Moving from Aperture to Lightroom

[tunerX]

I just made the switch and am currently in the middle of updating aperture to lightroom. Once I am finally finished with importing my library to lightroom how should I archive.

Aperture had the vault where I can take my library and export it to a different location over the network and also to a different drive.

Is there something similar to a vault where I can backup my lightroom catalog over the network and to an external drive?

It might be simple but I have been looking at lightroom importing 2.2TB of photos from aperture so I cannot click on any menus and explore the different archive options.

 

[TheDrift-]

I just made the switch and am currently in the middle of updating aperture to lightroom. Once I am finally finished with importing my library to lightroom how should I archive.

Aperture had the vault where I can take my library and export it to a different location over the network and also to a different drive.

Is there something similar to a vault where I can backup my lightroom catalog over the network and to an external drive?

It might be simple but I have been looking at lightroom importing 2.2TB of photos from aperture so I cannot click on any menus and explore the different archive options.

Yes in Lightroom you can export your catalogue.

 

[Chancha]

Lightroom literally does not care how you manage your own files, its database keeps track of the absolute file path of the original RAWs and if you move outside of the Lightroom (such as in Finder), LR will report the files missing. In other words, you are on your own as to how to backup these photos, with your own solution. The upside is the user will have full control on how to archive his stuff and can locate them all over different drives, including network volumes, the down side is obviously the labor involved.

The adjustments, metadata, and generated previews on the other hand are all inside the Lightroom catalogue database, which is by default in /Pictures/Lightroom, so you need to back that up as well.

I have done the Aperture to Lightroom transition for my father's library and it was extremely tedious and unfruitful. The LR built-in Aperture importer is really slow and like you said, I needed to wait til it is finished without interrupting it, which took me literally 3 days. It ended up with thousands of copies of adjusted RAWs because the default behavior was to generate a JPEG for even the slightest adjustment. I ended up purchasing Aperture Exporter to re-do the process, the result was not perfect but acceptable. Just to be extremely safe, I archived the Aperture library in a harddrive just in case, but it is probably a waste of storage space down the road.

 

[tunerX]

Lightroom literally does not care how you manage your own files, its database keeps track of the absolute file path of the original RAWs and if you move outside of the Lightroom (such as in Finder), LR will report the files missing. In other words, you are on your own as to how to backup these photos, with your own solution. The upside is the user will have full control on how to archive his stuff and can locate them all over different drives, including network volumes, the down side is obviously the labor involved.

The adjustments, metadata, and generated previews on the other hand are all inside the Lightroom catalogue database, which is by default in /Pictures/Lightroom, so you need to back that up as well.

I have done the Aperture to Lightroom transition for my father's library and it was extremely tedious and unfruitful. The LR built-in Aperture importer is really slow and like you said, I needed to wait til it is finished without interrupting it, which took me literally 3 days. It ended up with thousands of copies of adjusted RAWs because the default behavior was to generate a JPEG for even the slightest adjustment. I ended up purchasing Aperture Exporter to re-do the process, the result was not perfect but acceptable. Just to be extremely safe, I archived the Aperture library in a harddrive just in case, but it is probably a waste of storage space down the road.

My import is on 36 hours now. I think it might be done sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning. This is one painful process.

So its not a self contained process like a vault where everything and the kitchen sink is in it.

I need to backup the raw files and catalogue in two different steps.

Thanks.

 

[ChrisA]

I just made the switch and am currently in the middle of updating aperture to lightroom. Once I am finally finished with importing my library to lightroom how should I archive.

Aperture had the vault where I can take my library and export it to a different location over the network and also to a different drive.

Is there something similar to a vault where I can backup my lightroom catalog over the network and to an external drive?

It might be simple but I have been looking at lightroom importing 2.2TB of photos from aperture so I cannot click on any menus and explore the different archive options.

The rule of thumb is To always have three copies of the data and to have that data in at least two different buildings as far apart as possible. And I like to point out that the above needs to be true while a backup is underway.

Your first level backup is always "Time machine" is is automatic and does not over write old data. For many people the next level is to use some on-line cloud backup system like Crashplan or Backblaze. Crashplan is very good in that it never overwrites old data with new. If you do these two things, time machine and a cloud service you have a MINIMAL backup system. I like to add another level. I periodically manually backup to a set of external drives that I rotate and keep in a fire safe.

I used to use Apertures Vault system but then I have other data I need to backup too. So I just keep a triple redundant backup of EVERYTHING. It's not hard both Time Machine and the Cloud service are fully automated.

 

[Ted13]

I have tried to switch over to Lightroom a number of times, but then I have to very, very quickly go through 1,500 photos I just shot, flag the ones I want to edit, edit them & export them... and I end up going to back to Aperture. Aperture just performs faster, loads full res pictures faster one after another etc.

I know that sooner or later I'll be completely screwed by the latest macOS update -- as is some new Aperture bug has killed it's ability to post to Facebook...

Apart from performance, maybe I should take a Lightroom course or something -- that was another great thing about Aperture -- I always could easily just figure out how to do anything with it.

 

[tunerX]

I have tried to switch over to Lightroom a number of times, but then I have to very, very quickly go through 1,500 photos I just shot, flag the ones I want to edit, edit them & export them... and I end up going to back to Aperture. Aperture just performs faster, loads full res pictures faster one after another etc.

I know that sooner or later I'll be completely screwed by the latest macOS update -- as is some new Aperture bug has killed it's ability to post to Facebook...

Apart from performance, maybe I should take a Lightroom course or something -- that was another great thing about Aperture -- I always could easily just figure out how to do anything with it.

Aperture performance and ease of use was why I held off on updating.

I finally got sick of playing update roulette. I bought some larger external hard drives and figured now is the time to do the move.

I have a VM running Yosemite just in case my updates to macOS killed aperture. The old hard drives are unplugged and stored in case something happens. Seems like a waste of drive space.

 

[Ted13]

Aperture performance and ease of use was why I held off on updating.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that way - if only some kind Apple big wig would bring back Aperture: they are rescuing the Mac Pro (I'm still clinging to my 2009 cheese grater which is stuck on macOS El-Cap), why not through in a few engineers for bug fixes and once in a blue moon update for Aperture - in particular compatibility with the latest iOS, Photos & iCloud

 

[robgendreau]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that way - if only some kind Apple big wig would bring back Aperture: they are rescuing the Mac Pro (I'm still clinging to my 2009 cheese grater which is stuck on macOS El-Cap), why not through in a few engineers for bug fixes and once in a blue moon update for Aperture - in particular compatibility with the latest iOS, Photos & iCloud

I'll believe a decent Mac Pro when I see it. Axing Aperture doesn't make me optimistic.

Meanwhile, use Aperture Exporter instead of Lr's import. Or move images from a managed library in Aperture to a referenced library in Aperture, and then imported THOSE referenced images into Lr. Since Aperture still works, no reason to not use them side-by-side for a while. You just have to be thoughtful about the workflow. And a little bonus is that you could use RAW Power as a standalone application to apply very Aperture-like tools to edit the photos, then export a TIFF and import into Lr.