You can import images into Lightroom from any hard drive (this could be your internal hard drive). I'm not an expert on iPhoto, but if your iPhoto images are stored on a hard drive (they should be), you can import them into Lightroom, you just need to find out where they're located.

When importing images into Lightroom from a hard drive, you can import the entire collection of images

(note: Lightroom will import original/unaltered versions of images unless you edited images with a software that uses .xmp).

When you import files into LR4, you have the option of adding them to the catalog in their current location (no copies are made) or having LR4 create copies in folder of your choosing.  So you should be able to have LR build a catalog of your image files without duplicating them or moving them elsewhere on your hard drive.

However, I have never used iPhoto before, so I'm not sure if there are any conflicts that might cause iPhoto and/or LR4 to choke on files that are shared between the two applications.  I suspect it should work fine... but I can't say for sure.

I know this is the case for LR3, but it looks like LR4 has the ability to use existing folders, does this exclude the iPhoto package?

Thanks for all the tips.

I'm trying to use this feature and it don't work, and no one knows how it works, i called to Adobe phone and they don't know too. Well its strange to build something that don't work, or if needed extra application its not avaible. I'm really sad, i have a big Aperture Library and Bought this application (LR4) because the marketing was telling that it was possible...

Gustavo

I'm not sure what you mean by "the marketing" - I've not seen anything from Adobe that would mislead you. In any case, if you search this forum you will find that there are already good ways to import your images and metadata from Aperture. If you can't find them, start a new thread and I'll walk you through the process.

There's an overview at http://lightroomsolutions.com/migrating-from-aperture-to-lightroom-whe re-do-i-begin/. If that doesn't make sense, start a new thread here.

John

OK, I see what you mean. Thanks.

As it is, those "old ways" work perfectly well and aren't hard work if you are reasonably competant. You may also be able to control the process better and migrate information like the album structure.

John

I'm a newbie to LR and have downloaded the LR4 demo hoping to use it with iPhoto 09.  I'm basically OK with the Mac but not an expert and would like to point out a couple of problems I had which might make others think twice about 'experimenting'.

To access your iPhoto files, go to the finder, locate your iPhoto library, right click on the library icon and scroll down to 'Show Package Contents. A new window will open with various files and folders including Modified and Originals.  I'm shooting Canon RAW and all my CR2 files are stored in the Originals folder in dated folders.  From here on in I'm a little out of my depth but I believe the Modified folder holds .jpg files which are copies of the CR2 files which iPhoto uses when showing photos in Events and editing.  They may also have some auto corrections applied so they look brighter and more saturated than the original CR2s.

The easy way to allow LR to 'see' these folders and files is to create an alias of the iPhoto library or the Originals folder and ask LR to import from the alias and this does work *but* I did something wrong and this is where you can start to screw things up in a big way.  First, I didnt find it easy to understand the way that LR stores (or links) photos in Folders and Collections, second I found the import options slightly ambiguous so I tried to import just a few photos from 2012 / March (in the Originals folder) which worked fine.  Then I did the same for Feb which worked fine.  Then I imported the whole Originals folder and I was impressed, LR imported all the folders from iPhoto with identical dates and each dated folder had all the photos.

All well and good but when I next opened iPhoto my February and March photos were missing so I guess I must have used the wrong import option but I thought, probably mistakenly, that LR didnt touch the original files it only created links.  Perhaps someone could help on that one.

Next, I tried a Time Machine restore on iPhoto which took ages and didnt salvage the missing photos so I copied the missing photos from a Time Machine backup using the finder to another folder and reimported them into iPhoto which worked. Great. And then Time Machine encountered an error (not enough space on backup disk), all backups were lost and I had to reformat my external drive to get Time Machine functioning properly again.

My apologies for this long winded summary but I really wanted to explain that it looks like LR4 can import from iPhoto (and do it really well) if done correctly and it would be really good to have someone (at Adobe?) with more experience than myself to write up a list of instructions for Dummies.

One final point, LR4 is using different basic adjustments to photos with a 2012 process which differs from the 2010 process in ACR which confuses things more and there's a beta version of ACR using the same 2012 process which I've downloaded. Took me ages to understand what was going on (and why exif wasnt showing / saving correctly) ...  And very finally, there's other things I found out only by trial and error that are far too long winded to explain here!

LR4 looks really good but is sadly missing some very important instructions when it comes to importing from iPhoto 09.