I migrated an old library from Aperture to Lightroom with Adobe’s tool. I have some issues/questions

[iRock1]

Hi there,

1) In Aperture some photos have filled the “Version Name” field, which I suppose would be “Title” in Lightroom. This info is totally missing in Adobe’s program. How can I restore them?

2) Video files didn’t transfer at all. Is this normal? What option do I have?

3) (This is the most pressing issue.) Many RAWs were processed in Aperture. None of those changes were transferred to Lightroom. Is there a way of emulating as nearly as possible those changes? Or at least to systematically transfer a .JPEG version of all those pictures with the changes?

4) When I delete a photo in Lightroom, the program asks me whether I want to delete the file from my disk or remove it. If I remove the photo it will disappear from LR’s library, even though it still remains in my disk. Where do all these removed files go? Is there a Trash bin of sorts? How can I delete all these files definitely?

5) Lightroom organises my photo masters by default in the root User/Pictures/Year. This looks good in LR’s interface, but a total mess in the Pictures folder when using Finder, since there is one folder for every year. Is there a better way to organise the files structure?

(What I did was creating a new parental folder, i.e. User/Pictures/Lightroom Masters, in which I put every year folder. This looks way more organised when using Finder, but not so nice in LR’s interface, since the Folders section in the left panel now shows a more convoluted hierarchy with one additional parental folder, which in the end results in dates folders showing up with incomplete names.)

6) What’s up with video reproduction in Lightroom? When I try to play my video files from the program they look terrible, with severe frame drops, but if I click Show in Finder and play them with QuickTime they look just fine.

Thanks in advance. Your help is very much appreciated.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Hi there,

1) In Aperture some photos have filled the “Version Name” field, which I suppose would be “Title” in Lightroom. This info is totally missing in Adobe’s program. How can I restore them?

2) Video files didn’t transfer at all. Is this normal? What option do I have?

3) (This is the most pressing issue.) Many RAWs were processed in Aperture. None of those changes were transferred to Lightroom. Is there a way of emulating as nearly as possible those changes? Or at least to systematically transfer a .JPEG version of all those pictures with the changes?

4) When I delete a photo in Lightroom, the program asks me whether I want to delete the file from my disk or remove it. If I remove the photo it will disappear from LR’s library, even though it still remains in my disk. Where do all these removed files go? Is there a Trash bin of sorts? How can I delete all these files definitely?

5) Lightroom organises my photo masters by default in the root User/Pictures/Year. This looks good in LR’s interface, but a total mess in the Pictures folder when using Finder, since there is one folder for every year. Is there a better way to organise the files structure?

(What I did was creating a new parental folder, i.e. User/Pictures/Lightroom Masters, in which I put every year folder. This looks way more organised when using Finder, but not so nice in LR’s interface, since the Folders section in the left panel now shows a more convoluted hierarchy with one additional parental folder, which in the end results in dates folders showing up with incomplete names.)

6) What’s up with video reproduction in Lightroom? When I try to play my video files from the program they look terrible, with severe frame drops, but if I click Show in Finder and play them with QuickTime they look just fine.

Thanks in advance. Your help is very much appreciated.

Howdy @iRock1

You may need to export all your images from Aperture as Tiffs or jpg images. I don’t think you can export the editing to Lightroom.

You need to actually select the delete option to permanently remove images from your hard drive. Remove just removes them from the Lightroom catalogue leaving them in place.

One folder for each year, month and day, going deeper for each one is a generally accepted way of organising your library of images.

I can’t help you with any more. I’ve never used Aperture, sorry.

 

[maflynn]

How did you import your photos into LR? At one point Lightroom had a tool to do the work, though I don't know if that's still available.


2) Lightroom doesn't support videos AFAIK, so that's why they didn't come over.

3) AP and Lightroom handle edits differently and I believe that you'll need to re-edit them to get the results that you need. Partly because a setting value in Aperture is going produce a different result in LR so its up to you to tweak the images.

4) deleting photo is a two step process, you can remove it from the catalog but keep it on disk, or you can also remove it from the disk.

5)You can create your own hierarchy, just create the folders in LR and move them around as you see fit.

