No option to edit portrait/cinematic mode on Mac Photos

I can't seem to edit my portrait photos and cinematic photos on my Mac after the 15th Jul 2022 (e.g change depth in portrait or focus in cinematic)

Everything before can be editing, but nothing after that date. I can still edit the modes on my iPhone, but no option on my Mac.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, M1 MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) running Monterey

Any suggestions?

Posted on Oct 7, 2022 03:16 AM

Similar questions

Portrait photos from iPhone iOS 16.0 > no adjustments in OS X 12.6 Photos app iPhone 13, iOS 16.0 and iMac 24" M1 OS X 12.6 Photo taken in portrait mode and imported to 'Photos' on the iMac. In the overview in Photos the photo is marked as 'Portrait'. Open edit mode is missing the settings for the portrait depth and light. (Previous portrait photos are still editable as we know it.) It looks like Apple updated the camera or Photos on iOS without delivering a working pendant on OS X. Any ideas?
464 5
Portrait and Cinematic editing functions suddenly missing on new shots from iPhone I upgraded to IOS 16 and it seems that now, any photos taken with portrait mode on or any videos taken with cinematic mode on, are missing the corresponding edit function on other devices. For example, I take a portrait photo on iPhone 13 pro. I can edit the portrait aperture, etc. on the iPhone, but once I try to do the same in the photos app on a Mac or on an iPad, the portrait editing functions are missing. It shows up with a portrait label, but I am not able to change the aperture as no option is showing up anymore. Older photos and new photos taken with iPad running ios15 are doing fine. So, obviously a bug with IOS16?
278 2
Non-Portrait Photos Appear As Uneditable Portraits In Photos My environment is Apple Photos 8.0 (560.0.110) on a 2019 27-inch iMac running 13.6.6 "Ventura". My Photos library is stored on an external USB SSD formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), with the Ignore ownership on this volume flag set. The problem I'm experiencing also happens under my wife's account on her 2023 Mac Mini (same OS, same version of Photos). We are not using iCloud in any way, not for anything: it is not enabled on our Macs, nor on our iPhones. There have been no changes or updates to either of our Macs at least in the past 12 months. However, we have both recently upgraded our iPhones from iPhone 13 running iOS 17.x, to iPhone 16 running iOS 18.0. I prefer not to use the "Portrait mode" feature of my iPhone. I have determined how to disable this feature and have done so by turning off Settings > Camera > Portraits in Photo Mode. However, before I did this, I unknowingly took a few photos that appear to have this feature enabled--and by "enabled", I mean that the camera app appears to have saved some kind of metadata for a few of the photos that allow "Portrait mode" to work. These photos, when viewed on the iPhone, have a dropdown listbox labeled "PORTRAIT". The problem is, when I "turn off" Portrait mode for an individual photo in my camera, and then import that photo, it shows up in Photos with the label "PORTRAIT" stamped on the photo. However, when I attempt to edit the photo to turn off or eliminate the Portrait effect, no options are presented for editing the Portrait settings. Here is a specific example. On my iPhone, I have a photo of my cat that has the "Portrait" dropdown list stamped on it. When I tap the dropdown, I can see it is set to Portrait Off. However, when I import the photo into Photos on my iMac by attaching my iPhone with a USB cable, the photo appears with the PORTRAIT label on it. When I attempt to edit the photo, there are no options for adjusting or turning off Portrait. I have seen some posts online that refer to "the bottom of the edit screen" for accessing the Portrait editing capability, but I can assure you there is nothing at "the bottom of the edit screen". I have done extensive searching online, and I see many other people posting about this same problem, but I don't find any solutions. For example, here is a post on StackExchange that exactly describes the symptoms of the problem, complete with screen shots (although in that post, the OP transferred his photos using AirDrop and there is some suggestion that the Portrait metadata got lost; that isn't relevant to my situation since I'm transferring directly from iPhone to Mac using a USB cable). Here is another thread on Reddit that states the problem was a bug acknowledged by Apple support in macOS 12.x "Monterrey", but I'm on 13.6.6 "Ventura" and I can't believe the bug still exists. So I guess my questions is, since I don't care to use Portrait mode anyhow, how can I completely strip out/remove anything to do with Portrait mode, either on my iPhone before I import the photo, or in Photos after I import the photo? I'd really like to not have "PORTRAIT" stamped on photos in Photos, especially if the Portrait mode data can't be accessed or edited anyway.
316 3

3 replies

Oct 8, 2022 01:54 PM in response to phatman-2008

Hi phatman-2008,

Thanks for posting here in Apple Support Communities. It's a bit weird that you can't edit any of the photos after a certain date so we'd suggest to open your Mac in safe mode to see if this issue presents itself there. Keep in mind that starting in safe mode will take a little longer than normal, because it verifies and repairs the directory, cleans caches, and loads only Apple-critical items. See: How to use safe mode on your Mac

"How to use safe mode

Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:

Apple silicon

Shut down your Mac.
Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window.
Select your startup disk, then press and hold the Shift key while clicking “Continue in Safe Mode.”
Log in to your Mac. You might be asked to log in again.

Intel processor

Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key as your Mac starts up.
Release the key when you see the login window, then log in to your Mac.
You might be asked to log in again. On either the first or second login window, you should see ”Safe Boot” in the upper-right corner of the window."

Let us know how that goes.

Take care.

ArmMan1016

Community Specialist

Oct 8, 2022 03:41 PM in response to phatman-2008

Hello there phatman-2008,

Thanks for the follow-up info. The best next step going forward is getting you in touch with Apple Support for additional assistance. They can be reached here:

Get Support

Take care and stay safe.

phatman-2008 Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 8, 2022 03:24 PM in response to Keisha_Keisha

Hi Keisha_Keisha,

Didn't solve my problem.

To clarify.... I can open and the edit option and make edit on everything except the portrait/cinematic options - They just don't show up.

Thanks.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

No option to edit portrait/cinematic mode on Mac Photos