AUGUST 2019 MACWORLD 23a central catalog (such as Apple Photos
and Adobe Lightroom), others rely on the
Finder to do the organizing. Picktorial
takes the latter approach, reading data
directly from the files on disk, and writing
the edit information back to JPEGs or, with
Raw images, to. xmp text files on the side.
However, for search in Picktorial 4.0,
the developers don’t lean on macOS’s
Spotlight. Picktorial builds its own index,
which results in faster search and the
ability to do more with the data, such as
create smart albums and sort photos using
multiple criteria, without maintaining a
central catalog
file. The Library
sidebar includes
several pre-made
searches, such
as All Photos,
star rating levels
(such as 2 stars
and higher), All
Edited photos,
and the like.
There’s also a
Search field for
typing keywords
and other
queries.
That field
presents a lot of
possibilities, as
Picktorial takes a
text-based approach to searching. If you
know the language, you can type it into
the Search field. For example, let’s say you
want to locate all the photos with the
keyword flower rated two stars or higher.
You have two options: click the pre-made
2-star-plus search item and then type
flower into the Search field; or, type
flower rating>=2 in the field. One
annoyance: if your query exceeds more
than a couple of terms, the Search field
doesn’t expand or wrap down to another
line, so you won’t see characters that run
longer than the visible area. According toPicktorial’s search is helpful, if you know how to use it.