Switching from PC to Mac

[bcemail]

I think I'm going to make the switch to the dark side soon, and get a Mac. Has anyone ever made the switch? I had to switch everything to a new HDD earlier this year, and it went mostly well, although the last 25% or so of my catalog didn't import...but that's another story. I'll be installing software on the Mac to allow my using NTFS files, since I'll be converting my current drive to an external. (At some point, I might try and reformat the drive to HFS.)

If I just export my lcat and reimport it onto the Mac, will it work like it did on my PC? I also have to look into getting the Mac version of the software, which I'm hoping won't cost anything.

Thanks as always for all the help!
-brian

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hi Brian! Welcome to the forums. When you have a minute please fill out your signature using the USER CP link above.

I too thought I was going to the dark side when I switched about a year ago. Let me tell you that life is GREAT here in the cult of Mac!:twisted: I played the usual game and installed windows in bootcamp thinking "I can get to it if I need to!" Well after just a few weeks I never bothered going over to the windows partition. Mac just works! I can't imagine what was keeping me in windows so long.

Anyway, if you don't have to deal with PCs my first suggestion is to backup that NTFS drive and reformat it for Mac then put your stuff back on.

Just move the lrcat file and you'll be fine. If you don't want to regenerate the previews then move the lrdata as well. When you open up LR it won't be able to find the originals since the drive naming schema is different on Mac. When you tell it to locate the originals point to the highest folder in your structure and it should find all of them again.

By the way, you already have the Mac software. Both version come on the same DVD and your license key will work. If you downloaded your original then just download the Mac version and use your current key. :lol:

Once you get into the Mac you will be glad that windows is just a hazy memory. If i didn't have to use it at my day job believe me I wouldn't go near it again.

Happy switching! :cheesy:

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi Brian, welcome to the forum!

You should find these instructions handy when you come to it..... http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2''9/'2/28/how-do-i-move-lightroom-to-a-new-computer/

Honestly, it's easy!

I'm with Gene - forget buying software to read/write NTFS. It'll read ok natively, and then once you've transferred everything, just reformat.

Just download the latest update for Mac - each update is the full program, so as Gene said, you'll just enter your serial.