Migrate from Lighroom to Aperture

[kepstein]

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What is the best way to move my Lightroom catalog to Aperture. I would like to move as much info as possible (i.e. keywords, metadata, exposure adjustments).

 

Thanks,

Ken

[Eoin]

Ken, I'm sorry to say you're up a creek without a paddle, Image adjustments, keywords etc will not be carried over to Aperture. Also while Aperture can export images with XMP sidecars it can not read them on import. The only option here IMO would be to import all your original raw files into Aperture and then create a new project for images which have been adjusted in LR then go back into LR and export these adjusted images as Tiffs and import those into the new project in Aperture. Not raws granted but about the best solution in the given situation.

[kepstein]

Can I at least maintain keywords?

[Ronners]

I wanted to try Aperture because of the connectivity to other Apple applications.

 

I have read that different manufacturers have different standards for keywords - it is not like EXIF data.

 

I believe that Aperture keywords would work in iPhoto and other apps.

 

I had loaded some DLux 3 images into Lightroom because until recently Aperture didn't support that camera. Now I wished to transfer the images....

 

You can export from Lightroom all your keywords, and nested hierarchy to an RTF file, and you can import this hierarchy into Aperture. You can't import all the pictures and tags, but having imported the images and the keywords, you can not tie the two sets of data together. I believe that this has to be done image by image, and I found the most convenient way (relatively speaking) was to use the HUD of keywords and drag to the image, but you have to do this image by image and keyword by keyword. I have stopped for the moment, to find if there's an easier way.

 

I like many of the features in both apps, but I find Lightroom's development module to work quicker than in Aperture. That might be because I have an older computer, and Aperture uses a lot of OS level features to do its stuff, where Lightroom doesn't.

 

I may persist in this endeavour, because I'll face the same problems of miss-matched tags if I wish to export images from Lightroom to iPhoto for sharing images with family.

 

What is your reason for switching?

[Eoin]

There is no way that I know of to import images from LR to AP while maintaining the keywords assigned in LR. However I'm sure you can filter your images in LR by keyword and export them to a folder on your HDD. Then when in the import window of aperture you can select all the images and also assign a keyword at import stage. So if exporting say all the Johnny X photos from LR you can assign Johnny X keyword to all the images just before you import them.