JD750 Loc: SoCal

Have any hogs done the Aperture to Lightroom library conversion? If so, how did it go?

Phantom53 Loc: Australia

Hi Jd, I migrated 800gig of images from Aperture to LR5 when it first came out. What would you want to know and I might be able to answer some for you.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

That's a big library! Questions.. ok here goes. Was it a managed or referenced lib? Did you use the Adobe tool? Did you end up with a separate catalog in LR or is it part of your main catalog? How well did keywords and ratings translate to LR? Locations? Are you still using Aperture for anything or have you made the switch 100% to LR?

Stevewayne23 Loc: Sacramento, CA

yes, I'm about to make the same conversion, since Aperture since Yosemite has become too buggy for my me. One question I have, though, is do you import the Aperture or iPhoto library?

Caysnowman Loc: MN & SC

I believe, at least in Mavrick, they are the same. Aperture & iPhoto use the same library.

Bill

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

Use the iPhoto/Aperture import tool in LR 5.7. It works fine.

Phantom53 Loc: Australia

Hi JD750,sorry for late reply but I just landed in Australia today from China and now arrived home.
I di not use Adobe Tool.
Managed library is where your images are actually stored in Aperture Library and very hard to find and referenced is where your images are in a folder or folders that you create on your hard drive and you can find them and so can other programs.

1: If you have your images managed then you need to make sure that you first have all you images (relocate Originals) and when doing this make sure you have opened all of the stacks or the ones in the stack other that the first will be left behind.

2: Put then in a place that they will live permanently as then you will always still have the ability to easily open then again in Aperture if you have issues and I would do this at least for a few months while you get use to Aperture as it is rather different. If you have the hard drive space thence the accessible for Aperture and Lightroom libraries and any new stuff just import in Lightroom moving forward.

3: Note that any editing that you have done in aperture will not be accessible in lightroom unless you save them as Jpegs, Tif or psd files. I shoot everything in RAW and therefore all the edits I did directly in Aperture did not show in Lightroom and this is why I keep the access open to both programs as I did not want to convert thousands of images into Jpegs or other that would also ear all my drive space.

Keywords had no issue but I cannot remember about ratings; I think the 1-5 star was OK but the coloured tags may have been an issue. I would suggest that once you have referenced all of your images that you then create you lightroom library and import just a small folder first to see what may be missing.

Hope this is some help and not too confusing. I need to try get some sleep now.

Also I only go back to aperture if there is an image that I worked on and like what I did and do not want to try and re-create it in lightroom. I love Aperture but once I got use to lightroom I will not change again as it has some great features that Aperture really lacks.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Thank you so much for your reply that helps. I know of other people who are waiting to do this it will help them too.

I love Aperture as well, the brush tools are very good. I can paint the curves tool using Aperture and I haven't figured how to do that in LR, I guess can always open Photoshop for that. I think Aperture is still better at digital photo management, but Aperture is going away and the day will come when it won't work anymore. I like LR and Adobe seems to want our business so I won't look back after making the change.

Hope you are able to get some sleep!

JD750 Loc: SoCal

I read on-line that you have to import the iPhoto lib into Aperture then convert it to LR. I haven't used the Adobe tool yet so I don't know for sure.

I'm still cleaning up my Aperture Libraries before exporting the images to a Ref Library. It's A big job as Aperture "spoiled" me with the ease of image management.

I will report the results when I do the conversion.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Wallbanger have you actually done the conversion using the Adobe import tool?

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Hi stevewayne23, what kind of bugs did you experience?

I ask because I haven't noticed any problems with Aperture since i upgraded to Yosemite. I did the update on day 1. But I do occasionally run the Aperture library repair tools (start Aperture while holding the CMD-OPTION keys to see the repair tools). I also check for unlinked reference files, etc to keep the database clean.

If it's the database causing the problem then it's possible that there will also be problems with Lightroom. I suggest you run the tools to make sure the library is in good shape before doing the "leap".

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

Yes, I used this guide: http://www.ct-digiphoto.com/import-aperture-libraries-lightroom-5-7/

Running a small library as a test first will give you a chance to see what you can expect. I didn't use a lot of complicated tagging, just stars and keywords, which came over fine.

Another thought - wait a few months to see what "Photos" looks like. It looks like it will be a good mix of the good from both Aperture and iPhoto, and maintain plugin support.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Thanks for the reply and the link.

So far I'm not blown away by Photos in IOS. I'm open to the possibility Photos may be a better tool on the Mac, than on IOS, but Apple's track record of late has been of removing functions, simplifying the interface etc to make the computer experience more like the IOS experience. My expectations are that Photos will be a step up for iPhoto users, but not be a replacement for Aperture.

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

We'll probably see a similar launch as we did with Final Cut Pro X, They had to strip it down to dump the legacy code and bring it into modern times. They've been adding back lost features at a pretty good clip from what I hear.

I suspect the same thing is happening with Photos. Dumping legacy code so they can write a base to work with that can better take advantage of modern hardware.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Yes, I believe that is what is happening.