importing from iphoto 09 to lightroom

[cleung]

I think I might have just made a big error. Last week, I upgraded from iphoto 06 to iphoto 09. I've thought on and off about moving to Lightroom or Aperture but have decided to move to Lightroom instead. I should have made that decision last week so I wouldn't have bought iLife 09 but that is a moot point now. In iPhoto 06, I had easy access to the photos from the Finder. I didn't have to go into iPhoto library to attach a picture to an e-mail. I could have accessed the file of the photo from folder (named after Roll #). Now I have totally lost access to this.

As such, I'm not quite sure how to import all my 5000 photos from iPhoto to Lightroom now. Any advice?

 

[S-Man]

I'm new to macs, so I may not be of much help. But let me try to be clear on this.
Are you saying that using iPhoto '09 completely overtakes your system and doesn't let you access your picture folders through Finder?
If so, that totally sucks!
I would think that in LR, you just find the source folder of the photos and import them from there...

On another note, I imported all of my photos into iPhoto '08 last week, and it took like 6 hours. Is that normal?

 

[cleung]

Yes, it does seem like I can't access individual photo from finder. Or maybe I just don't know what I'm looking. I used to go to "Picutres" folder and the photos would be in different folders (folders were labeled as "Roll 123").

I'm in the process of testing out both Lightroom and Aperture and only want to import a few photos to test out each of the software during the 30-day trial. I don't want to import my whole iPhoto library to Lightroom...how do I just import selected photos?

As for importing to iPhoto, I have no idea. I built up my iphoto library over the years and never imported anything into it.

 

[Edge100]

Your pictures are now stored in one big library. This was introduced in (I believe) iPhoto 08. Some people like this, some people don't.

If you right-click (or CTL-click) on the "iPhoto Library" file in ~/Pictures (which is the default location), you'll see an option to "Show Package Contents". Select this and a new window will open. Find the folder called "Originals"; your photos are in there.

 

[ChrisA]

... In iPhoto 06, I had easy access to the photos from the Finder. I didn't have to go into iPhoto library to attach a picture to an e-mail. I could have accessed the file of the photo from folder (named after Roll #). Now I have totally lost access to this.

even in iPhoto 06 you should have never gone into the library using Finder. You can still do this in iPhoto 09 but don't. If you want to access a photo in iPhoto first "export" it to the desktop. But in Mail, Mail has the abilty to browse an iPhoto library. Most of the iLife apps can directly access an iPhoto ir Aperture library.

Almost all of the complaints seen here from people who have corrupted their photo files did so because they when in using Finder and made some kind of operator error. If you use the iLife stuff the way it was intended it is nearly impossible for an operator error to cause a problem

DIrect answer: To move the images from iPhoto (any version) to some place else. look for the "export" menu item and export them in reasonable size batches

 

[mrkgoo]

even in iPhoto 06 you should have never gone into the library using Finder. You can still do this in iPhoto 09 but don't. If you want to access a photo in iPhoto first "export" it to the desktop. But in Mail, Mail has the abilty to browse an iPhoto library. Most of the iLife apps can directly access an iPhoto ir Aperture library.

Almost all of the complaints seen here from people who have corrupted their photo files did so because they when in using Finder and made some kind of operator error. If you use the iLife stuff the way it was intended it is nearly impossible for an operator error to cause a problem

DIrect answer: To move the images from iPhoto (any version) to some place else. look for the "export" menu item and export them in reasonable size batches

I learnt this from very early on - my first Mac, I used iPhoto5. The first thing I did was learn how the program worked. I learnt that moving a file out of the library caused iPhoto to have a fit - and it wasn't corrected when you moved it back in. From that very first experiment, I learned how iPhoto worked, and have tried not to mess about inside since. I have few probelsm with iPhoto.

It is for this very reason why Apple moved the library into a single package. It prevents people messing about unnecessarily.

Curiously, I always wonder why Apple doesn't do something similar with iTunes. It DOES operate a bit more robustly - it tends to recognise changes within its library. Maybe too many people use it, and people want to be able to see their files.

 

[thr33face]

Let's see:
I use iPhoto for importing images from my my camera, and of course everything gets thrown into one big "iPhoto Library" package.

For editing I use Lightroom, i like it.

How do I import photos from iPhoto into Lightroom?
I have made an alias in my finder sidebar to the "originals" folder from the iPhoto Library.
When I go there it takes me right into the package.
From there I simply drop individual folders onto the Lightroom symbol in my dock and the photos get imported.

Doing this doesn't change a thing in the iPhoto Library, as Lightroom does not move or copy any files.
this way I don't have to do any ridiculous exporting. exporting would also mean that i'd have all my photos twice on my hd (lightroom AND iPhoto)

My library is 37GBytes and I have not had a single problem with it.

 

[cleung]

Thanks everyone for your response. I've played around with both software a bit more and have figured a few more things out. I've never had problems with iPhoto before. I didn't realize I had to go under "Media" when I'm trying to attach a photo to an e-mail instead of going into my iPhoto Library but now I know.

thr33face: Just curious, why do you import photos from camera using iPhoto instead of LR? I'm actually thinking of doing the opposite, using LR to import, convert RAW and edit photos and then exporting JPEGS to iPhoto. However, that would probably double the size of my library. I like your workflow in that it doesn't duplicate the library.