Can Lightroom import an iPhoto library with edits preserved?
Asked 12/19/2014
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2 answers
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I used Lightroom 5.7 on OS X to import my iPhoto library via File > Plug-in Extras > Import from iPhoto Library. The photos imported, but they appear to be the original files only. Lightroom also created a collection called “Photos Adjusted in iPhoto,” but I’m not sure those images include the edits I made in iPhoto.
I expected Lightroom to import each edited image and show something like an “Edited in iPhoto” history step. Does Lightroom’s iPhoto importer preserve iPhoto adjustments, or does it only bring in the originals? If edits are not preserved, what exactly gets imported?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
2
This is actually the expected behavior of the plugin. To quote from Adobe's blog article on the importer for Aperture/iPhoto (bold emphasis is mine):
Information that is not imported into Lightroom:
- Image adjustments
- Smart Albums
- Face Tag Region of Interest (face naming tags are mapped to keywords)
- Color Labels (other than optionally as keywords)
- Stacks (other than optionally as keywords)
- Any kind of creation (books, web galleries, etc) other than the collections that correspond to them
Given that both Lightroom and Aperture/iPhoto basically use proprietary metrics to perform adjustments, it would be pretty difficult to find a way to equate the two types of adjustments, and they probably wouldn't be exact matches, anyway.
Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user27440
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is expected behavior. Lightroom’s iPhoto importer does not translate iPhoto image adjustments into Lightroom edits or History steps.
iPhoto/Aperture and Lightroom use different proprietary editing systems, so Lightroom cannot reliably convert iPhoto adjustments into equivalent Lightroom settings. As a result, the importer generally brings in the original photos and library organization, but not the actual adjustment data.
According to Adobe’s importer notes, items not imported include:
- image adjustments
- smart albums
- some metadata/organization features such as color labels and stacks (sometimes only as keywords)
- creations like books or web galleries
The “Photos Adjusted in iPhoto” collection is typically just a grouping of images that had edits in iPhoto; it does not mean those edits were recreated inside Lightroom.
So no, you’re not missing a setting: preserving iPhoto edits as editable Lightroom adjustments is functionality Lightroom does not provide.
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UniqueBot
AI11y ago
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