Exporting files from Lightroom to iMac Photos

[PeterElliston]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic 9.0

Operating System

1. macOS 10.15 Catalina

Hi
I may have missed an answer somewhere too this but as I can't find it my apologies for perhaps asking again.
I know how to export from Lightroom by email or to a specific place on the Mac hard drive but do not know how to get the photos into iMac Photos as that option is not available. Would be grateful to know a simple way to do this. I have used other roundabout routes such as saving yo another folder on my desktop and then dragging down into iPhotos but there mut be another way of doing it.
Many thanks
Peter

 

[Johan Elzenga]

There is no way to directly export to Apple Photos, and the question is why you would want to do that. Lightroom and Apple Photos are more or less competitors, so it's better to choose one and stick to that ecosystem. If you really want to use both, then indeed you would have to export to a folder and then import that folder in Photos.

 

[PeterElliston]

There is no way to directly export to Apple Photos, and the question is why you would want to do that. Lightroom and Apple Photos are more or less competitors, so it's better to choose one and stick to that ecosystem. If you really want to use both, then indeed you would have to export to a folder and then import that folder in Photos.

John
Thank you for your message. The reason I often want to export from Lightroom to Apple Photos is that with Apple Photos I have the option to select an image from there to use in Whats App. There is no option to select an image in the Lightroom library when using WhatsApp.
Peter

 

[Johan Elzenga]

John
Thank you for your message. The reason I often want to export from Lightroom to Apple Photos is that with Apple Photos I have the option to select an image from there to use in Whats App. There is no option to select an image in the Lightroom library when using WhatsApp.
Peter

Lightroom is a non-destructive editor. There are no edited images in the library, so you always have to export an image before you can use it in another app. So yes, in that case you'll have to export it first and then import it into Photos (or use it directly from the export folder).

 

[carolrawlings]

There is no way to directly export to Apple Photos, and the question is why you would want to do that. Lightroom and Apple Photos are more or less competitors, so it's better to choose one and stick to that ecosystem. If you really want to use both, then indeed you would have to export to a folder and then import that folder in Photos.

I regularly export images directly to Photos, so that they automatically sync with my iPad and iPhone. One of the reasons is so that I can maintain a Photos album of images I've uploaded to Instagram - and I can upload them directly from my iPad or iPhone, but no longer directly from Lightroom (the LRInstagram plugin no longer works).

I send the images directly to Photos using an Export preset - with all the usual options for renaming, size, etc. - and set the last option to "Open with another application" , Choose Photos.app by navigating to /System/Applications/Photos.app

Once the images have exported, the Photos app opens and - voila there are your photos in the recently imported screen. From there I simply move them to whatever Album I want. When the iCloud sync has occurred, the images appear on all my devices.