Migrating from Photos on Imac

[mhengle]

Do I have to migrate my photos from Apple Photos to Lightroom (using Lightroom's Migrate facility) before loading any other photos to Lightroom? I am asking this because I would like to get started on Lightroom but can't use Migrate yet as there are problems with it under IOS Catalina on the Imac. 

[cmgap]

No you don't have to migrate your Apple Photos contents to Lightroom at all. The apps are completely  independent of each other and it is entirely up  to you to decide  if  you want to add photos from your camera roll  to Lightroom. Are you using Lighroom Classic? If yes, you can work with collections, sync  them to the web and work with the Smart Previews on any of  your devices that have the Lightroom app installed. If you edit on your phone or tablet when you go back into Lightroom Classic on your computer your  edits  will be synced automatically.

[mhengle]

Thank you for your reply. I do want to use the Migrate from Apple Photos but have to wait until the Migrate facility in Lightroom is updated to work with the latest version of IOS Catalina. In the meantime I have pics, not in Photos, that I would like to load into Lightroom. Just to confirm that if I do load these pics now that I will be able to run a Migrate for my pics in Apple Photos at a later date.

[cmgap]

Yes - you  will be able to add photos from a  camera and it will not interfere with you wanting to later migrate photos from your Photos app. You will have to add them manually as the plugin is not likely to be updated soon. 

[mhengle]

I chatted with 4 successive Adobe 4 support folks this morning and he told me Migrate does work under ios Catalina. The Adobe webpage where it said Migrate was only supported up to Mojave has not been updated since May last year so hopefully the support chap is right. All a bit uncertain! Will let you know what happens when I try this out. Thx

[cmgap]

I think there is a language barrier. The term migrating doesn't refer to importing images from the Apple Photos app to Lightroom. Most often when the term migration is used it is referring to migrating images from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom. Yes, it is confusing.

There is a plugin under Plugin Extras that will migrate photos from Aperture and iPhoto several versions old–from 2014. There isn't a plugin that will work with Photos–it has not been updated nor are there plans to do so. Currently the only way to get the photos from your Photos app is to import them manually.

It takes a few steps to do this however you  may want to get a bit more comfortable using Lightroom Classic at least get the import process down before you attempt to bring in your mobile phone photos. Check out the first few links here to get started: https://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/lightroom-training-videos

Julianne talks fast but you can stop and start these videos at your own pace.

[mhengle]

Thanks, yes you are right, the plug in for Migrate only works for iPhotos. Pity it wasn't clear about this on the Adobe web page. Could have saved me time! 
And thanks for the link to Julianne's videos. I had no problems understanding her despite the fact I have hearing aids and these will help me get started.