When importing a Raw (.nef) and a jpeg at the same time does photos handle them the same or differently?

Perhaps some of our user tips can give you a few hints for the migration:

• How to prepare the Photo Libraries before upgrading to Catalina - Apple Community
• Notes on Migrating an Aperture Library to Photos for Mac, 2019 version
• New to Photos? Some Considerations on How to Design your First Photos Library
• Thematic Index to Photos for Mac related … - Apple Community

Good luck for your migration from Aperture to another DAM. If you have used the full power of Aperture, you will miss a lot in Photos. You may want to migrate your libraries rather to another professional application. I am putting up with Photos because of the easy syncing with iCloud Photos across all my Apple devices and I like the challenge of having to find work-around for missing features.

Hello andrewgoodmanwa,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities! I understand from the information you provided that you want to know how the Photos app handles RAW photos; I'd like to help.

The following support article provides some information about how RAW photos are handled in Photos:

How the Photos app and iCloud Photos handle RAW images - Apple Support

Hope this helps.

Best Regards.

I cannot test with Nikon Raw (NEF) files, only with Canon CR2 and Lumix RAW files.

You will get better editing results, when you are starting from the RAW files, as the format is lossless and you will avoid the JPEG artifacts. Photos offers the same adjustment tools for the JPEG as for the RAW original files.

When you edit the RAW originals, you will see additional controls for the noise reduction, that are missing when you edit JPEGS.

Also, Can you recommend a good advanced Photos study guide, reference source, or course. I am trying to replace Aperture with Photos.

andrewgoodmanwa wrote:

Also, Can you recommend a good advanced Photos study guide, reference source, or course. I am trying to replace Aperture with Photos.

I have not found any, sorry. Have a look at the online help, to get started: Photos User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

It is not as complete as the Aperture User Manual, but Photos does not have as many tools to customize the workspace as Aperture had.

Hi Leonie,

I am another one of those people who are obsessing about whether to transfer their Aperture photos to the Photos app or to Lightroom. I am not a professional but I value good editing tools. I have around 35,000 photos in Aperture 3.6 and will be changing to Mojave soon. I have two questions:

1. I have extensions on Photos including Luminar 4 and Pixelmator Pro. Do you think this makes up for the lack of sophisticated editing tools on Photos and are they roughly comparable to Lightroom in terms of editing?
2. I know that my edits will not be preserved if I migrate my photos to Lightroom. Is there any other downside to using Lightroom instead of Photos with the above extensions?

I really appreciate your helpful advice in this discussion group over the past few years.

Richard

When you import RAW&JPEG pairs together, they will be shown as one photo in Photos.

Photos will store both files as separate masters, but it will stack them as one photo. You have to choose, which of the two masters you want to use, when you edit the photo.

By default the JPEG will be the master. If you want to create an edited version of the RAW master, you can switch to the RAW file in edit mode. Then the command "Image > Use RAW as Original" will be available.

To see, if the RAW of the JPEG original is currently the master, enable badge overlay. In the View > Metadata menu enable "Filetype". Then you will be seeing "J" or "R" badge overlay on the thumbnails of your RAW &JPEG pair. in the upper left corner. For example: I duplicated a RAW&JPEG pair. And switched the Master to the RAW file for one of the copies. Now I can edit the RAW file and the JPEG independently and compare them:

Richard, I have not much experience with Lightroom. I have not really tested it because I do not want a subscriptions model, and the look and feel is much too similar to Photoshop, which I cannot stand. Terence Devlin could give you a much better reply to your question.

Photos in combination with Luminar 4 is covering most of my editing needs. I am using HoudahGeo to tag the photos with locations and other metadata, before I import them to Photos. I am using PowerPhotos as a second browser to be able to see the library in list view with the metadata in columns or metadata below the thumbnails and to move albums between libraries.