Over the last decade, I’ve heard people sing the praises of the app PowerPhotos from FatCat Software. I’d take a look at it, but find the vast capabilities somewhat intimidating. When J.F. Brissette suggested I consider making a ScreenCastsONLINE video tutorial on PowerPhotos, I figured this was the best way to learn the tool once and for all. I’m really glad I took on the challenge. I guess I’m burying the lede and not telling you what PowerPhotos is for. Think of PowerPhotos as extending Apple Photos on Mac by providing either things Apple Photos doesn’t do, or doing a better job at some things Photos does not do well.
PowerPhotos can merge Photos libraries, split libraries, create new libraries, and help you reorganize albums and folders more elegantly. While Apple Photos has the ability to merge duplicates, how it does that is opaque, and you have to trust it will do what you want. PowerPhotos lets you be very granular on how it merges duplicates, so you keep the version you want. I think my favorite part of working with PowerPhotos is how it lets you very quickly modify metadata like titles, captions, and tags, and even do bulk modifications of metadata.
If you’re a ScreenCastsONLINE subscriber already, I think you’ll get a lot out of my latest tutorial on PowerPhotos. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can get a free 7-day trial of the service and watch all of the current back catalog. Don’t be intimidated by how feature-rich PowerPhotos is; conquer it by learning from ScreenCastsONLINE. I know that sounds like AI wrote it, but I actually believe this is the best way to learn tools on Apple devices.