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Level 1

78 points

Transferring photos from iPhoto and Photos to Lightroom

I had all my photos in iPhoto and then when Photos came along some of them, but not all, were transferred (or copied?) to the new Photos library. the reason given for not all going over seemed to be that i didn't have enough iCloud storage space. Anyway in future I'm wanting to use Lightroom to handle and edit all my photos because of all its features. An important one of these is that I'm told that it doesn't keep the original versions of photos that have been edited in Lightroom as iPhoto does, instead holding an XML file of all the changes that have been made so that you can go back to any earlier version, saving a lot of space.

What I want to do now it to transfer all of my photos from the iPhoto and Photos libraries into a new one I'm going to hold on an external hard drive. Where a photo has been edited in iPhoto I just want to take the latest version and delete all earlier versions. How best can I achieve this?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), MacBook Pro. iPhone 6, iPad Air 2

Posted on Aug 29, 2015 7:21 AM

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Posted on Aug 29, 2015 7:25 AM

You've been misinformed about Lightroom. It certainly does preserve the Original. I'll be blunt: there are many excellent reasons to migrate to LR. It's a very capable pro-level app, but saving disk space is not one of them.

There is no way to "transfer" images from iPhoto or Photos to LR. You have two possibilities:

1. The latest version of LR has an option to import iPhoto and Aperture Libraries. See the Adobe website for more

2. You can export your Photos from iPhoto / Photos to folders in the Finder. What happens thereafter is up to you.

This User Tip

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921

has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

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32 replies

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Sep 7, 2015 12:22 PM in response to RobbieSnr

Yes I have seen that too, but during the installation (immediately after availability) I had help from Adobe and they said it is final. They "hide" the possibility to buy the standalone from the store. Probably the cameraraw update only as the update from 6.1 to 6.1.1.

The new haze filter is a good example as I said above.

a1chang

Level 1

10 points

Sep 7, 2015 12:38 PM in response to RobbieSnr

When you launch the external editor from iPhoto, it copies the file to the Preview directory tree in the iPhoto library. It is up to the editor to update that file from the external application. Some normal editor, like PS Elements, you go and do a save to that file. Sounds like LTR does not let you overwrite the file that is initially opened. You need to know the directory that LTR was given to the file. Then if LTR does not allow you to save to that same directory using Save, save/export it somewhere else first then copy it to that directory. When iPhoto see the file date change, it will update its database.

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Sep 8, 2015 12:13 AM in response to a1chang

The point of apps like LTR and iPhoto is that the never overwrite the original file. If you want that use an editor.

a1chang

Level 1

10 points

Sep 8, 2015 4:49 PM in response to Yer_Man

Problem is the original poster was using LTR to edit a photo in iPhoto using the "external edit". Theres no way to update the photo in iPhoto if you use LTR to edit the photo without overwriting the copy that iPhoto make in its Preview folder. If problem is if you overwrite the what LTR considers to be the original, which it is not for iPhoto, you can't use LTR again for that photo without reverting the photo in iPhoto.

This is not a good method for editing.

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Sep 9, 2015 1:18 AM in response to a1chang

Problem is the original poster was using LTR to edit a photo in iPhoto using the "external edit".

That problem is that LTR is not an editor and should not be used as one. Like iPhoto it's a database driven media manager. The problem is no with iPhoto or Lightroom but with the user misusing one of the apps.

RobbieSnr Author

Level 1

78 points

Sep 9, 2015 4:52 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence Devlin wrote:

That problem is that LTR is not an editor and should not be used as one. Like iPhoto it's a database driven media manager. The problem is no with iPhoto or Lightroom but with the user misusing one of the apps.

OK, I see what you're getting at. If I want to stick with iPhoto as my photo database but want a more sophisticated photo editor than iPhoto provides what options do I have for a better "editor"? Into which category does Photoshop fall - is it also a database driven media manager or a photo editor?

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Sep 9, 2015 5:25 AM in response to RobbieSnr

Photoshop is very good. But Adobe eventually switches everything to the cloud, the subscription model for making money.

(I don't like that at all).

Gimp is an editor, free, and good, you have to get used to the UI. Close or even comparable to what Photoshop can do.

