Migrating from Lightroom to Aperture 3

So I have decided to switch to Aperture 3 for all my imaging library and adjustment needs (those not requiring “deep” editing in Photoshop). There seems to be a lot of debate over this kind of thing. There are a lot of irrational claims to fames and all sorts of jim crackery, however, I went with what makes my workflow not only fun, but easier and faster. I will begin with some issues I had with Lightroom, then things I like about Aperture and finally on to the HOW. Take the jump to find out more…

When I started looking for an image library management system and a way to make non-destructive edits I did a side-by-side comparison of Aperture 2 and Lightroom 2. The only reason I went with Lightroom was due to the tight integration between Lightroom and other Adobe products, especially Photoshop. Lightroom, however, was a very slow learning curve compared to Aperture.

A few things bugged me about Aperture. any image I created in Photoshop showed up in Aperture in some weird, “what the heck is that”, kind of thumbnail (even with the “compatability” choice checked), and still does. The other thing was integration between Photoshop. Lightroom has an export as “Photomerge”, “Layers”, and “HDR”.  At that time, This was an important feature to me and still is, but not a deciding factor any longer. Lastly, I felt Lightroom was highly regarded among the Photography profession, of which I say…”who cares” now.

Those were all fine and good things, however, I started getting tired of things in Lightroom, pertaining to my workflow. I can’t stand having to go to some other “module” to do different tasks. It stifles my workflow. If I am going through images and want to make some adjustments, I have to open the “Develop” module and do my work in there and then return. It is the same with “Slideshow”, “Web” and “Print”. It just didn’t work for me.

I also hated the four bars around the working area. Sure I could hide them, but it was always a hassle when I didn’t want it to be. I simply love the Full-Screen window in Aperture 3. I can hear people arguing now, but it is about MY tastes. I love it.

I think the feature I am MOST excited about, next to the simple, fast workflow enhancement, is the Set Compare Item feature. I shoot a lot of events and have found this simply enjoyable. So lets say I have 25 shots that are VERY similar of something, whether a scene in a play, a group, a wedding party, etc. Basically I pick the first one, set the compare mode (option+o). The chosen image pops up on the left, outlined in green, and the images to compare are on the right. I then use  my left and right arrow keys to speed me through the images. When I see one better, I choose the Set Compare Item or the return key. That image now moves to the left and I compare it to the rest. Love this feature and how it works for me.

Next on the list of things I love in Aperture is having all my albums, slideshows, books and smart albums under the actual project. Albums are the same as collections in Lightroom as show below.

As you can see, everything is there under one project. This example is of a structure I created that I use as a template. When I add a new wedding, all I need to do is right click on the project titled “date-client name” and choose “Duplicate Project Structure”. This creates a new project that only needs renamed. Cool!

There is another feature I like… Vault. Basically, Vault is a backup. You plug in any type of external drive you plan to use for a backup and give the new vault a name. You can have many vaults. One for monthly, weekly or daily. I have one for the studio and one I keep off site.

If you have a managed library, everything is backed up to the vault. If you have a referenced library then you will have to use Time Machine or Backup (an update came out today for Backup) to back up those Originals.

Next of loves…Editing. I love the ability to add or remove any brushes or adjustments I choose without having to undo everything back to that adjustment. Adjustments in Aperture are called bricks. You can just undo any adjustment you did and only that adjustment is undone. There is a lot more that I simply LOVE in the Aperture adjustments over Lightroom, but we need to move on. I will say that I miss the Gradient filter in Lightroom. It is a real shame not to have that in Aperture!

There are some other features that I love like the video/audio, slideshow and book creation, but I need to get to the point of the post…How to Migrate from Lightroom to Aperture.

So now I have two libraries Aperture and Lightroom. How do I get all me edits, ratings, keywords, etc into Aperture WITH the images. This turns out to be a tough topic. You can’t just import your RAW files and have Aperture read the metedata adjustments you made. So what do you do. Here is what I had to do.

Since I have my Lightroom drive, including the library, backed up, I had to make a decision that I feel sucks. Bake the changes into the images from Lightroom on export or recreate them in Aperture. I couldn’t fathom all the lost time doing the latter so I chose to bake.

The next choice is in what format to bake too. I chose PSD in 16 instead of 8. I chose this because I felt it was better than TIFF and JPG due to the fact I use Photoshop. I felt JPG would degrade my images, even if ever so slightly.

I then decided to move a folder at a time instead of the entire library into Aperture at once. On my first folder, which was the “Project”, I chose to filter by metadata in the Lightroom library. I then set it up to be able to choose two choices…”Develop Preset” and “File Type”. This gave me the option to choose all the images that I actually edited. I used the File type so I didn’t include any JPG’s, which would have been 900px-72dpi or less for web. All the images under this filter where then exported as PSD-16′s to a folder and imported into Aperture. Everything came across. I had all the metadata, keywords and ratings as well as edits like adjustments and cropping. The only thing that didn’t come across was color labels. Next I chose to export all the rest of the images that had no adjustments done to them as DNG files. I selected both sets of exported images into Aperture and it seemed to work perfect. Doing this in increments has allowed me to check for errors that may have happened in the process.

Finally, I love this version of Aperture enough that it was a no-brainer for me to migrate despite the work to do it. it really brings me back to not hating post and it makes my workflow easier, which in turn benefits clients.

There where only two posts I found helpful to my endeavor… http://shootraw.co.uk/blog/migrate-aperture-lightroom-aperture/ and http://www.bokehbrothers.com/2010/03/17/migrating-from-lightroom-to-aperture-3/

I hope this is helpful to someone out there. If I find any interesting things in my migration I will add an update to this post.

NOTE:Follow this post at your own risk, I am not responsible for anything you do.