Photos - page 2

How to use iPadOS’ new full-page PDF capture tool

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Now you can capture an entire web page as a single, long, PDF.
Now you can capture an entire web page as a single, long, PDF.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

iPadOS 13 soups up its screenshot tool with the ability to capture an entire webpage as a PDF. That means it doesn’t just grab what you can see on the screen right now. If you’re viewing a webpage that’s really, really long, it will capture the whole thing, and turn it into a very tall PDF.

You can also mark up the resulting PDF before you save it to the Files app. This is a fantastic way to save a webpage, especially when you combine it with Reader View to remove the ads, sidebars and other junk first.

Let’s see how to use it.

Check out the next-level photo editing tools in iOS 13

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In iOS 13, Photos is now an image-editing powerhouse
In iOS 13, Photos is now an image-editing powerhouse
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Photos app in iOS 13 is now good enough that you may never need another app to edit your photos, for regular edits at least. Somehow Apple made the app even easier to use, and added some new features, while making existing features far easier to find.

For instance, Portrait Mode now gets its own tab; the automatic magic wand tool can now be fine-tuned (as can the built-in filters); and the crop tool now fixes perspective, and mirror-flips your photos.

How to save gigabytes of data while traveling

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Nothing says
Nothing says "freedom" and "pioneer spirit" like a creepy abandoned canoe.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Summer! That time of year where you stay in somebody else’s home via Airbnb, crank up their air conditioning and wear a sweater in the house, even though it’s 90 degrees outside. Aka the season where you leave the limitless comfort of your home Wi-Fi, to venture out into the world using just a restricted cellular plan.

Summer revives that old pioneering spirit of hardship, the bare essentials of living, and of making do with whatever you have. And just like the original English and Spanish invaders of the modern-day United States, you’ll have to do without the comforts of on-demand GPS and automatic app updates.

Today we’ll see how you can stretch your meager data allowance while traveling.

Is viral FaceApp stealing your photos? Not all of them

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FaceApp
FaceApp uses AI to deliver impressive photo effects.
Photo: FaceApp

Impressive artificial intelligence that delivers some of the most convincing facial effects has made FaceApp incredibly popular in recent weeks. But there’s some concern over what happens to your photos when you use it.

The good news is FaceApp won’t steal your entire photo library. However, some of your images will end up on its servers.

How to stop your Photos library from taking over your Mac

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Film Contact sheet
Don't let your photos take over your whole SSD.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Photos app on the Mac has two options for storing your photos. You can tell it to keep the full-size originals of everything, or you can have it self-manage, keeping your master library in iCloud and storing a mixture of full-resolution and low-res versions locally to save space.

The trouble is, even when you choose the “Optimize Mac Storage” option, the Photos app’s storage can metastasize and take over your whole drive. Today we’ll see how to cap this storage, giving Photos a hard limit on how much space it can use. For instance, if you have a MacBook with a 128GB SSD, you could choose to only use 30GB for Photos — and it will never, ever use more.

Third betas for iOS 13 and iPadOS arrive for devs

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ios13
Users can't wait to get their hands on iOS 13.
Photo: Apple

Apple seeded the third beta build of iOS 13 and iPadOS to developers this morning, bringing a host of new tweaks and bug fixes to test devices just before the 4th of July break.

iOS 13 beta 3 arrives just over two weeks after Apple dropped the last developer beta. The first iOS 13 public beta came out a week ago. Apple also released the third betas of tvOS 13, watchOS 6 and macOS Catalina today.

Here’s how multi-select works in iPadOS 13

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Strawberries multi-select
Yum! I'll take a 'multiple selection' of these.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

There are plenty of little annoyances that stop the iPad from being as easy to use as the Mac, especially when it comes to working with multiple items. On the Mac you can Select All with the keyboard, and you can easily add and remove items from a selection. You can click an empty space in a Finder window and start dragging a selection. And more.