6) as I mentioned I don't think LR supports video (I could be wrong)

 

[iRock1]

Howdy @iRock1

You may need to export all your images from Aperture as Tiffs or jpg images. I don’t think you can export the editing to Lightroom.

You need to actually select the delete option to permanently remove images from your hard drive. Remove just removes them from the Lightroom catalogue leaving them in place.

One folder for each year, month and day, going deeper for each one is a generally accepted way of organising your library of images.

I can’t help you with any more. I’ve never used Aperture, sorry.

- But is there an easier way of doing so? Going photo by photo looking for the post-processed ones and manully exporting each one to LR is undoable.

- Yes, I get that. But what if I choose to remove instead of deleting files? (Main reason for this is that I can undo the operation in case of error.) How do I quickly get rid of all those files from the disk?

- Certainly, but I was wondering if there is a way of putting all those in a parent folder and then hiding this main folder from LR's catalog, just showing the year folders inside.

How did you import your photos into LR? At one point Lightroom had a tool to do the work, though I don't know if that's still available.


2) Lightroom doesn't support videos AFAIK, so that's why they didn't come over.

3) AP and Lightroom handle edits differently and I believe that you'll need to re-edit them to get the results that you need. Partly because a setting value in Aperture is going produce a different result in LR so its up to you to tweak the images.

4) deleting photo is a two step process, you can remove it from the catalog but keep it on disk, or you can also remove it from the disk.

5)You can create your own hierarchy, just create the folders in LR and move them around as you see fit.

6) as I mentioned I don't think LR supports video (I could be wrong)

Regarding your question, yes, I used a tool madr by Adobe some time ago. I didn't know it was unavailable at this point...

2) It does support video. ;-)

3), 4) & 5) Please see my previous response to the other user.

 

[robgendreau]

Look at Aperture Exporter, https://apertureexporter.com. It can help you find all your adjusted images in Aperture and then export them as TIFFs.

To remove from Lr simply select and control click to "Remove photo..." and select "Remove" instead of "Delete from disk."

I kind of got lost in all your pronouns, but you can arrange folders from within Lr and even remove them from Lr's catalog. You can create folders within Lr as well (which creates REAL folders in the filesystem, unlike Aperture which makes folders that exist only within Aperture). But don't move folders around outside of Lr or Lr won't be able to find them, since it uses folder paths to find stuff. So if you change ~/Pictures/03-04-2018 to ~/Pictures/2018/03-04-2018 Lr would lose the folder, although you could just point it to the new location.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

- But is there an easier way of doing so? Going photo by photo looking for the post-processed ones and manully exporting each one to LR is undoable.

- Yes, I get that. But what if I choose to remove instead of deleting files? (Main reason for this is that I can undo the operation in case of error.) How do I quickly get rid of all those files from the disk?

- Certainly, but I was wondering if there is a way of putting all those in a parent folder and then hiding this main folder from LR's catalog, just showing the year folders inside.



Regarding your question, yes, I used a tool madr by Adobe some time ago. I didn't know it was unavailable at this point...

2) It does support video. ;-)

3), 4) & 5) Please see my previous response to the other user.

Again, I have never used Aperture.

But, maybe you can go through your images in Aperture and somehow sort out all of the finished products through a filter of one sort? @robgendreau answered this above!

Finder? The files you have "Removed" will still be on your hard drives. Maybe you can organise them as you go into folders called "Removed"? Then you could easily batch delete them when you are sure you want to cull them.

Maybe you could investigate creating a Collection, this might do what you are wanting, well, sort of giving that appearance, within Lightroom? It doesn't make logical sense to me to just dump 1000's of photo's in one year folder? I'm a tad OCD about organisation of my data, and have it broken down into, year, month, day and multiple events/places for those days, folders.

Hang on, I just re-read your final bit, I think I get you now!

Just browse to where you want to include everything from in Lightroom and Synchronise from that folder level! (On the left hand side section) Everything under and including that folder selected will be included and imported in place.

 

[iRock1]

Look at Aperture Exporter, https://apertureexporter.com. It can help you find all your adjusted images in Aperture and then export them as TIFFs.

To remove from Lr simply select and control click to "Remove photo..." and select "Remove" instead of "Delete from disk."

