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Question

Moving from Apple Photos to Lightroom and Back

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 16, 2018
4 replies
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I have many photos in lightroom and many photos in Apple Photos.

I'd like to first migrate all photos from Apple Photos to Lightroom. Then organize and edit and delete any not needed in lightroom. And then plan to export the best ones from Lightroom back to Apple Photos. So Lightroom can be a repo for all photos, but Apple Photos can be a place to have all the best photos and would be the app I'd use for sharing and showing photos with friends and family etc. As it's clear Apple Photos will never attempt to go back to a full fledge pro solution, and Adobe and will never fully embrace Apple's approach though possibly a company like Affinity will eventually bridge that gap.

But so my question is, if I move photos to lightroom will any data be lost? Such as Apple photos includes HEIF photos. I'm okay if that data isn't accessible in lightroom but want to make sure when moving back to Apple photos it still is. Or if I move Apple Portrait photos to lightroom and then back, that I can still edit all the special portrait futures, or live photos, etc. Or will moving them to and back lose all that data? I can and will certainly try out on my own but wanted to see from others who may know right away what is an isn't possible. I did read at least HEIF is supported on Lightroom iOS but didn't see if is on desktop, or about portrait photos, or live photos etc.

How to

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J

joeg88617122

Known Participant

Does anyone know if Lightroom classic will recognize Apple live photos....mine has stopped doing so...

S

Skippermark

Known Participant

@cchiera I'm a little late with my reply, but I did some testing today and wanted to tell you what I've discovered.

I used to use Lightroom CC Classic (LRCCC) extensively for years, but several months ago I decided to streamline my photography workflow and start using my phone and Apple Photos exclusively instead of a DSLR and LRCCC.

I subscribe to the full Adobe Creative Cloud and figured I should re-test LRCC and see how it's changed, so I did that today.

I shoot exclusively with HEIC on my iPhone and exported several HEIC files in original format from Apple Photos to my desktop and then imported those into LRCC. Everything went smoothly, and it was no different from importing a JPG or RAW. I was able to use, and every editing feature the program has was available - profile, light, color, split toning and more.

However, when I selected a photo that was taken in portrait mode and had a nice, blurry background in Apple Photos, in LRCC, the photo appeared as if it had been taken in "normal" mode. There was no option to re-enable the portrait mode features such as blurry background or lighting effects. Unless I couldn't find where to do it, as far as LRCC is concerned, the photo was snapped in non-portrait mode. The only thing that carried over from portrait mode was the 2X magnification factor.

As a side note, Photoshop imports the iPhone depth mapping info into a channel that can be edited. This gives editors the ability to adjust how much blur a photo has and to selectively add or remove blur from photos. This is perfect if the phone blurred something that shouldn't have been blurred or didn't blur something that should have been.

With LRCC or LRCCC, you will have to export the photos as JPGs in order to import them into Apple Photos. LR currently doesn't appear to export in HEIC format.

If you want to share photos with friends and family or have them available to show people in person, you could check out the sharing features inside LR. You could create albums with your very best photos that you want to either share electronically or show to people in person. That way you're not having to search through hundreds or thousands of photos in your main LR catalog. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about exporting them from one program to import into another.

99jon

Legend

Adobe is working towards supporting HEIF files in a future release. At least HEIC rather than converting to jpeg. I’m not sure about video.

All editing is non-destructive - metadat/settings stored in the cloud. So there should never be any loss of data.

I usually export copies from LR to my Mac and add these to iCloud. They are then available on all Apple devices.

This is becoming less necessary as the LRCC app has more powerful editing tools comparred with the Photos app.

SteddyShotsAuthor

Known Participant

In regards to, "Adobe is working towards supporting HEIF files in a future release. " can you confirm that the existing Lightroom CC does not support it? As to my knowledge they already support in Lightroom CC on mobile devices as of last year: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/10/18/adobe-lightroom-cc-heif-support/. But was unsure if the desktop apps were also updated last year or this year as well.

And sorry yes, Lightroom is non destructive edits, but by data loss, I mean for instance if I migrated my Photos library to Lightroom and back, if the resulting photos in Photos App were say no longer editable portrait photos, or the live photos weren't their special format but were downgraded to regular videos, or heif files were now jpg, etc I would consider all of that data loss.

But hopefully someone familiar with these Mac specifics technologies will be able to chime in based on Lightroom CC's current support of those technologies to date. If don't hear back this week though will doing various testing over the weekend and then can share my findings for others looking for the same. Thanks guys!

99jon

Legend

I think support in the desktop apps is getting nearer. I'm not sure about specialist portrait mode or live photos (mov) but suggest you continue to experiment and watch for updates.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Someone else will have to provide you with a more complete answer. But I'm wondering just how suitable Lightroom will be for what you intend to do. Lightroom does not modify in any way the original images that are imported. All adjustments are stored in the Lightroom catalog, and it's necessary to export copies that include all adjustments that are made using Lightroom. So you wouldn't be able to just "move" those images back and forth as you are suggesting that you want to do.

SteddyShotsAuthor

Known Participant

I wouldn't be moving back and forth after the first time doing it. That is will only once be moving from Apple Photos to Lightroom ( and then will delete all photos from Apple Photos), then will organize all photos and make edits as need in lightroom and then move the best to apple photos to be used for sharing easily and since most all apps that use photos will call up Apple photos when browsing for images on iOS devices).

But then going forward, wouldn't be importing apple photos into lightroom, only lightroom to apple photos.

So my concern is lost of data during the initial move. Such as if I export a HEIF image from Photos and import to Lightroom, will it strip the heif data, or not import a heif file at all, or will photos not even allow me to export heif, or is there a better way of doing in the photos folder on my Mac. And same would go for special formats like Portraits and Live Photos. I'm okay if Lightroom can't render those special formats yet, but as long as when moving between the data is doesnt strip down to a standard jpeg.

Since more a special use case may have to simply experiment myself, but figured I'd start here, since more likely to find someone who knows that going on an Apple forum and asking. Thanks!

JP Hess

Inspiring

I am not at all familiar with HEIF images. How I can tell you is that when you export from Lightroom you have the choices of JPEG, PSD, TIF, DNG or original. As far as metadata goes, there are several choices, one of which is all metadata. Since I'm not as up on these other formats, someone else will have to advise on the more technical aspects of what you are asking. Or, you can experiment on your own to discover.

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