The iPad sort of incorporates some of these features in some places. But in iPadOS, multi-select has been somewhat consolidated. And it is now arguably as good as the Mac, at least in the places where you can use it.

How to stop friends from swiping through all your photos

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Old cameras and projectors
Photos were much simpler in the old days.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

I hate my friends. I want to show them a photo, or that screenshot I took of those cute otters, and all they can do is take one look, and then swipe off into the rest of my photos. And trust me, you don’t want to know what I have lurking back there. And I also hate myself, because I do the exact same thing without thinking. It’s human nature.

Some apps let you load up a few photos to show to other people, so they can’t pull back the virtual shower curtain and peek at your private photos. But these require that you do extra work to prepare them.

Happily, iOS offers a way to lock down a single image. That way, when you hand your iPhone or iPad over to a friend, or anyone else, they can’t swipe to other photos. In fact, they can’t do anything at all, because you’ve locked the whole touchscreen. Best of all, you can toggle this on and off in a second.

What’s new in iOS 13 beta 2

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iOS 13 has almost too many features to cover -- but that won't stop us trying.
iOS 13 has almost too many features to cover -- but that won't stop us trying.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The second iOS 13 and iPadOS betas bring both good news and bad. Unless you’re a total “thrill-seeker,” it’s still not a good idea to install these betas on your main iOS device. In fact, there will be far more spills than thrills: The code remains raw and buggy as hell.

I have iPadOS running on an old iPad. While this latest version seems much less ragged around the edges, many apps still crash. And I still can’t make the Slide Over apps hide themselves at the side of the screen. Nor do all my favorites appear in the Files app.

The good news is that, despite this, the latest betas offer several new features — and lots of stuff has been fixed. Let’s take a look at the highlights of what’s new in iOS 13 beta 2.

How to resize a JPG on your iPhone

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If only you could resize and share all pictures.
If only you could resize and share all pictures.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Ever wanted to resize a photo before sending it, or posting it to the web? The quickest and easiest way to do this is with a shortcut. And it’s even quicker and easier because I’ve already written it for you. All you have to do is share the photo from inside the Photos app, pick this shortcut, and you’re pretty much done. Check it out.

Camera comparison proves iPhone is still one of the best

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camera sales
iPhone photography is still incredibly good.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Android enthusiasts are keen to highlight how the iPhone has dropped in the smartphone camera ranks in recent years. But a new camera comparison reveals that may not be the case.

Although there are some better options out there for low-light photography, Apple’s smartphone is still up there with the best when it comes to daytime shooting.

How to tell Photos it recognized the wrong person

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Photos app is usually pretty good at recognizing people.
Photos app is usually pretty good at recognizing people.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Photos app’s Faces feature is fantastic. It does a pretty good job of gathering all the pictures of a person together, for both browsing and search. And it’s really easy to add new faces to the list. But what about managing those faces? What if the Photos app’s AI added some photos of a stranger into the photos of your husband?

It’s easy to tell your iPhone or iPad that a photo does not contain the person it thinks it does. Unfortunately, it’s a real pain to find the setting you need to tweak.

How to email huge attachments with MailDrop

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Imagine stuffing a packaged sofa and armchairs in here. That’s MailDrop.
Imagine stuffing a packaged sofa and armchairs in here. That’s MailDrop.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Problem: You want to send a bunch of photos, or maybe a couple of big PDFs, to a client/friend/family member. The trouble is that the files are too big. Say your photos total 50MB. That’s way too much for email.

The old solutions: Split the photos up and send smaller emails. That’s a real pain for you and for the recipient. What about Dropbox? Sure, but then you have to copy the files to Dropbox, and get a link. Do you even have the Dropbox app on your iPhone?

What about WeTransfer? Sure. Just try to enjoy waiting for the upload.

The fix: MailDrop. Just compose your too-big email as usual, and let MailDrop take care of it.

