Photo enhancements on iPhone, don't seem to copy over to Mac

[AshevilleGuy]

iOS ver 14.2, Big Sur on Mac. I make enhancements to photos on my iphone, then use AirDrop to copy them over to my Mac, and then import in to the Photos app. When I open the photos on my Mac, the enhancements are gone. I started noticing this months ago, but it's a frustrating issue and I'm tired of having to make photo adjustments twice. Once on my phone and then again when I send them to my Mac. What's the deal? Anyone else noticed this?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

I haven't come across this issue, although I have very few photos on my iPhone and Mac.

Maybe the Include All Photos Data setting in this article will help? How to Share Original Quality Photos / Videos Using AirDrop on iPhone

I will look into it and see if I can replicate the issue and post back.

C

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

I just tried it. Enabling Include All Photos Data when using AirDrop worked and the copied version is the edited version.

Hope that helps.

C

 

[AshevilleGuy]

Well, I had never seen that setting before, and that's a very interesting one to know about. But do this for me (and by the way, thank you for helping me with this!!!)....

Take any of your photos and open it on your iPhone. Click edit. Click the Auto button and let your phone auto-fix the photo. Now, take notice of the 3rd icon over for Brilliance. Maybe click on it and slightly adjust it just just a tad, enough to see the actual number setting it assigned your photo. At this point, you know your iPhone adjusted the brilliance setting (I like to adjust it even more most times). Anyway, don't make any more changes, don't crop, and don't fix the photo any further. You can scroll through the various other settings and notice that your phone did make other settings changes, probably to things like Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation.

Now, use AirDrop and send it to your Mac, and use that setting you told me about. Once the photo is on your Mac (my AirDrop sends the photo to the Downloads folder), drag it in to your Photos app. From the photos app, open the photo, click on Edit in the upper-right. Now take notice if the Brilliance setting copied over. On my Mac, it does not. In fact, the photo appears to have lost ALL the settings that my iPhone's Auto fix feature seemed to apply to the photo. Settings like Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation have all seemed to reset back to the original setting for the photo.

Thanks again!
Jan

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

I followed your steps, and it does look like the Auto fix carries over to the Photos application on the Mac, but the Brilliance is at 0 (iPhone I had set it to 96). I tried it again with a 180º rotation and converted to monochrome. It does transfer that way, but all controls in Photos are at 0 and the edits cannot be reverted in Photos.

Thanks for the "learning lesson", but I am afraid mine acts the same way. Because I have never used any of the editing functions in Photos other than Rotate, I can't confirm that Big Sur changed it.

Another thought - I don't use iCloud Photo Library either (because I don't take many photos at all), but I wonder if that would sync the changes from Photos on your iPhone to iCloud to Photos on your Mac? Of course, don't enable it to test, as I am not completely sure how that would affect your Photos Library (or how many photos you have) and I wouldn't want it to screw things up from your current flow and storage strategy.

C