Holiday C6-H0

Q: Iphoto to Photos to Lightroom, Mountain Lion to El Capitan

Hi all,

 

I am currently running OS 10.8.5 as I just never took the time to upgrade the OS (stupid I know).  Now I would like to upgrade the OS to El Capitan which in turn from my understanding is going to make iPhoto outdated and bring Photos into existence on my mac.  I would like to start using Lightroom solely for my photo editing but don't even know where to start.  I have my time machine backup up to date and just recently copied my iPhoto library to an external hard drive. 

 

One problem is that my HD only has 23 GB left available and my photo library is over 100 GB.  Someone at the genius bar told me that Photos would want to copy all of those when I initially make the switch thereby needed to have 200 GB of free space? Is this true? If so, that will be the limiting step that I need to fix first by backing up my photos and then deleting them off my HD. 

 

Basically, I am just overall confused about what I need to do.  I consider myself a hobby enthusiast when it comes to taking photos and a complete and total novice/moron when it comes to managing them afterwards.  Now they're all just sitting in one big library in iPhotos and I don't really have the first idea what I need to do to clean up the mess I've made. 

 

Thank you so much in advance for any help you can offer,

John

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Mar 8, 2016 1:12 PM

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Q: Iphoto to Photos to Lightroom, Mountain Lion to El Capitan

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  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN Mar 8, 2016 1:42 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0
    Level 10 (85,032 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Mar 8, 2016 1:42 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0

    Yes with the upgrade to El Captain you do need to upgrade to Photos - if you have iPhoto 9.6.1 prior to upgrading the OS you can continue to use it until some future OS upgrade breaks it but it is not being maintained and external links like Apple Print Products are being discontinued

     

    You do not have to use Photos and you do not have to migrate your library if you do not want to - if you do want to migrate you will need more space - and you probably will need more space to migrate to LightRoom (which if it is new to you does have a large learning curve and does not integrate with Mac software like Photos does - 23GB is basically the absolute bare minimum free space so you really need to address that no matter what you do for photo management or even if you stay with your current software  --  either putting the Photos (and possibly music) Library on an external drive or purchasing a larger drive for your Mac

     

    Migrating to Photos doe not double the space requirements - once the migration is complete it will take a very small amount of additional space - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support

     

    LN

  • by Holiday C6-H0,

    Holiday C6-H0 Holiday C6-H0 Mar 8, 2016 1:46 PM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2016 1:46 PM in response to LarryHN

    Thank you Larry for your response.  I have read many of your responses on the discussions before and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

     

    So right now I have my photos copied to a 1 TB external (only photos on it) and I have a 1 TB external that I use for Time machine.  Is that sufficient to start you think? Both are WD passport mac formatted.  One question I have is let's say that I delete them off of my internal and then add more to my internal that I want to back up on my external.  Is it going to try and overwrite what is currently on the external? Does it make a separate folder?

     

    Thanks again,

    John

  • by Old Toad,Helpful

    Old Toad Old Toad Mar 8, 2016 2:15 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0
    Level 10 (141,304 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2016 2:15 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0

    Before you commit to exporting all of the image files to Lightroom check out the editing capabilities of  the new Photos.  It's much improved over iPhoto.  These are the features in the Adjust mode:

    Pfulladjusttools.jpg

     

    Also with a $0.99 app/extension you can use any 3rd party image editor of your choice from within the Photos library.  I know you can use Photoshop but not sure about Lightroom.  Maybe Larry will know.

    OTsig.png

  • by Holiday C6-H0,

    Holiday C6-H0 Holiday C6-H0 Mar 8, 2016 2:17 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2016 2:17 PM in response to Old Toad

    Thanks Toad. That does look more extensive than the iPhoto.  How does it do with RAW files? Can you change white balance and things of that nature?

     

    One of the things I don't care for with the apple setup is the 'Everything goes into one folder approach'. At times I would like to be able to pull out or look at specific photo files.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Mar 8, 2016 3:12 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0
    Level 10 (85,032 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Mar 8, 2016 3:12 PM in response to Holiday C6-H0

    Photos editing is more extensive than iPhoto - less than Aperture or LightRoom but also much easier to use and much less expensive - and since with extensions you can use any photos editing program as an external editor you can extend its capabilities to your heart's content

     

    and specifically to RAW - yes it  handles RAW well and as to WhiteBalance - yes - you can see the WB control in Old Toad's post

     

    as to the single library - there is basically no difference between Photos and LR except that LR handles referenced library fine and Photos is not good at it - but with either the edits are not made to the photos but are stored in a database so your referenced photos to not reflect any changes made in LR - same as Photos

     

    With Photos you have complete access to every photo either the original or the current version via export and you can easily access the current version using the media browser

     

    What you use is up to you but you should be making the decision based on real information not incorrect assumptions

     

    If you are a strong PowerUser and want the most capable editing then LR is worth the extra cost and trouble - otherwise it probably is not

     

    as to your migration path you need to explain better

     

    I have no idea what this is about

    One question I have is let's say that I delete them off of my internal and then add more to my internal that I want to back up on my external.  Is it going to try and overwrite what is currently on the external? Does it make a separate folder?

    and as to the disks - there is no "formatted for Mac" - there are several "Mac formats." To use with Photos it can only be Mac OS extended (journaled) - none of the other Mac formats (and some companies even call FAT32 formatted for Mac) will work - so you need to verify the actual format of the drive

     

    and the key is not the drive size but the amount of free space you have on the drive - a 3TB drive with 50 MB free will not work - a 500 GB drive with all 500 GB free will work

     

    So my suggestion is that you use an external drive or purchase a larger internal drive, (you are going to need to do that for either migration - possibly even for the El Captain upgrade since you have so little space available and then  clean up your iPhoto library and then migrate to Photos, learn it and try it out - if you like it then you are done - if you do not after your learn it (there is a learning curve but no where near as steep as LR's learning curve) then change to LR or other program that meets your needs

     

     

     

    for migration tips see

     

    Notes on Migrating an iPhoto Library from iPhoto to Photos for Mac

     

    How Photos handles content and metadata from iPhoto and Aperture - Apple Support

     

    LN