I kind of got lost in all your pronouns, but you can arrange folders from within Lr and even remove them from Lr's catalog. You can create folders within Lr as well (which creates REAL folders in the filesystem, unlike Aperture which makes folders that exist only within Aperture). But don't move folders around outside of Lr or Lr won't be able to find them, since it uses folder paths to find stuff. So if you change ~/Pictures/03-04-2018 to ~/Pictures/2018/03-04-2018 Lr would lose the folder, although you could just point it to the new location.

Again, I have never used Aperture.

But, maybe you can go through your images in Aperture and somehow sort out all of the finished products through a filter of one sort? @robgendreau answered this above!

Finder? The files you have "Removed" will still be on your hard drives. Maybe you can organise them as you go into folders called "Removed"? Then you could easily batch delete them when you are sure you want to cull them.

Maybe you could investigate creating a Collection, this might do what you are wanting, well, sort of giving that appearance, within Lightroom? It doesn't make logical sense to me to just dump 1000's of photo's in one year folder? I'm a tad OCD about organisation of my data, and have it broken down into, year, month, day and multiple events/places for those days, folders.

Hang on, I just re-read your final bit, I think I get you now!

Just browse to where you want to include everything from in Lightroom and Synchronise from that folder level! (On the left hand side section) Everything under and including that folder selected will be included and imported in place.

Hi, guys,

Sorry if didn't make myself clear, but English is not my native language.

I totally understand that when you press the delete key on a photo, Lr will provide you two different choices. And I totally get what they do.

My question is, again, when I choose to remove from the catalog instead of deleting from the disk. How do I get rid of all those removed photos, from my disk?

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Hi, guys,

Sorry if didn't make myself clear, but English is not my native language.

I totally understand that when you press the delete key on a photo, Lr will provide you two different choices. And I totally get what they do.

My question is, again, when I choose to remove from the catalog instead of deleting from the disk. How do I get rid of all those removed photos, from my disk?

I did answer this in my previous reply, but here is my suggestion again:

Finder? The files you have "Removed" will still be on your hard drives. Maybe you can organise them as you go into folders called "Removed"? Then you could easily batch delete them when you are sure you want to cull them.

 

[robgendreau]

Maybe this will help. Say you delete 5 of 10 photos from a folder WITHIN Lr, and ONLY delete them from Lr, NOT from the filesystem. So they are still there in the folder; which now shows 10. Lr shows 5. Other than comparing side by side and removing the ones that are NOT in Lr, do this: use the synchronize command to re-import the 5 that are NOT in Lr. Now all 10 are back in Lr. Now use Lr and NOT the Finder to delete them, and use the delete option to remove from the disk as well. If you've got a lot of these problem files, then I'd suggest maybe applying a keyword when you reimport them so that you don't confuse things further.

 

[iRock1]

I did answer this in my previous reply, but here is my suggestion again:

Maybe this will help. Say you delete 5 of 10 photos from a folder WITHIN Lr, and ONLY delete them from Lr, NOT from the filesystem. So they are still there in the folder; which now shows 10. Lr shows 5. Other than comparing side by side and removing the ones that are NOT in Lr, do this: use the synchronize command to re-import the 5 that are NOT in Lr. Now all 10 are back in Lr. Now use Lr and NOT the Finder to delete them, and use the delete option to remove from the disk as well. If you've got a lot of these problem files, then I'd suggest maybe applying a keyword when you reimport them so that you don't confuse things further.

Thanks for your suggestions. Sadly, they both seem to be far-from-ideal workarounds. Should I conclude from your answers that Lr doesn't provide an option to definitely erase from the filesystem those "removed" photos?

I'm trying to understand Adobe's logic here, since Aperture made everything as easy as sending the removed photos to a trash bin in the program and then giving the user the option to empty that. I mean, that's how almost any app in the universe works though.

 

[mollyc]

If the photo is not in LR’s catalog, then LR has no way of deleting it. There is no record of it when it isn’t in the catalog.

