Moving from Aperture

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stlatham

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Can anyone give any guidance on the least painful method of moving a 7'k image (about 5'' GB) library from Aperture to Lightroom?
 
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Welcome aboard. I can't answer your query but I'm sure someone who has done what you want will answer before long. In the mean time to help us help you could you please take a moment to fill in your signature with information similar to what I have, in the "userCP' that is found at the top left of the page - thanks.
 
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Better tell us a bit more about what you need to do. What file types are we talking about - and list the types of originals and worked files in detail (camera types? JPEG originals, TIF originals?). In Aperture by reference or managed? Have you got a lot of spare disc space? What aspects do you want to preserve - projects, keywords? It's also worth saying why you're moving - sometimes issues pop up.

John
 
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File types: Mostly Nikon (D3, D7'' & D3'') raw & Canon (1D MkII & 1D MkIII) raw, jpeg originals, a few tiff originals.
Aperture: Managed
Disc Space: About to install four new 1TB drives so should have plenty.
Want to preserve: keywords, caption and adjustments (exposure, color correction, cropping, etc.). Project naming and organization scheme would be a big plus.
Reason moving: Speed and stability. Going from Aperture 1.5 to 2.' helped some with speed, though still sluggish. Stability has always been an issue. Crashes at least once a day, sometimes several times per day. Only reason I went with Aperture originally after trying both it and LR was it's ability to utilize two displays. Now LR offers this as well.

Steve
 
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File types: Mostly Nikon (D3, D7'' & D3'') raw & Canon (1D MkII & 1D MkIII) raw, jpeg originals, a few tiff originals.
Aperture: Managed
Disc Space: About to install four new 1TB drives so should have plenty.
Want to preserve: keywords, caption and adjustments (exposure, color correction, cropping, etc.). Project naming and organization scheme would be a big plus.
Reason moving: Speed and stability. Going from Aperture 1.5 to 2.' helped some with speed, though still sluggish. Stability has always been an issue. Crashes at least once a day, sometimes several times per day. Only reason I went with Aperture originally after trying both it and LR was it's ability to utilize two displays. Now LR offers this as well.

Steve
 
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OK, the key to this is going to be using Ap's Export Masters command. In Aperture, select items and File > Export > Export Masters and tick Create IPTC4XMP sidecar file. This creates copies of all your master files (needed because Ap won't save the metadata back to the originals), and the sidecars which carry the captions, keywords and other IPTC metadata. So send this lot onto a new drive, and then import it into Lightroom (choose with without moving option). Best to run through with a few items first.

You will lose your adjustments - the two programs are incompatible.

As for Project info, in the Export dialog, you can export the masters to Finder folders which match the projects. That's in Subfolder Format.

It's also worth reviewing this thread. It's best to treat raws separately from camera original JPEGs and TIFs, and also from saved JPEG/TIF/PSD files - the issue being that LR doesn't expect sidecars with those file types. But I'd suggest you first get comfortable with the Export Masters process for your raw files.

John
 
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Thanks John... sounds fairly straight-forward. I suppose I could export/import a tiff version with all adjustments as a work-around to losing them, though that would increase my library size in LR considerably. <Sigh> I should have realized that Adobe would add multiple monitor support to LR sooner or later and gone with it in the beginning.

Thanks much for your assistance!

Steve
 
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Or just keep your Aperture library on your system, and eventually save space by deleting the managed files in Finder (maybe you'd first have to switch them from managed to referenced). Aperture's thumbnails would still be in their projects, and you could just point individual files to the new locations whenever you ever need to output an Aperture-adjusted version again.

The main problem is with any jpegs or tiffs which were created by the camera, because Apple won't write the metadata back into the files, only into an xmp file, and Adobe apps don't expect xmp files with these file types. If you have iView or Expression Media (on its 3' day trial?), it can read the sidecar xmp and can then write it directly into the file, after which you import into Lightroom. For "derivative" jpegs and tiffs, just do a regular Export Versions - Aperture will put the metadata inside them.

The devil's in the detail with such things and I'm sure I'll have overlooked one or two permutations. But it's n ot difficult if you take it slowly and test what's happening with small projects and different file types. And obviously review your backups so you can always get back to your starting point. It's perfectly doable.

John
 
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Depending on your actual needs regarding the old files (do you go back to edit old RAWs often?) a possibility could be to use export versions into subfolders (this puts every projects in its own folder). This way you will have the pics with all the editing and of course meta stuff too. You just need to keep your Ap library as a backup, in case you want to re-edit one of the original RAW files.
Again, depending on your needs this could be an option. Or not an option at all :-)

-Lars
 
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