasonstone

Hi everyone,

Been away for a while as started to think about alternative ways to store photos as I don't use smug mug for sales only for storage/backup.

Here's my problem and I'm hoping someone can help me out from experience....

- Family of 4 all taking photos on iPhones
- Using camera too (JPG only on holidays)

I need a way to:
- import photos from each iPhone into each user's Photos
- import photos from camera into my Photos storage (together with my iPhone photos)
(I need to make sure I don't end up with duplicates as I do import photos from camera to my iPad as backup during holidays)
- import all photos from all iPhones and camera into a family photos storage / or have a way to access all the others in a central area
- upload the selects to smug mug (or other storage site if necessary)

Though Apple iCloud Photo storage might be easiest but not when Photos app is connected to single iCloud account (mine) - when my wife has 16gb iPhone and stores most photos in cloud to optimise storage...

What to do? I kind of want to move away from Lightroom as not paying for the cloud version and I don't use it so often anymore anyway.

Ideally I'd like to use Photos app on OS X as that is what the family members will use.

Any suggestions at all?

Thanks in advance

kdog

I attended a Lightroom Mobile seminar at Adobe HQ a month ago and it sounds like it will do just what you want. A photographer's subscription including Photoshop and LR is $10/month, or $120/year which seems like a bargain to always have the latest and greatest versions of those products. If you're adamant about not subscribing to Adobe CC, then you should look into similar features that may be available in the latest versions of whatever tools you're currently using in your workflow. If they don't offer mobile features, then maybe it's time to reconsider.

T. Bombadil

jasonstone wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Been away for a while as started to think about alternative ways to store photos as I don't use smug mug for sales only for storage/backup.

Here's my problem and I'm hoping someone can help me out from experience....
. . .

I need a way to:
- import photos from each iPhone into each user's Photos
- import photos from camera into my Photos storage (together with my iPhone photos)
(I need to make sure I don't end up with duplicates as I do import photos from camera to my iPad as backup during holidays)
- import all photos from all iPhones and camera into a family photos storage / or have a way to access all the others in a central area
- upload the selects to smug mug (or other storage site if necessary)

Though Apple iCloud Photo storage might be easiest but not when Photos app is connected to single iCloud account (mine) - when my wife has 16gb iPhone and stores most photos in cloud to optimise storage...

If everyone has their own iPhone, they can each have an iCloud account. Log each iPhone into its own iCloud account and enable iCloud Photo Library (Optimize storage).

On your Mac, create a user account for each iPhone carrying member of the family. In each user account, log them into their own iCloud account and enable iCloud Photo Library.

They can "Share" the best images with you (and other family members).

jemostrom

Another way would be to use a few apps. Install Dropbox on each phone, using the same Dropbox account, set the DB app to automatically backup photos. Use Hazel on a Mac to move the photos from Dropbox into your family photo storage folder ... then it all depends on what you want to do. You could autoupload to Smugmug, Flickr, Google Photos, whatever.

My version of this is that I auto-backup to Dropbox, one of my Macs download from Dropbox and moves it to a local folder (using Hazel) that I then import into Lightroom (and then comes a long story about backup etc but that's not relevant here)