I am making the switch from Lightroom 4 to Aperture 3

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Level 1

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I am making the switch from Lightroom 4 to Aperture 3

I have about 10,000 pictures and videos that have keywords, ratings, ect. A majority of the pictures are in DNG format. I have done some experimenting with exporting from Lightroom and importing into Aperture and have found the following: The pictures that were shot in JPG seem to import with the key wording intact, but the DNG pictures don't bring any of the keywords with them. Is there something I can do to bring the keywords over to aperture? I can do without the ratings and color coding, as I can add keywords for them prior to the transfe, and use that to recreate the ratings, etc.

It seems that all the information out there is on migrating from Aperture to Lightroom...

Aperture 3, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 26, 2012 5:45 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 26, 2012 8:07 PM in response to AthenLaw

I just tried exporting a NEF from LR4.2RC in DNG format, then importing it into Aperture 3.4 and the metadata (keywords, ratings, caption, etc.) transferred properly. So....some additional info might be useful to help you out:

What versions of LR and Aperture are you using?

How are you exporting from LR to DNG format?

If the images in LR are already DNG, how did they get that way?

Can you see the DNG metadata in Preview? Both before and after export from LR?

Is the other metadata transferring over OK...are you just having keyword problems?

Anything else you can add to provide insight into your workflow from LR to Aperture?

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

194,733 points

Sep 26, 2012 10:42 PM in response to AthenLaw

Transferring keywords requires to export with IPTC data included. Does Lightroom have an export option to include IPTC with dng files or to write a sidecar file? If you export with accompanying sidecar file, this file should be in the same folder you import your raw image from; otherwise Aperture will not be able to find it.

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Answer 3

Sep 27, 2012 4:13 AM in response to léonie

When exporting to DNG format, LR includes all IPTC data within the DNG and there is no option to exclude some or all it as there is with other exported formats. One of the "advantages" of DNG is that messy sidecar files are not required. Since the OP said most images are already in DNG format, we need to find the point in his DNG workflow where the keywords disappeared.

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Answer 4

AthenLaw Author

Level 1

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Sep 27, 2012 4:33 AM in response to AthenLaw

I am running LR 4.1, Aperture 3.4.

I have tried exporting to DNG and export to Original.

The images in LR were imported from the memory cards to DNG (as the imported image).

I can see the Metadata in Preview.

Apparently, if I just import the images from their original locations, without first exporting the pictures, everything is included. Kind of odd, but I'm happy it is working now!

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Answer 5

Sep 27, 2012 4:52 AM in response to AthenLaw

AthenLaw wrote:

Apparently, if I just import the images from their original locations, without first exporting the pictures, everything is included. Kind of odd, but I'm happy it is working now!

And that's probably the best way to do it, providing you have either written metadata to file or updated the DNG metadata after you have applied keywords and other metadata within LR. I assume you have done that, right? Otherwise I'm not sure how it would have worked properly.

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