I have been using aperture 2 for a while now. I have around 25000 images. I tried the lightroom trail and fell in love. Now I would like to migrate all my photos over to lightroom. How do do this. I would like both the originals and the edits to move over. I have always let aperture store the photos, so I do not know how they are stored. I like in lightroom it puts the photos under the finder to make it easy to find.
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Moving photos from aperture 2 to lightroom 2
- Thread starter emegmac
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Are you willing to share why you are moving to LR? I'd love to hear it. I've been thinking about a move to one or the other, but haven't committed yet.
I am by no means a pro, but do spend a lot of time and pride to my photos.
1. One of the biggest things for me is the end product of the photo. I took my top 100 rated photos from aperture and imported the originals into LR. I edited them to the best of my ability in each program then compared the two. I liked the end product in LR better for my test. I am sure I could make both look the same, but LR editing just made more sense to me. I had been using aperture for some time so should be pretty good with it.
2. I like editing in full screen, I never liked how with aperture the editing panel floats over the photo. I was always moving the stupid thing getting it to the right position. LR is right next to the photo.
3. I like how I can customize the look of LR. I have a smugmug account, and made LR have the same header with my name, and have the ability to hide it. It looks very professional.
4. I love the sharping in LR.
5. Selective editing. Easy way to save skies, or small mistakes without going to photoshop.
6. Comparing edited photos and originals side by side or half and half. Nice to see the progress.
These are just a few. I fell in love with LR. It is the first program that just makes sense to me. I never could figure out exactly make levels work how I wanted in aperture. I like how LR handles presets also. I enjoyed aperture but love LR. I will miss how OSX integrates with aperture though, with iphoto, my screen savers, ect.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Hope it doesn't ignite a holy war 
I like the editing in LR, too, but I really like the integration with Mac. But, I haven't tried LR since v1. I've tried Ap2, and it's a good product.
I know you said in LR you can do some selective edits, without them applying to the whole picture. Can you not do that in Ap2? For some reason I thought you could.
I like the editing in LR, too, but I really like the integration with Mac. But, I haven't tried LR since v1. I've tried Ap2, and it's a good product.
I know you said in LR you can do some selective edits, without them applying to the whole picture. Can you not do that in Ap2? For some reason I thought you could.
There's selective editing in Lightroom? No way. How would Adobe sell Elements or Photoshop if LR had selective editing? This is where Adobe was always going to get caught with its pants down, because Apple has no issues with adding this feature into Aperture if they want to, but Adobe has something to lose --- namely, sales of their main products, which also happen to cost a lot more and make more money.
Anyway, Lightroom is awesome. I use it and prefer it for the editing. There are things I like about Aperture, but Lightroom's non-fluid, inflexible user interface isn't a problem for me. I edit in the screen assigned for editing, and I view my photo library in the screen assigned for viewing in Grid View. It's also faster.
Also, I just bought Lightzone via the MacUpdate app bundle, and it seems quite good. It's fast, and it's as easy as LR in making edits. It just happens to have more editing features, which is why I have it. Others may prefer something like Photoshop, Elements, or Pixelmator, but Lightzone seemed OK in the 10 minutes I tried it.
Anyway, Lightroom is awesome. I use it and prefer it for the editing. There are things I like about Aperture, but Lightroom's non-fluid, inflexible user interface isn't a problem for me. I edit in the screen assigned for editing, and I view my photo library in the screen assigned for viewing in Grid View. It's also faster.
Also, I just bought Lightzone via the MacUpdate app bundle, and it seems quite good. It's fast, and it's as easy as LR in making edits. It just happens to have more editing features, which is why I have it. Others may prefer something like Photoshop, Elements, or Pixelmator, but Lightzone seemed OK in the 10 minutes I tried it.
Based on the discussion in this thread, I decided to stop procrastinating and downloaded the Lightroom 2 trial to try it out for the first time.
After using it for 5 minutes, I pretty much sh*t a 10 bedroom brick house.
Lightroom 2 blows Aperture 2 out of the water. The ability to do localized corrections in LR2 is huge for me. The built-in adjustments in LR2 are a LOT better (I especially enjoy the "clarity" slider). I really love the three different rating systems. The skin retouch brush is great. Much greater control over vignette and de-vignette.
The only thing I don't like is that the workflow is a bit inflexible in LR2 compared to Aperture 2. It's a small price to pay for the superior image-editing capabilities in LR2.
And here I've been using Aperture 2 all this time like a sucker. I figured since it was an Apple product, it must be polished, perfected, and have a great user interface. Great user interface, yes, but in this case Adobe's decade-plus experience in graphics aps triumphs over Apple's attempt.
I don't want to lose all of the adjustments I've already made to my existing (Aperture) libraries, so I'm going to keep Aperture installed on my computer and continue to work with those existing photos in Aperture. But all new photo work will be done in LR2.
After using it for 5 minutes, I pretty much sh*t a 10 bedroom brick house.
Lightroom 2 blows Aperture 2 out of the water. The ability to do localized corrections in LR2 is huge for me. The built-in adjustments in LR2 are a LOT better (I especially enjoy the "clarity" slider). I really love the three different rating systems. The skin retouch brush is great. Much greater control over vignette and de-vignette.
The only thing I don't like is that the workflow is a bit inflexible in LR2 compared to Aperture 2. It's a small price to pay for the superior image-editing capabilities in LR2.
And here I've been using Aperture 2 all this time like a sucker. I figured since it was an Apple product, it must be polished, perfected, and have a great user interface. Great user interface, yes, but in this case Adobe's decade-plus experience in graphics aps triumphs over Apple's attempt.
I don't want to lose all of the adjustments I've already made to my existing (Aperture) libraries, so I'm going to keep Aperture installed on my computer and continue to work with those existing photos in Aperture. But all new photo work will be done in LR2.
New to Mac and Lightroom 2
Just found your post. I just bought my first Mac and Lightroom 2 at the same time. Been a film and PC guy for years. I have only scratched the surface with Lightroom 2 but really like what I see so far. While I may be off the subject, are there any Lightroom users in Tucson that might be able to help me get moving forward with developing? Thanks, Dan
Just found your post. I just bought my first Mac and Lightroom 2 at the same time. Been a film and PC guy for years. I have only scratched the surface with Lightroom 2 but really like what I see so far. While I may be off the subject, are there any Lightroom users in Tucson that might be able to help me get moving forward with developing? Thanks, Dan