HEIC arrive as JPG

[Califdan]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic 8.3

Operating System

1. Windows 10
2. iOS

Hi,

I am not an Apple person and don't own an iPhone or Mac computer so my usual approach when one of my clients has a problem I haven't seen before is to experiment till I figure it out. But, lacking the requisite device a am hoping this forum can help.

My client is running LR Classic 8.3 (maybe 8.3.1 - she just had her IT guy install it on her laptop using a group license and I haven't met with her since the install to check the version). Anyway, she took photos on a trip recently with her iPhone using the standard tools that come with the phone (not LR mobile). She has informed me that when she imports the photos to LR Classic though they show up as JPG's not HEIC's as indicated in the metadata shown in LR. She also says she has been able to copy the native HEIC files to DropBox for safe keeping so it appears that the phone captured the images in HEIC format.

I don't know what steps she used to get the photos from the phone to her laptop and then into LR, and that could be a factor. But beyond that, is there anything special about HEIC's that could explain this behavior?

Thanks -- Dan

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I answered a similar question in another thread. Maybe that client? I answered as follows:

You could do the following:
1: Install Lightroom Mobile on your phone;
2: Sync your Lightroom Classic catalog to the cloud. You don't have to sync up any images if you don't want to;
3: Shoot some pictures with the Apple camera app in HEIC format;
4: Start Lightroom Mobile and import these pictures;
The pictures will now sync down to Lightroom Classic, in HEIC format.

 

[Califdan]

Yes, Same client. I wasn't aware she was on this forum as well. Using LR Mobile as you describe was in the mix of things to try but still doesn't shed light on why her previous import only got JPG's. I think that once I see her specific steps it will be clear what happened though. Thanks for responding (to both of us).

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Those JPG's may have been previews. I don't think that an iPhone can shoot HEIC+JPG and I don't see how HEIC images can mysteriously convert to JPG.

 

[Califdan]

Thanks Johan, I'm waiting for the client to send me step by step process she used and perhaps something will jump out. Maybe Apple Photos is in the mix someplace and provided the JPG that she imported. But at the least with some screen shots (which I hope to get soon) I can see if she actually pointed to a JPG in the import dialog or if LR some how did a conversion which would be something I've never heard of before. I suspect that the JPG was created upstream from LR and seeing the steps should bring light to what that step was.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

It must be upstream. Lightroom will definitely not convert HEIC to JPG on import.

 

[Califdan]

New info.

My client is running iOS 10.12.6 on her laptop. According to this article (Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices), HEIC support came along with iOS 11 (High Sierra). The last paragraph in the article mentions that when brings HEIC files into the computer with a USB cable that sometimes they get converted to JPG, but the article is not explicit as to what circumstances that happens other than saying you can change this behavior in iOS 11 or higher.

A second clue is that I got a screen shot from my client of the LR Classic Import dialog. In this screen shot it shows the iPhone in the left panel as a device, but unlike my Windows + Android setup, there is no spinner triangle that can be used to show the files on the phone which I find odd. But, when this device is selected, the HEIC images show up in the import dialog grid - BUT they show up as JPG's - not HEIC's.

A third clue is that this message comes up at some point. I'm not sure what my client was doing when this message appeared, but I had asked her to use Finder to copy an HEIC file from Dropbox (where she had saved them) to her Mac and then in LR import the image from the desktop so I think this message popped up when she tried to copy the image to the desktop (not 100% sure of this though).

So, my working assumption right now is two things. First, that iOS must understand, and be able to decode, all file types that get brought into the machine (seems odd being a Windows person where Windows doesn't care what file type it is when just copying files with file manager). And, second that her version of iOS is somehow helping out by converting the HEIC (which the OS can't deal with) to JPG (which it can deal with).

Does this sound reasonable?

She has indicated that she will be taking her Mack back to her IT guy - I suspect to have him update the operating system to a newer version.

Dan

 

[Johan Elzenga]

That message of the screenshot will come up when she double-clicks on the HEIC file. It means there is no default app to open it. Your working assumption is wrong. MacOS can manage any file, just like Windows. To copy or move files, it does not need to be able to decode it. What happened is that your client double-clicked the file (meaning she tried to open it) while she should have single-clicked it to select it.

I also doubt that there is some process that converts the HEIC to JPG. What I think is that the JPG is an embedded preview that gets extracted somehow.

 

[Califdan]

Johan,

Thanks for the info. Glad that Mac's can manage even unknown file types. Again, at a disadvantage not being a Mac owner.

In regard to your comment doubting that it would convert to JPG, how do you interpret the phrase "the media might be converted to JPEG " in the last section of the article I referenced (re printed below):

Importing this media via USB
When you import HEIF or HEVC media from an attached iOS device to Photos, Image Capture, or a PC, the media might be converted to JPEG or H.264.
You can change this import behavior in iOS 11 or later. Go to Settings > Photos. In the TRANSFER TO MAC OR PC section, tap Keep Originals to prevent the media from being converted to JPEG or H.264 when importing.
Published Date: April 12, 2019


Which brings up another question. My reading is that HEIC is a replacement for JPG with added benefits rather than another from of RAW. if it's a replacement for JPG, with a smaller footprint than JPG I would not expect there to be an embedded JPG inside it like there is for RAW files. Or, is HEIC more like a RAW file that contains sensor output values that must be rendered into pixels rather than actual pixel values that one finds in JPG's (or something else entirely)?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Right. That option is all the way down in the settings, so I never noticed it. If your client selected ‘Automatic’, then indeed it seems the HEIC files are converted by iOS if it detects that the destination does not support HEIC. In that case, embedding a preview would make no sense. So tell her to set this to Keep Originals and the problem should be gone.

The way I understand it, HEIC is something in between JPG and raw. It’s more than 8 bits (it can be up to 16 bits, but an iPhone shoots 10 bits) so it contains more information than JPG, but it’s rendered data, not raw data.