How do I get my Aperture Library into Lightroom?

January 20, 2008 9:02 PM

How can I get my Aperture photo library exported into Lightroom?

I've decided to switch to Lightroom but I have a few hundred photos in Aperture, all tweaked up and everything. I don't mind losing the color correction (it'll be fun doing it again) but how do I even get my photos out of Aperture? The Aperture Library is a package file filled with more package files, it's a huge mess. Is there a way to do this easily? I can't seem to google up an answer.

posted by BlackLeotardFront to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I haven't used Aperture beyond testing (just got Lightroom yesterday), but here are a couple things you can try (just guessing):

1. Select all images, hold option down, and drag them to your desktop
2. Export to CD or web

I remember the turnoff for me was Aperture's wonky file system (tons of duplicates). Have you checked the Pictures/Aperture (Library?) folder for a folder named "Originals?"
posted by fleeba at 9:09 PM on January 20, 2008

there's no folder to speak of, unfortunately - just hundreds of separate folders hidden inside layers of pkg files. I think that in the end I'm just going to have to select all (which will take several minutes to process) and then export all the masters to a folder somewhere. Why, lord?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:16 PM on January 20, 2008

It seems you know about the exporting masters method. That is the way to do it and really should take long. I just relocated a couple hundred photos to my external HD and it took less than three minutes.

The trick, though, is to right-(or ctrl-)click on your Library in the projects panel. Choose "Relocate Masters for Library …" from the contextual menu, select a folder, and all your photos will be relocated. No need to select the images directly.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:56 PM on January 20, 2008

really shouldn't take long.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:56 PM on January 20, 2008

That oughta do the trick. Thanks.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 10:39 PM on January 20, 2008

Congrats for making the switch; what was the tipping point?
posted by oxford blue at 10:56 PM on January 20, 2008

And while we're at it, has anyone here tried to get a Picasa-for-Windows library into Lightroom? You can Export from Picasa, but that makes all edits permanent, when the goal is to maintain the original images unaltered, with non-destructive editing and tags.
posted by Dave 9 at 8:21 AM on January 21, 2008

Is Lightroom any better?

Sorry, this is not really an answer or anything, I'm just feeling burned on Aperture after using it for a very large project, and I'm curious to know what prompted you to make the switch.
posted by EricGjerde at 11:45 PM on January 21, 2008