Is there a way to have LightRoom edits available in Apple Photos?

[Michael-IIIf]

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Before I take the plunge on becoming a LightRoom subscriber I wanted to experiment with using Apple Photos as an alternative.

I have thousands of photos edited in LR. I have as far as I understand it, saved the edits in LR (command-S). The Finder tells me the files were modified when I made the save, so I assume the edit information has been written to the file.

When I import the file to Photos I don't see the edits, the file is in its unedited original state.

Does this mean Photos (latest version) can't read LR edits? Or am I missing a simple step?

[andybarton]

Lightroom never alters the original file, so that is what Photos will be accessing. LR will save the edits in some sort of hidden sidecar file that is associated with the original.

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[01af]

vor 22 Minuten schrieb Michael-IIIf:

Does this mean Apple Photos (latest version) can't read Lightroom edits?

Yes, it means exactly that. Naturally, no raw converter can read another raw converter's edits. (The apparent exception to this rule—Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw—isn't because these two share the very same raw engine.)

.

vor 22 Minuten schrieb Michael-IIIf:

Or am I missing a simple step?

You can always export your edited raw file into a RGB format (such as 16-bit TIFF) and then go from there. Of course, after export you cannot undo/redo any edit steps anymore but only add new steps on top of the exported image.

[RoySmith]

Are all RAW editors non-destructive ?
That is one of the features that attracted me to Lightroom.

[Michael-IIIf]

1 hour ago, 01af said:

(such as 16-bit TIFF)

Thanks. Yes with storage space prices tumbling, I might just do that, set up a batch export of the whole lot.

[01af]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb RoySmith:

Are all raw editors non-destructive?

Yes.

[zeitz]

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2 hours ago, Michael-IIIf said:

The Finder tells me the files were modified when I made the save, so I assume the edit information has been written to the file.

Lightroom gives you the option of saving the edits into the .dng file or into a .xmp file; the Lightroom default is save into the .dng file.  If you work with a camera that doesn't use .dng for its raw files, a .xmp file is used.

If you use Photoshop and add layers, .tif preserves the layers.  I don't know what Photos does with .tif files that have layers.

[Michael-IIIf]

22 minutes ago, zeitz said:

Lightroom gives you the option of saving the edits into the .dng file

I didn't change the default and because the Finder verifies the file was modified I can assume it is saved into the DNG. Sadly it seems from what people have kindly posted above, that Photos is unable to use those edits.

Which leaves me it the choice of exporting to .tiff and never revisiting the edits (which would work fine for the vast majority of them), or staying locked into Lightroom forever. Hmmn.

[zeitz]

Michael, you are highlighting the features of Photoshop that make it the most capable photo editor.  You can use layers for all your edits, save a .tif version preserving the layers.  (One approach is to Duplicate the Background Layer and use a Camera Raw Filter to use Camera Raw/LR Develop tools.)  Then flatten the image (collapse the layers) and save a .jpg or second .tif version with a different name for use in Photos.

Many of the other photo software packages have free trial downloads.  Also Raw Therapee, Darktable and GIMP are totally free open source packages.  I would recommend trying some of these to see if there is something you prefer over Lightroom.

[Jeff S]

One nice aspect of the Adobe subscription photo plan is that it includes LR and Photoshop for the 10 bucks a month. I spent just as much under the former upgrade programs, now with far better controls, especially LR.  YMMV.

Jeff

Edited April 22, 2021 by Jeff S

[marchyman]

2 hours ago, Michael-IIIf said:

I didn't change the default and because the Finder verifies the file was modified I can assume it is saved into the DNG. Sadly it seems from what people have kindly posted above, that Photos is unable to use those edits.

Yes, with a DNG file Lightroom changes are written to the  file -- as metadata.   That is Lightroom notes what sliders and other controls have been changed and what their values are.   That information is only useful to Adobe apps based upon Adobe Camera Raw.  Example: this is the kind of data written to a DNG by lighroom (sample, there are plenty of other fields that I didn't bother copying)

Grain Amount                    : 0
Color Noise Reduction Detail    : 50
Color Noise Reduction Smoothness: 50
Lens Profile Enable             : 0
Lens Manual Distortion Amount   : 0
Perspective Vertical            : 0
Perspective Horizontal          : 0
Perspective Rotate              : 0.0
Perspective Scale               : 100
Perspective Aspect              : 0
Perspective Upright             : 0
Perspective X                   : 0.00
Perspective Y                   : 0.00
Auto Lateral CA                 : 0
Exposure 2012                   : 0.00
Contrast 2012                   : 0
Highlights 2012                 : 0
Shadows 2012                    : 0
Whites 2012                     : 0
Blacks 2012                     : 0
Clarity 2012                    : 0
Defringe Purple Amount          : 0
Defringe Purple Hue Lo          : 30
Defringe Purple Hue Hi          : 70
Defringe Green Amount           : 0
Defringe Green Hue Lo           : 40
Defringe Green Hue Hi           : 60

 

[01af]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Michael-IIIf:

Which leaves me it the choice of exporting to TIFF and never revisiting the edits (which would work fine for the vast majority of them), or staying locked into Lightroom forever.

You forgot the third option: Starting over with the edits in another raw converter.

Which of course makes sense only for those files where exporting to TIFF and never revisiting the edits would not work fine. Revisiting the edits for some changes or editing them anew from scratch doesn't make that much of a difference.

 

[zeitz]

6 hours ago, andybarton said:

Lightroom never alters the original file, so that is what Photos will be accessing.

We can easily see from Marchyman's post that Lightroom does alter the original file.  The claim, probably started by Adobe, that Lightroom does not alter the original file is a myth.  Lightroom never saves an image in the .dng file, the raw data is not changed (raw data is "read only" for any raw converter), and the edits are reversible; but the file itself is altered and given a new file date in Finder.  If one wants the original file left untouched, a .xmp sidecar must be used.  I find the change to the file date from when the image was taken to be unacceptable for my way of storing files which is heavily chronological.

[frame-it]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252388957

 

C1 does bring in basic stuff from LR

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Edited April 23, 2021 by frame-it

[marchyman]

I don't know about the current version, but Capture One 12 did a terrible job of bringing in changes when I was testing.  Some of the images were so badly "edited" I could not tell what the original image was.

I decided that since I was going to have to re-visit any image that needed different editing anyway I'd not bother importing from my LR catalog.  Instead I selected all the images in Lightroom and did a cmd-S to save my Lightroom changes as metadata.  I think I requested LR to write the changes to XMP files.   When that was done I imported the images into Capture One with the option to prefer XMP metadata to original image metadata.   Then I could delete the XMP files.