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Best HEIF (HEIC) to JPG workflow

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 29, 2017
9 replies
125806 views

Hi all. What is the best workflow to get HEIC files out of Apple Photos and converted to JPG format that will maintain the best quality? They're currently on my Mac in Apple Photos as originals and on my iPhone as optimized.

My ultimate goal will be to merge the JPGs into LR Classic and manage them there.

Should I just import them into LRCC mobile or the desktop app and let it convert them to JPG automatically, or would the quality be better if I exported them from Apple Photos to JPG?

Lastly, in the future, should I continue to shoot HEIF on my phone or just shoot JPG if I don't want to shoot RAW? I've heard mixed reviews of HEIF, with some sites saying they're way better than JPG and others saying to stick with JPG. I thought HEIF would be more like a "compressed RAW" format, kind of like the Sony compressed RAW format, but after reading more about it, it seems more like a slightly better JPG format with a higher bit depth. Thanks for any help.

Correct answer Mohit Goyal

What Comptu said... what about Windows 10???

Hi All,

We're happy to announce the release of Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 & Lightroom CC 1.5.

This update includes the support for HEIC image files on Windows platform.

Here's the list of what's new in this release:

Lightroom Classic CC 7.5: New features summary for the October 2017 and later releases of Lightroom Classic CC

Lightroom CC 1.5: New features summary for the October 2017 and later releases of Lightroom CC across devices

Let us know if the update resolves the problem for those affected and share your feedback with us.

Regards,

Mohit

E

Ethan5FE418929790

Participant

poopie

slingetje

Participant

This might work for some of us: open HEIC file in Apple Preview then export to JPG (adjust compression level as preferred)

avator

Participating Frequently

And what do you think the conpression level should be (8/10/12) to have the equivalent quality of the original HEIC without increasing too much the file size?

thks

carlo

W

Woodley43

Inspiring

That is complex: everytime you safe a compressed image file, the number of artefacts increases. You can verify this by magnifying a detailed structure (roman mosaic, telephone wire etc.) down to the pixel level, then safe, reopen the file, safe it and so on – and examine the detail.

Therefore I would keep the original HEIC "untouched" and extract JPEGs according to the specific use, similar strategy as common using RAW files. Nowadays there is cheap storage space available! For printing fotos I never go below 300 dpi and 10/12 compression Quality.

It is a pity to learn – according to my experience as editor of a community almanac – that a majority of people have gorgeous photos from hightech cell phones or good digital cameras an store their original 2-4 MB JPEGs reduced to 100-200 kB or less (WhatsApp, Facebok etc.). That size only allows (lousy) printing photos on credit card format!

CanalogSE

Known Participant

Can I convert HEIC files to DNG files? Right now there are so many (very good file formats, anyway) but I am working with CR2’s (Canon raw files), DNG (iPhone raw files with Adobe CC app), TIFF, Jpeg’s, PNG’s....adding one more like HEIC’s will probably create confusion in the future, so to limit raw files to CR2 and DNG would be preferred in my opinion...

Now that I dont have too many HEIC’s for the time being, it would then be fairly easy to convert those to another format, and for the future to avoid the HEIC’s if possible...

S

SkippermarkAuthor

Known Participant

Hi. Yes and no. It doesn't look like the DNG converter will do it, but I was able to export the HEIC files in LR Classic to DNG format.

I just downloaded the DNG conveter from Adobe but got the error "The source folder does not contain any supported camera raw files" when I pointed it to my test folder with a few HEIC files that were taken with my iPhone.

However, I can successfully import HEIC files into LR Classic (version 8.4.1, Camera Raw, 11.4.1) and then immediately export them as DNGs. When I exported them from LR, the exported files had my test Metadata like keywords & copyright info embedded in them.

It wouldn't be difficult at all to create an export preset that would export all the HEICs to a new folder and then automatically re-import them back into LR.

lizl35050633

Participant

You can access Apowersoft's free online resource, which allows you to convert the HEIC format to JPG.

Step 1: Visit their website www.apowersoft.com.

Step 2: Select the Convert from HEIC to JPG function.

