By Graham K. Rogers

One of the advantages of using Photos and the iCloud Photo Library is that images taken on any iOS device set up for iCloud as well, will find their way into Photos on the Mac or into the libraries on those other devices.

What we usually see, however, is an optimised image: the full image may take some time to arrive. This can be frustrating if we want to edit and use these images right away. This delay is also apparent when images are exported. Several minutes (or more) may pass before users can edit or export the specific image (or images).

There is a guide to such delays on the Mac. On the top of the Photos panel, to the right of the image size slider bar, a circular progress icon appears when downloading is taking place. Clicking on this, reveals a small panel with a little more information about the images being downloaded and a clearer progress bar.

This will not help the process happen any faster - we still have to wait for the download to complete - but it does indicate that something is indeed happening and may help us understand Photos just a little more.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.