Back up your library
Jan 04, 2020 The Mac is still the best device for serious photo editing, so you need some serious photo editing apps to make an impact. The built-in Photos app on Mac offers several useful photo editing tools. You can crop, adjust lighting and color, set the white balance, add filters, remove unwanted blemishes, and a few more things. Step 2: Apply negative effect to your photo. Click to the 'FILM PACK' button on the right top sidebar. Choose Color Negative Film from 'Color Rendition Profile' dropdown list. As you can see the negative effect to your photo at the same time for your operation, you can also choose the different camera film effect to change the negative color. I'm looking for a free app for my Mac (PowerPC/Leopard) that will allow me to invert a negative image. I have some film negatives here, rather than do a traditional wet contact sheet, it would be easier to lay the negatives on the scanner and invert the image from negative to positive.
Before following any of these steps, it's a good idea to create a backup of your photo library, even if you use iCloud Photos. You can use Time Machine, use a third-party backup solution, or copy the library to an external drive. By default, your photo library is stored in the Pictures folder within your home folder.
Make sure that your software is up to date
Photos is part of the Mac operating system. You can avoid or fix many issues by running the most up-to-date version of macOS. Learn more about updating the software on your Mac.
If you use RAW images in Photos, learn more about the digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
If you have trouble migrating an existing iPhoto or Aperture library to Photos
You might see an alert message when you first open Photos or migrate an existing iPhoto or Aperture library. Learn what to do if Photos can’t copy or create a library.
If the Media Browser isn't showing your photos and videos
Use the Media Browser to make images from your photo library available in other apps, like Pages and iMovie. The Media Browser shows only the contents of the Photos library designated as the System Photo Library. If you have more than one Photos library—and the one you're using isn't set as the System Photo Library—the Media Browser won't show its contents.
Follow these steps to designate the current library as the System Photo Library:
- Choose Photos > Preferences.
- Click the General button at the top of the Preferences window.
- Click Use as System Photo Library.
If you're having other issues with Photos
If you're experiencing other issues—like missing or blank photo thumbnails, unexpected behavior, or if Photos won’t open—try to see if it's an issue with your library by following these steps.
Create a new Photos library and see if your issues persist:
- Quit Photos.
- Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
- In the dialog that appears, click Create New.
- Give your new library a name, then click OK. Note whether Photos opens successfully with this new library.
To return to your main Photos library, quit Photos. Then open it again while holding the Option key, select your main library, and click Choose Library.
Alternatively, you can open Photos in another user account on your Mac and note whether Photos opens successfully.
If Photos opens with the new library, or in a different user account, it might mean that there's an issue with your library. Follow the steps to use the Photos library repair tool on your main Photos library.
Learn more
- Learn how to create and order print products like books or calendars in Photos with Project Extensions.
- Get help with iCloud Photos.
With each new smartphone and tablet, consumers are given yet another portable photographic and imaging device that can be used not only for casual photography, but also for serious purposes such as archival and preservation. Recently, I began experimenting with my smartphone to see if I could convert photo negatives into workable digital positives without having to buy a single-purpose device like the ION Pics 2 Go smartphone negative scanner.
There are quite a few smartphone applications and accessories to help people use their phone's camera to scan photographs and documents. The $15 Kickstarter project called Scanbox places smartphones an ideal distance from photos for scanning purposes, and mobile apps such as Shoebox by 1000 Memories uses edge detection and perspective correction to clean up digital shots of printed photos.
For my project, I used a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Shinycore's Picsay Pro (a $3.99 app I've used since I've been an Android user), a magnetic macro lens (Specifically the Creative Vado lens kit.)
The secret weapon in this project is the Tracing light box which can cost as little as $20 or as much as $1,000. The one I already had for art and design projects cost me $50 at my local art supply store five years ago. If you're so inclined, you can build your own out of an old flatscreen monitor.
Photos App For Mac
First things first: If your photo has a big block of a single, light color (which shows up as a big dark block in the negative) you might have to worry about photographing your own reflection. This is especially true when using underlighting like I did in this project, because you illuminate yourself nicely for the reflection. The solution in my case was to increase the ambient light until my reflection disappeared from the surface of the negative. This will take some messing around.
Here's the shot of the negative. It is flat, straight, and in focus.
In Picsay Pro, the first thing I had to do was invert the negative. Now you can see how washed out the colors appeared.
Apple Photo App For Mac
For the second step, I adjusted the RGB settings very little by boosting Red and Green
Then I increased the color saturation.
I increased the contrast by 20 percent, and shifted the hue -30 degrees.
Then I cooled off the 'temperature'
...And torqued the RGB settings once again.
Having done all of the color correction with a four dollar app within the phone, and without a good close-up view, I was pretty satisfied. Then I broke out the original print of the photo from 1999...
As you can see from this side-by-side comparison, the photo-positive scan has much richer colors than the smartphone negative scan. It almost looks like an artificial aging filter was added. So if you happen across a pile of old photo negatives that you don't want to pay to process, you can absolutely use your smartphone to create positives, but without the benefit of knowing how the colors were supposed to be reproduced, your final result might not look as good as an actual print would.
Still, it's the DIY spirit that counts, and it proves that you can do an acceptable job of reproducing old color negatives without having to put them through a chemical reproduction process, or even removing them from where they're stored.