Step 3: You can download the desktop version or select the HEIC file to be converted.

In addition, there are many very good heic converter tools.

C

ckorbey

Participant

I've been downloading HEIF files to my desktop, opening them in Preview, then batch saving them as JPEGs. It's a bit tedious, but it's a decent work around until Adobe and others begin to natively support HEIF files. I'm not sure if there's a similar work around for a PC.

Mohit Goyal

Community Manager

Hi All,

We are happy to announce the release of Lightroom Classic CC 7.4 & Lightroom CC 1.4.

This update includes the support for HEIF image files on macOS High Sierra v10.13 or later.

Here's a list of what's new in this release:

New features summary for the October 2017 and later releases of Lightroom Classic CC

New features summary for the October 2017 and later releases of Lightroom CC across devices

Let us know if the update resolves the problem for those affected and share your feedback with us.

Regards,

Mohit

C

Comptu

Participant

What about windows 10?!?!?!?

_p_g_

Inspiring

Use Image Capture to import HEIC to HD
Batch convert HEIC with Photoshop CC > File > Image Processor
Import to Lightroom as per usual

davejonez

Participant

I'm using a desktop app to convert the HEIC photos to JPG as I don't think it's safe to use online tools. The app is called Joyoshare HEIC Converter. The best part I love it is its ability to keep the original image quality in JPEG. BTW, it supports converting HEIC to PNG, GIF and other formats too. You can download the free version from its official site: https://www.joyoshare.com/heic-converter-for-mac/

super_b13304480

Participant

This is what has worked for me on Windows 10 and my iPhone until there is native support:

Create a new HEIC_CONVERSION folder somewhere outside of your current photo directory structure. You'll want to back these up, but they don't necessarily need to get mixed in with your other photos unless your tools support them. At some point, you'll probably delete the jpg versions that we are creating, so keeping them separate will reduce the confusion later
Connect the phone via cable and use any tool to copy files from Pictures into a new subfolder in your HEIC_CONVERSION called ORIGINALS somewhere outside of your your current photo directory structure.
If the photos are *ALL* HEIC, then you don't need to separate them. However, if you are like me and have a phone partially filled with HEIC and non-HEIC photos (and videos, more on that later), then you don't really want to re-process the non-HEIC files. Youll need to use a tool to determine if the files are HEIC or not. Fortunately for images, the file extension is '.heic', so those are easy to identify. For HEVC (videos), the filename extensions are all .mov, so you'll need to another tool. Quicktime Player has a menu that is easy to access called "Show Movie Inspector" that will tell you if the video is H264 or H265/HVEC. If you don't know the date when your device changted over to HVEC, you'll need to poke around with various dates to find exactly which video is the first HVEC. After you find it, copy/move that file and all subsequent files to a new folder under HEIC_CONVERSION. It's easier if you create separate folders for images and video, so I created 2 subfolders called HEIC_ORIGINALS and HEVC_ORIGINALS.
Now that you have HEIC files all by themselves, youll want to convert them. I use the free iMazing HEIC converter. It only accepts a single folder as input, and will output to a single folder. I created a new subfolder called HEIC_to_JPG for the output.
For HEVC files, use Handbrake to convert from H265/HEVC to H264. There are lots of tutorials out there on this conversion process, so I won't repeat the steps here. Essentially though, the default settings for H264 work well. Creating a new output folder called HEVC_to_M4V keeps them separate.
import new jpg and m4v files into Lightroom, etc for editing

J

jordan_4059

Participant

Thanks for suggesting iMazing -- helpful that it's available on the MS Store and I can download it on my work computer without needing admin permissions. Just converted 40 photos and it worked very quickly!

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

I would be surprised if Adobe doesn't support the new format sometime soon. At the moment, I have no clue what way is best for conversion. However, if you have an iPhone, the very best way to shoot is to shoot raw in the Lightroom CC app on your phone and have the dng files sync straight into Lightroom.

Neox99

Legend

I agree with Jao vdl - -

HEIC (a spinoff of HEVC) is quite new to the file format scene.

Problems and confusion abound.

I, for one, will just wait until the dust settles then give it some testing.

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