suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Good Morning- questions for Apple users

I got a iMac for Christmas. I have a Mac Book Pro as well. Setting up the iMac (and transferring data from one computer to the other) was far more involved than anticipated for a variety of reasons but using the "Transfer Assistant" got the job done- I think.

My questions for Apple users are-

* Should my images from the Mac Book Pro have transferred to the iMac? It seems that all other data other than pictures did, including editing software.

*And if I load my images on to the iMac in the future, what will I need to do to transfer images from the iMac to the laptop?

PS- I use CC Bridge to organize and CC Camera Raw/PS to edit. I don't use LR to manage my images. I have wi-fi.

Thanks for the help.

Fred Harwood Loc: Sheffield, Mass.

Check the program, Photo, on your iMac. You may find them in there.
If the Photo icon is not in your dock, look for it in your Applications folder.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Without knowing what peripheral equipment you may or may not have, it's difficult to give you a step by step set of instructions.

I readily store/share images among 4 or 5 computers using a DSL router and a gigabit switch. These other computers are using a variety of operating systems, MacOS, Microsoft and Linux. I use one of these https://www.frys.com/product/7775258?source=google&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpompreGn2AIVEZ7ACh2V0AgcEAQYASABEgJqifD_BwE

This set up does require some cabling but works quite well. It is very possible to do this with wifi as long as each of the two systems can "see" each other on your network.
--Bob

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Bob-
Thanks for the link-

I have a DSL router with wifi - 2 Mac Book Pro, the new iMac, and 2 printers are set up on the Network now.

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

I'll take a look-thanks.

MikWar Loc: Chicago, Western Suburbs

Assuming the photo files and the programs you use (CC Bridge and CC Camera RAW) transferred over it may be a matter of using CC Camera to find the "catalog" (using Lightroom terminology since I am unfamiliar with CC Bridge etc.). You should be able to find an item in the File menu of the iMac to locate the appropriate file(s). Once you locate the appropriate "catalog" you should have access to all the photos that were transferred over.

As for you second question regarding transferring from iMac to laptop, it depends on what you want to do on the laptop. If you only want to store and/or share the images on the laptop (not do any processing) then you should be able to export from the iMac onto a thumb drive/external drive and then import them into the laptop. However if you want to process pictures on both the iMac and laptop the solution is not so simple. Again, I am unfamiliar with CC Bridge and CC Camera RAW, but using my experience with Lightroom I have found that the only way to process photos on both my iMac and laptop was to transfer all of my Lightroom files (Catalog, Library, photos) onto an external hard drive). I keep it hooked up to my iMac for most of my processing, but when I want to use my laptop I eject the external HD from the iMac and connect it to my laptop and then open Lightroom. I regularly back up my Lightroom external drive to another external drive.

There are other ways to accomplish the same thing (I asked a similar question not long ago - see http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-496874-1.html

Good luck!

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Thank You.
I need to think/re think how I want to utilize the new computer. The iMac has far more hard disc memory- 1 T as compared with 250 G for the laptop. The iMac is also upgradable to 64 G Ram. The laptop has 16 G Ram- not upgradable.
So it makes more sense to use the iMac for storage and editing. And to keep it simple I could copy specific images (perhaps the ones that I upload to Flickr and FB and family images) only to the laptop.
However having said that, it would be nice to access images not on the laptop from the laptop.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

suntouched, here's another idea for you to consider. Look into G-Technologies drives. They are very compatible with iMac. They are of various sizes and configurations.

BTW, I have a 27" iMac and love it. It's almost sole purpose is photography. It's somewhat my digital darkroom.
--Bob

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

The 27 " monitor is fantastic. Now I need to find somewhere in the house to set it up.
I do use G technologies drives for back up. But I could do a mind shift and use one for simply sharing images from desk to lap top. It would be the simple solution. I am so totally not a computer guru so what ever is simple works for me.

I kind of wish now that when I set up the iMac I did not transfer everything from the laptop to the desk top. All that I really needed was Internet, email, photo organizing and editing software. Maybe I should haul it all up to the Apple store and start all over with their help and a well thought out plan :)

blackest Loc: Ireland

A handy thing to have might be a firewire cable. You can do a couple of interesting things with that.

You can put either machine in target disk mode (makes the machine act like an external hard drive)

you can also boot from that drive instead of the internal. e.g use the macbook to boot the iMac and have access to the macbook files and apps but with the imac screen mouse and keyboard. Anyway makes it fast and easy to transfer files between the 2 machines without having to copy to an external on one machine or transfer via your lan.

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

If your iMac has at least twice the internal storage available as your images require, transfer them to the iMac. When storage on the iMac runs low, transfer your older images to an external USB-C drive that you leave plugged in to your iMac.

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

There are some excellent answers above and I read them carelessly. But I want to make sure that you are aware that you can copy files between computers on your home network and usually that is a very fast way to do it. It's so fast that I use the card reader on my MacMini to put the camera's pictures on my much faster Windows 10 computer which does not have an internal card reader and all my USB card readers are slow.

Look on Finder under network. Look in Preferences to make sure your sharing options are properly set up for files. It is all pretty straightforward in the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

In my experience, the network can let you share a RAID storage box, Windows, Mac and Linux. This should work whether you use WiFi or Ethernet or a mix.

I am telling you this so that you can avoid worrying, for now, about a workflow. You can drag and drop or copy & paste over the network.

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

Another route that I really like is to buy the MacOS Server application for $20 and set up the iMac as a server. Keep the external G Tech drives connected to it and maybe add another for Time Machine backups. The server app does lots of things including:

- acts as an update cache so updates only get downloaded once and then the other two machines will pull from the iMac locally.
- acts as a network time machine server for any other mac on your network. Restores can be done over wifi should you ever need it (very nice). May want a new external 2 TB drive for this.
- shares out volumes to other devices (Mac, Windows, Linux) on your network.

It's a cheap thing to try and you can have it working in minutes using your existing network and hardware.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-server/id883878097?mt=12#

It's also handy to have a thunderbolt cable to connect two macs together. With your MacBook turned off, connect it to your iMac then hold down the T key when you turn it on. It will come up in Target Service mode and show up as a mounted volume on the iMac. You can then drag files to/from the MacBook at will. Wonderful feature when the OS gets toasted and you just want to copy the files off before wiping the old drive.

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

Something else you might try is airdrop. To get the directions for using airdrop just type airdrop in the disk utility search bar. It uses wi fi. I use it to sync my calendars, photos, and documents between my iPhone, iMac, iPad & MacBook Pro.

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and links. There were some glitches in the set up and transfer process which required a 2 hour session with Apple Care but all seems resolved now. Tomorrow I will relook at all the responses and go forward.