Photos Basics

Apple has a terrific guide to using Photos in iOS and iPadOS, and there’s also Jason Snell’s Take Control of Photos, but let’s review a few basics. If you look at the bottom of the screen in Photos, you see four icons: Library , For You , Albums , and Search .

Here’s what you can find on each screen:

• Library : This view shows all of your photos. You start in the All Photos view, but you can chose Years, Months, or Days to narrow down the photos you’re looking at. You can also pinch out or in with two fingers to change among those views.

• For You : Here you see recent activity in shared albums; Memories, which are automatically generated photo collections; Effect Suggestions, which lets you make photo adjustments with a tap; and Sharing Suggestions, which identifies photos that it thinks you should share with contacts (Figure 42).

  

• Albums : The Albums view contains both your personal photo albums and those shared with others. You can also view photos based on faces identified in the photos and where the photo was taken. There are also a number of albums based on media type, such as screenshots, videos, selfies, etc.

• Search : This screen lets you search for photos. That search might be more powerful than you assume, since Photos can identify a number of different objects. Try searching for stuff like baby, dog, tree, and spaghetti (Figure 43).

There are a number of actions you can take on a photo. Tap a photo (or video) to view it, and then you can:

• Favorite a photo: Tap the heart icon to add the photo to your Favorites album, which you can find on the Albums screen.

• Delete a photo: Tap the Trash icon and then Delete Photo.

• Edit a photo: Tap Edit. The most common adjustment I make is rotating photos and videos, which you can do by tapping the crop icon.

• Share a photo: Tap the Share icon to share a photo through Messages or Mail, to a Shared Album, or to another app and/or service.

You can select multiple photos at the same time by tapping Select and tapping photos to select them. You can then either share or delete those photos.

New Tools to Filter and Sort Photos

Eagle-eyed Photos users might notice a new button when viewing photos (such in the All Photos view or when looking at an album): a More button. Here are all the functions you can find when you tap that button:

• Zoom in and out: If you can’t use the pinch gestures, you can zoom in and out from this menu.

• Aspect Ratio Grid: By default, Photos displays all your photos as square. This setting shows them in the original aspect ratio.

• Filter: Tap this to filter down the photos you’re looking at, to view only favorites, edited photos, photos (minus videos), or videos. Set it to All Items to see everything again.

• Show Map: This shows all the photos in the view on a world map (Figure 44).

Add Captions to Photos

In iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 you can add text captions to photos. They help you add context to photos, and they’re searchable, so they can help you find your photos later. If you use iCloud Photo Library, your captions are synced between your machines.

Here’s how to add a caption to a photo:

1. Open any photo that is not in a shared album so that the photo fills the screen.

2. Swipe up on the photo.

3. Tap Add a Caption.

4. Type your caption.

5. Tap Done.

To view the caption, open the photo again and swipe up. You can tap the caption to edit it.