Lex

LarryHN

Level 10

106,116 points

Sep 9, 2015 6:49 AM in response to RobbieSnr

f I want to stick with iPhoto as my photo database but want a more sophisticated photo editor than iPhoto provides what options do I have for a better "editor"? Into which category does Photoshop fall - is it also a database driven media manager or a photo editor?

PhotoShoo is an editor and works as an external editor for iPhoto - Photos shop does also and is much less expensive and for most people has everything they need - and there are many other from free shareware up

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Sep 9, 2015 10:18 AM in response to RobbieSnr

Photoshop is an editor and suitable to use as an external editor.

That said, if you already have LTR then I can see exactly no point in using iPhoto.

RobbieSnr Author

Level 1

78 points

Sep 10, 2015 8:30 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence Devlin wrote:

Photoshop is an editor and suitable to use as an external editor.

That said, if you already have LTR then I can see exactly no point in using iPhoto.

I like to have my photos, or at least a selection of them, on my iOS devices. If I used the LTR database to store my photos it seems that I'd have to sync them to the Adobe mobile apps and for this I apparently would need to subscribe to the CC version of LTR. The other thing is that I like to be able to show my photos to family and friends on my TV using Apple TV and I don't know how I'd be able to do this with everything held in a LTR database. If there is another way of achieving these aims using LTR that would be grand.

a1chang

Level 1

10 points

Sep 10, 2015 3:43 PM in response to RobbieSnr

to get photos from LTR to an external device is still not ideal regardless if it is IOS. I believe you always have to export it first. Once you have it exported, you can then use iTunes to sync from any folder. Problem is, syncing using that method is much slower since it has to scan the files to determine if there is a change and if has to be copied.

Now you can display photos from the newer IOS devices to ATV. I do not know how to get the photo to ATV directly.

When I'm desperate, I mirror my Mac to the ATV and display my slideshows directly off the Mac. If you have a more recent Mac that may be and option

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Sep 10, 2015 10:53 PM in response to RobbieSnr

I like to have my photos, or at least a selection of them, on my iOS devices. If I used the LTR database to store my photos it seems that I'd have to sync them to the Adobe mobile apps and for this I apparently would need to subscribe to the CC version of LTR.

Choices.

What do you want most:

a handy, (no longer developed), free or very inexpensive photo manager that can do relatively simple things well and easily sync with iOS devices

a powerful, expensive, pro-level photo manager with very strong tools for manipulating your images that's is not as convenient for syncing with iOS devices

That's the choice. it comes down to deciding what's most important to you. If easily sharing your images to iOS devices is a deal-breaker then stick with iPhoto (and sooner or later migrate to Photos), if the processing tools are most important, use LTR and explore other options, like exporting to folder and syncing, or even using Sharing services like DropBox - or even easiest of all, Flickr.

RobbieSnr Author

Level 1

78 points

Sep 16, 2015 8:50 AM in response to a1chang

a1chang wrote:

Now you can display photos from the newer IOS devices to ATV. I do not know how to get the photo to ATV directly.

When I'm desperate, I mirror my Mac to the ATV and display my slideshows directly off the Mac. If you have a more recent Mac that may be and option

Yes I've used AirPlay to display photos from my iPad to ATV but not all my photos are on that. I've not tried using my iMac instead as it's in another room but I suppose I could set up the iMac to mirror to the ATV then remotely control it from my iPad.

RobbieSnr Author

Level 1

78 points

Sep 16, 2015 9:12 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence Devlin wrote:

a handy, (no longer developed), free or very inexpensive photo manager that can do relatively simple things well and easily sync with iOS devices

or

a powerful, expensive, pro-level photo manager with very strong tools for manipulating your images that's is not as convenient for syncing with iOS devices

There are very few photos where I want to use a more powerful editor than IPhoto or Photos has so I'm planning to stick to the inexpensive photo manager option. For the special occasions where I do want something better I'll just import the photo into a better editor - I'll have a look at the gimp one although I do like the LTR UI. I'll want to import the edited photo back into iPhoto. I realise that I'll then have an additional copy of the photo but this won't matter if these are few and far between - or I might just decide to delete the original file.

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,528 points

Sep 16, 2015 9:50 AM in response to RobbieSnr

Again, LTR is not an editor. To do this easily, simply use an editor and not try and bend a Digital Asset Manager into being one.

Transferring photos from iPhoto and Photos to Lightroom