How to iMessage a photo with just one tap

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Just one tap.
Just one tap.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

I got sick of having to tap a zillion buttons just to iMessage a photo to somebody, so I made a shortcut that lets me tap an icon on my Home screen, and sends my latest photo automatically to a preselected friend.

That’s it. You tap it, and the shortcut grabs the last photo you shot, and sends it. If that sounds like something you want, check it out.

Hyperspektiv 2.0 is the bestest, glitchiest photo filter app ever

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Every single filter on Hyperspektiv is killer.
Every single filter on Hyperspektiv is killer.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Hyperspektiv is one of my favorite photo apps from the past few years. Instead of screwing with your digital photos to make them look like olde timey film photos, it screws with your digital photos to make them look crazy and awesome. It’s a glitch-style filter app, and it pretty much decimates your images, turning them into incredible video clips, and — now — still photos.

Hyperspektiv 2.0 is out, and it cranks up the heat on the image-mangling burner to H-O-T.

How to back up your iCloud Photo Library

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Back up your precious — and totally non-creepy — memories.
Back up your precious — and totally non-creepy — memories.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Wait, what? Why would you want to back up your iCloud Photo Library? Apple takes care of that, right? After all, the clue is in the name — the library is stored in iCloud.

Not so fast. That’s true, but what if something screws up at Apple’s end? What if you lose access to your iCloud account? What if, what if, what if? In most cases, you’ll be fine, but being a good computer nerd, you probably understand the value of redundant backups. So today we’ll see how to make sure all your images are safely stored. Just in case.

iOS 12.1.3 brings fresh fixes for iMessage, CarPlay and iPad Pro

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iOS 12 false update popup
Grab the new iOS update now!
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

The first iOS update of the year is finally ready for the masses.

Apple is releasing iOS 12.1.3 today, bringing a number of bug fixes and performance improvements to the iPhone and iPad. iOS 12.1.3 is a minor update and doesn’t contain any big UI changes or new features, but it resolves some important issues with CarPlay, iMessage, Photos and the iPad Pro.

Adobe Lightroom now supports Shortcuts

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I sent this image to Lightroom with a Shortcut.
I sent this image to Lightroom with a Shortcut.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Adobe’s Lightroom, perhaps the best photo-editing app on iOS, now supports shortcuts. That is, it supports one shortcut, letting you load photo into it from the camera roll, or any other place your find images in iOS.

Wouldn’t a simple Open In… option suffice? Perhaps, but by adding just one simple shortcut, Adobe has also added quite a few powerful possibilities.

How to share photos safely with Shortcuts

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Removing geodata won’t always protect a photo’s location
Removing geodata won’t always protect a photo’s location
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Did you know that every photo you send via iMessage, or other messaging services like WhatsApp, contains all that photo’s location data? If you snap a picture in your home, anyone who’s receives that photo will be able to see where you took it on a map.

The same goes for uploading images to online auction sites, or internet forums. The good news is that it’s easy to sanitize your images with Shortcuts.

How to change background blur in iPhone XS and XR photos

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Depth Control on iPhone XS
Depth Control can add subtle or wild background blur to your images.
Photo: Cult of Mac

The iPhone XS has an  amazing camera, and the best part of that camera is the Depth Control feature, which lets you adjust the background blur after you take the photo.

This is a powerful feature, but to get the most out of it, you might want to check out these tips and tricks on using Depth Control on iPhone XS.

How to import photos into 2018 iPad Pro

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iPad photo import
Importing is dead easy.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You’ve been able to import photos into an iPad ever since the first iPad launched. You had to buy a Camera Connection Kit to do it, which at the time consisted of two 30-pin Dock connectors, one with a USB-A port for hooking up cameras and CF readers, the other with an SD card slot. Since then, imports have gotten faster, and better. And the biggest difference with the 2018 iPad Pro is that now you can use any old USB-C card reader or hub to do the importing. Let’s see how it works.