Migrating to Lightroom
Before you think of upgrading your Mac to the much anticipated OS X 10.10.3 that includes the new Photos app, you may want to consider migrating your photos from iPhoto (Apples photo app) to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I downloaded a number of photos from my iPhone to iPhoto for this demo. Once you have upgraded to OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) you likely will not have access to the old Apple iPhoto app depending on your region (see below).
Although this demo is of iPhoto to LR, it’s pretty much the same process for the Apple Aperture app. Why Apple decided to discontinue the very capable and powerful Aperture is a mystery however it doesn’t change the fact these users also need a migration path to another solution (LR being the most likely candidate).
If migrating to Lightroom is something you are interested in (and there are many reasons you should) then follow the below steps.
Install and start Lightroom. Once launched go to File > Plug-in Extras > Import from iPhoto Library.
You will be presented with the below migration window, and as suggested make certain you have your Lightroom catalog backed up. Press “Import” and “Done” when the import is complete.
You are done! Now you can move forward and use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
Now compare this to the new Apple Photos app. For most people who are simply using their smart phones or point & shoots to capture moments in their lives the new Photos app will be sufficient.
With iCloud turned on, all your photos are synced between all your computers and iDevices. Depending on your photo collection this feature can be very powerful. I for one don’t use iCloud for my photos but keep all my work internally (with complete offsite backups).
However, if you really need heavy weight development capabilities the Photos app just doesn’t compare to the Adobe Lightroom.
Point here is the Lightroom module is “heavyweight” compared to the Apple Photos app. If you only need basic functionality to enhance, crop, retouch your photos you’ll find the Photos app to be very adequate. If you want to exploit the most of your image files you’ll definitely want to look at Lightroom.
Access to iPhoto after update
A strange thing happened, I thought I’d fire up iPhoto after the migration and got the following error. What is strange is that before the update I was fully current on all apps in the Apple app store.
So I click on the “Search App Store” button and get the below message. So if you think you are going back after your upgrade you are likely out of luck.
So the moral of the story is, if you like iPhoto don’t upgrade to 10.10.3 or you will be out of luck although the new Photos app is likely better than iPhoto but for one don’t know as I’m a Lightroom user.
~RoTP team