I have started using my iphone as my goto camera for photos to be used for iNaturalist observations. Last night I took 70 photos that I would like to create observations from. I prefer using the upload feature on the web on my PC. The problem is getting the photos transferred to my PC. I tried copying them directly, but the inaturalist uploader complains about the HEIC format. I’ve tried to use a free converter (iMazing), but it tells me I have to pay for more than 50 photos. I tried using the windows Photos app to copy them, but it insisted on spending forever downloading my entire photo library before doing anything. I tried mailing the photos using mail drop, but the mail drop never arrives.
Anyone have a good workflow for doing what I want to do? I don’t mind paying for an app if it’s something I’ll routinely use.
You can upload photos into the new iPhone app in batches of 20 and then sort them into observations from there. 70 photos would only be 4 batches and probably take about 10 minutes. This is also my default workflow and I’ll agree it’s tedious but less so than taking a DSLR everywhere and then transferring photos off it at some point later.
Alternatively, HEIC photos should be supported and it looks like this bug should be fixed relatively shortly.
For what it’s worth, here’s my workflow with iPhone photos:
Take pictures with phone camera.
Wait for them to sync to iCloud Photos, then download them to PC using the More Download Options…/Unmodified originals option in the three-dot menu (this downloads HEIC with all metadata intact).
Import them into the FOSS DarkTable photo processing package. (This software takes a bit of a learning curve to get all your options right.)
In DarkTable, check the map to make sure locations came through correctly, then (as needed) rotate, crop, and adjust exposure. Add taxon in Title and add notes in Description.
Export as JPEG with max 2048x2048 pixels (iNat’s max size).
“Upload” photos via cable to my laptop to Photos app (I do not use iCloud) as HEIC. I may add a caption after it’s in the Photos app.
Select photos I want to submit to iNaturalist, and export (File–>export) them to a folder I call iNat. The export format can be set to various parameters. I make it JPEG, medium quality, max dimension 3000pix, with title, keywords, caption, and location. (This is the only use I have for the Export function, so this parameter setting stays in place all the time.)
Upload the exported photos to iNat via the webpage. Notice this transfers the “caption” to iNat’s “description” field so I can just use that or edit it.
Send the photos in the iNat folder on my laptop to the trash.
I primarily use my phone and a camera, I plug both into my pc, copy the files across and uploaded via browser, I found that more convenient for myself rather than the app.
After one hike I had 2000 photos, that worked well enough
Thanks everyone for the ideas. I found something that worked well that involves using iCloud. Once you are using iCloud, which I already was, the photos are available anywhere that iCloud is accessible. One of those ways is by going to icloud.photos on the web. Once there, you can select the photos you want, then click the download icon (cloud with a down arrow in upper right). The photos are downloaded to a zip file in Downloads, from which the photos can be extracted. They are in jpeg format automatically, or at least in my case they were.
I too have struggled with this.. But I settled on downloading the HEIC files to my external drive - then using unlimited HEIC converter - its totally FREE - you can support them with a donation.
I’m on a PC - don’t pay extra for iCloud storage (and find the iCloud for windows cumbersome. But if you are on a pc - the app is available from the microsoft store
One of them is to go into the settings in the phone and set it to save as JPG rather than HEIC.
Settings > Camera > Formats and select “Most Compatible” to save photos as JPEGs
This takes up more storage space, but is easy.
Another, if you’re on Windows is to install CopyTrans. It’s a free converter that integrates with Windows so you can just right-click on an HEIC file and convert it. You can select a batch and convert them all at once. I have had this installed for a while now and it’s always worked great. It’s not a super high fidelity conversion, but then again with the tiny sensors iPhones use neither are the iPhone images. The conversions are perfectly suitable for iNat.
According to Apple, they default to HEIC because it is the most compact, so I would say only do this if you have plenty available memory in your iohone, and you clear it down farly regularly. This link describes how to revert to JPG format.
Sorry if link posted badly, learning this phone and forum myself !!
I have found it very easy to follow what another member suggested - create observation from first photo, save it and open observation. There is a small pencil icon by the photo, click that and either take additional photos (my m.o.), or upload additional photos from your phone cam gallery. I found uploading photos retrospectively a problem if you made a lot of observations because it was not so easy to match the photos to the observation (especially if it was photos of leaves !!).
Apologies for piggybacking. You can also use Irfanview and just save .HEIC as .JPG or .PNG (sligtly more efficient than .JPG), and specify “size” (I use 1920 x 1080 HDR which usually gives a <5mb file). Another option and I think it is free software (was when I first downloaded several years ago), but if not is an excellent graphic viewing/manipulation prog (I have no affiliation with this company).
