Apple's new desktop application, Photos is meant to replace the company's long-running photo-editing apps iPhoto and Aperture and promises improvements in organizing digital image collections. It's a free download included with the latest update of Apple's Mac OS Yosemite operating system. Credit: Apple Inc.
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Apple’s new desktop application, Photos is meant to replace the company’s long-running photo-editing apps iPhoto and Aperture and promises improvements in organizing digital image collections. It’s a free download included with the latest update of Apple’s Mac OS Yosemite operating system. Credit: Apple Inc.

Owners of Apple computers who have installed the latest operating system, Yosemite, got a bonus last week with the introduction of "Photos," a new desktop application bundled with a software update. But what is Photos and why would you want to use it?

Photos is Apple’s replacement for its long-running digital photo editing software, iPhoto, which has been included with every Mac sold since 2002. Photos also replaced Aperture, a photo program geared toward photo enthusiasts and professionals. Over the last few years, it lost momentum to competitors like Adobe Lightroom.

Apple promises that the new app will make wrangling large sets of photos easier and will sync photos more seamlessly across Apple computers, iPhones and iPads using the online service iCloud. It will also save space on devices by storing full-sized versions of photos online, but not on computers, phones and tablets. And edits made in photos will also show up on the same image across all devices. You can learn more about it at apple.com/osx/photos.

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