I would suggest going forward to use flags or picks to sort through and then delete the cast offs that way. If I don’t like a photo, I hit the X button, which marks it as a rejected photo, and then when I am sure I want to delete, I sort for the Rejected photos and delete as a batch. Then you can choose to delete from your hard drive, and they will be permanently gone.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Thanks for your suggestions. Sadly, they both seem to be far-from-ideal workarounds. Should I conclude from your answers that Lr doesn't provide an option to definitely erase from the filesystem those "removed" photos?

I'm trying to understand Adobe's logic here, since Aperture made everything as easy as sending the removed photos to a trash bin in the program and then giving the user the option to empty that. I mean, that's how almost any app in the universe works though.

Hi, guys,

Sorry if didn't make myself clear, but English is not my native language.

I totally understand that when you press the delete key on a photo, Lr will provide you two different choices. And I totally get what they do.

My question is, again, when I choose to remove from the catalog instead of deleting from the disk. How do I get rid of all those removed photos, from my disk?

Okay, I am officially confused by you!

You say in one message you fully understand the two remove/delete options, and then you say that Lightroom has no erase function?

When you choose to remove an image, Lightroom gives you two choices, one is to remove an image from the catalogue (leaving it on the hard drive) and the other is to permanently delete it from your hard drive (gone, forever).

How does that not do what you are wanting to do?

 

[mollyc]

My guess is he wants to do a final review of the to-be-deleted files before permanently deleting them. I’ve never used Photos, but I do know a lot of new LR users are confused that LR’s file system mirrors their hard drive. I have no idea why this is confusing but I read so many posts on so many forums asking where their LR photos are. They are exactly where you put them!!!

Sorting by pick/unpick/reject is *exactly* set up for this purpose. There is even a shortcut to cmmd-delete to delete all the rejected photos in a folder at once. At this point I would suggest to the OP just to sync the folders and reimport photos then Reject them, rather than trying to match up file names. Visually marking them would be a lot faster, IMO.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

My guess is he wants to do a final review of the to-be-deleted files before permanently deleting them. I’ve never used Photos, but I do know a lot of new LR users are confused that LR’s file system mirrors their hard drive. I have no idea why this is confusing but I read so many posts on so many forums asking where their LR photos are. They are exactly where you put them!!!

Sorting by pick/unpick/reject is *exactly* set up for this purpose. There is even a shortcut to cmmd-delete to delete all the rejected photos in a folder at once. At this point I would suggest to the OP just to sync the folders and reimport photos then Reject them, rather than trying to match up file names. Visually marking them would be a lot faster, IMO.

I think your solution is perfect, Molly. It is very close to what I do too, just that I didn't know there is a Cmd+Delete shortcut to delete all, but I do now, thanks to you! That'll save a bit more time.

 

[robgendreau]

For a while after I moved from Aperture (which has a trash can like thing for deleted files) I saved myself from myself by writing a keyword ("deleted") to all the photos before removing them from Lr (but not the filesystem). Then, after a time interval, I simply used a smart folder or search to gather all the "deleted"s in the filesystem and trash them forever.

Now I just X-flag 'em and use a filter to ignore those, and after time use the command to delete all the rejects.

 

[iRock1]

My guess is he wants to do a final review of the to-be-deleted files before permanently deleting them. I’ve never used Photos, but I do know a lot of new LR users are confused that LR’s file system mirrors their hard drive. I have no idea why this is confusing but I read so many posts on so many forums asking where their LR photos are. They are exactly where you put them!!!

Sorting by pick/unpick/reject is *exactly* set up for this purpose. There is even a shortcut to cmmd-delete to delete all the rejected photos in a folder at once. At this point I would suggest to the OP just to sync the folders and reimport photos then Reject them, rather than trying to match up file names. Visually marking them would be a lot faster, IMO.

What you describe on the first line is exactly what I've always wanted to do.

I find a shame that Lr doesn't have something like a trash bin. Using the pick/unpick/reject flags is not exactly what I wanted, but I guess it'll have to do the job.

 

[mollyc]

What you describe on the first line is exactly what I've always wanted to do.

I find a shame that Lr doesn't have something like a trash bin. Using the pick/unpick/reject flags is not exactly what I wanted, but I guess it'll have to do the job.

But that’s entirely the the purpose of those particular flags. The rejects are in the trash bin until you take it to the curb by finally deleting them. In the interim they are just sitting in the bin, but easy to sort through.