Workflows for migrating to OR from AP3 to LR4.3

Scott Bourne provided a walkthrough how he migrated from Aperture to Lightroom. It's not an easy process, and your original RAW images won't retain any edits.

I switched from aperture to LR and my method of migration was pretty straightforward.

I just stopped using A3 and started using LR,

I kept A3 on my mac if i needed an old picture I opened up A3 (i did move a few pics across to LR in a sort of best of A3 set) for my newer stuff LR.

After a cple of months I found I hardly opened A3 anymore.

This is a good time of year to do this I guess, that way you'll know anything 2012 will be A3 anything 2013 onwards will be LR

TheDrift- said:

I switched from aperture to LR and my method of migration was pretty straightforward.

I just stopped using A3 and started using LR,
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Click to expand...

I did the same, except it was from iPhoto. If I need to go back to iPhoto for an old image, I also take the time to export a full sized TIFF to re-import into Lr. I put a keyword in that tells me it is in iPhoto so if I need the original I know that it is in iPhoto. In my case my switch also matched when I moved up to a much better camera.

I recently moved my 12,000-some archive and work library to Lightroom. Having two separate libraries on a single disk and with the internal drive unable to handle the capacity, I had to do the following:
I think I wrote or exported all the IPTC metadata to the RAW files so that it would be soundly transferred from A3 to L4.3.

Then I organized both libraries such that they have essentially the same structure. For me it was multiple projects organized into folders. This is the essential part. Once this is done, the export becomes really easy.

Now the real thorn in the side is vaults. Photos stored in vaults have to be restored first as far as I know; if not, you can choose to see its contents and manually pull each RAW file out.

Then I converted both libraries from managed libraries into a referenced library by exporting all the originals into the same folder. Make sure you preserve the folder structure you created in your library with custom subfolder formats. I used Folder/Project/ which creates a folder for each project with all affiliated originals inside, all contained within a folder for the entire parent folder.

Repeat the previous step until all of your libraries have been exported to a central location. Also make sure they mirror the Aperture library exactly.

Then just import that central folder into Lightroom. That will register each and every master file with Lightroom in one fell swoop. From there you're free to move and manage using Lightroom.


This gives Lightroom and Aperture a common folder structure for working with. It's then very simple to move between each program.


I based this method off of Scott Bourne's method.