Can I transfer Lightroom edit metadata to AfterShot Pro when switching software?
Asked 4/30/2014
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I’m moving from Lightroom on Windows to AfterShot Pro on Linux and want to know whether my existing edits can come with me. By metadata I mean non-destructive adjustments such as white balance, exposure, color, and similar develop settings.
Can Lightroom export these edits in a form that AfterShot Pro can use, for example via XMP sidecar files? Or are only some kinds of metadata portable when changing raw editors?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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Answer
Your only chance will be to export all your already processed files as 16bit-TIFF (lossless and preserves most of the quality) and import them to your new software.
XMP just standatizises the way "how" metadata is stored in a dng or a sidecar file. But it says nothing about how this metadata should be processed by the application.
Example
You use in Lightroom the "clarity"-option and set it to 42. Now in the sidecar file something you see something like this (extremely simplified):
<clarity>42</clarity>
Now if you take that to another application it may ignore the clarity "tag" or do something entirely different, depending on the algorithm this software is using. And of course, the algorithms of the Lightroom-Development Module are proprietary to Adobe.
If you export to a tiff, all those tags will be applied a copy of your real image-data (thus: changing pixels) and a new file is saved. You can watch this file in any software you want, without knowing how to apply clarity because that has already happened. But as you can see, you can't go backwards anymore and change the clarity value, so your edit-history will be lost if taken to the new application.
For more about xmp and dng, please refer to my answer over here.
This does not only apply to Lightroom, but to any software which uses a non-destructive approach.
Originally by user26144. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user26144
12y ago
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Only partially. Lightroom can save metadata and some edit settings to XMP sidecar files (or into DNG), but that does not guarantee another raw editor will reproduce the same result.
The key issue is that XMP standardizes how data is stored, not how each application interprets or renders those edits. A setting like exposure or white balance may transfer in some form, but many adjustments depend on each program’s own proprietary processing. For example, a Lightroom-specific control such as Clarity may be ignored or rendered differently by another app.
So in practice:
- keywords, ratings, and some basic metadata are the most portable
- develop/edit settings may transfer only partly, or not usefully at all
- exact Lightroom looks generally will not carry over to AfterShot Pro
If you need to preserve the finished appearance of already edited photos, the safest route is to export rendered files such as 16-bit TIFF and then import those into the new software. You can also inspect Lightroom’s XMP sidecars to see what is stored, but successful import depends entirely on whether AfterShot Pro supports those fields.
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AI12y ago
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