After tinkering around for a while, I have found a method of uploading photos from a Mac that has generally minimized problems with upload errors, reduced photo quality, and timeout errors for large batch uploads. My workflow is as follows:
- Import photos from SD card to “Photos” app
- Scroll “Imports” folder, adding organism photos to the “Favorites” folder and crop as desired
- In iNat upload window, go to “Choose files”>”Photos”>”Favorites”
- Select all photos in “Favorites” and “Open”
- Combine duplicates and duplicate multi-taxon photos
- Add identifications and fill in missing metadata
- Upload
I have found this method to be quite quick and effective, but there are a couple of issues I have encountered occasionally:
- Heavily cropped images almost invariably lose metadata. I have learned to find the optimum crop in most cases, but this is still quite frustrating.
- Not all images that appear in the “Favorites” folder of “Photos” appear in the “Favorites” folder of the media upload window. This issue is most prevalent in (but not exclusive to) cropped images.
I don’t think these are bugs with iNat, but I think they could be alleviated by improving my workflow. Does anyone using a similar workflow have ways to streamline or improve upon this? In response to the second issue, I have had some success adding photos to a new folder/album, but I prefer how easy it is to toggle images in and out of “Favorites” between batch uploads. I haven’t tried any third-party photo managing/editing software, but I tend to favor built-in apps unless there is a distinct advantage to switching.
Thanks!