May move to LR3 from Aperture, need help.

[mistyp11]

I am happy with Aperture, very happy actually, but I want to move due
to the larger user base of LR, the books, classes, resources
available, the presets, etc. I am really a beginning serious hobbyist,
so before I get much more invested in learning Aperture, I want to
formulate a plan to move to Lightroom. My Aperture library is a
Managed library of about 16,000 images. I don't care about losing
metadata or adjustments, I lost all of those when I imported them from
iPhoto 6. My images as managed by aperture are in Folders by year,
with a project for each month included in that year. I would like to
have a similar set up in LR.

So, can someone tell me what I need to do to move this all over? I
think I need to relocate masters, but how do I need to set up LR
before that to get ready to do the import? I would like to keep images
arranged in folders by year, subfolders by month, maybe even subolders
by date the image was taken.

Also, Which books/ classes would you recommend for a person in my
situation? I really don't like Lightroom at all. I have gone through
two trial versions of the software. So much about it doesn't make
sense to me. I know that I have to be missing something, because
everyone else loves it.

Thanks for anything you can tell me/ resources you can direct me to
during the transition.

 

[iBookG4user]

If you're happy with Aperture, I don't see a reason for the move to Lightroom if you don't like the interface after two trial periods. Aperture is a pretty powerful program as well and you might consider sticking with it. There are online tutorials made by Apple for Aperture here that you might consider taking a look at.

Personally I use Lightroom but that's only because I've been using it since the beta of Lightroom 1 originally came out. It's a pretty nifty program, although if you like Aperture and are comfortable with it already, there's no real reason to switch.

 

[Badrottie]

he is right..I tried both but I decided to keep LR because it does not mess with picture folder. Aperture requires to create new folders causes me to confuse which picture folder belongs to. Just like iPhote.

 

[paulsalter]

I have just gone through the same move, think I replied to you on the Adobe forum, but this is what I did and it seems to have worked without issues

Relocated all the masters first and get these into the format I liked (by year/month)
with doing this I still have all my edits done in Aperture without needed duplicate copies of my pictures, so can go back there for older ones

Imported all these images in LR, which keeps the layout you did above (year/month for me)

All new images I just deal with from now on in LR, but if i need to get any previous edits they are still visible in Aperture

Both programmes now just access the files from my hard drive folders (instead of stored in Aperture) so I only have one set of images

LR = Old images unedited & new edited images
AP = Old edited images incase needed

 

[mofunk]

I use both. Definitely try before you buy.

I like Aperture because it works well with Gallery. Next year I have to re-think this though

 

[Ruahrc]

If you're happy with Aperture, I don't see a reason for the move to Lightroom if you don't like the interface after two trial periods. Aperture is a pretty powerful program as well and you might consider sticking with it.

+1. Why move from one system you don't understand to another? And one that you specifically say you don't like?

 

[chrono1081]

If you're happy with Aperture, I don't see a reason for the move to Lightroom if you don't like the interface after two trial periods. Aperture is a pretty powerful program as well and you might consider sticking with it.

This.

You will literally have to redo all your edits (unless there is some way to switch that I am unaware of). I really wouldn't suggest it. There are plenty of Aperture tutorials, not to mention almost every LR tutorial aside from user interface tutorials can be done in Aperture and vice versa. I've used LR since Beta and recently switched to Aperture 3 and both programs do the same thing.