Migration issues on iMac

[chachafrisk]

Hi

I have just installed Lightroom & Photoshop CC on my iMac in order to move on up from Aperture.  I also need to upgrade my OS as I am still on OS X 10.7.5.

I have delayed upgrading the OS as Aperture is not compatible will newer versions.  Having got my various libraries consolidated and ready to migrate to Lightroom, I began my first year's subscription, only to be told that it will not work on my Mac - presumably because the OS needs updating.

If I upgrade the OS to allow Lightroom to work, however, then I suspect that Aperture will not work? My library is approx 900Gb in size.

Any help gratefully received.

Thanks, James

[Geoff the kiwi]

Have a look at the system requirements here.

Yes the current Lightroom runs on 10.10 onwards. Apple has made changes that mean newer OS's are needed for most applications.

[Just Shoot Me]

I think you have 2 options.

1) Get all your images out of Aperture by expanding the Aperture hidden Package folder and copying the Masters folder, including all subfolders to your hard drive (Yes this will take up a lot of space).Also this will lose all the edits you did in Aperture. You will be dealing with the Original images.

2) Export all your images in either JPG or TIFF format and save them to a folder on your drive (Again this will take up extra space on your drive).

I have never used Aperture and stopped using a Mac about 3 years ago so there may be other users that have better ideas.

[john beardsworth · Accepted solution]

Aperture should work OK on the current MacOS - I have it running perfectly well on Sierra.

My article Moving from Aperture to Lightroom may be helpful.

I disagree with the advice about playing around with Aperture's hidden package folder, though I do think you should use Aperture's Reorganise Master command to get all photos into regular folders. I also do not recommend exporting all your files as JPEG or TIF - Lightroom's Aperture converter plugin can handle this.

[chachafrisk]

Thanks John, much appreciated.  I am going to attempt a Time Machine back up and go for an upgrade on the OS.  There appear to be options, so I now need to research those - Sierra sounds favourite if Aperture will still work and I can then move to Lightroom/Photoshop.

[john beardsworth]

If necessary, remember that you can reinstall Aperture itself from the Apple Store - assuming you registered it. While it is no longer available, you will find it in your Purchases section.

[chachafrisk]

Thanks again - I have freed up enough space on my Time Machine disc to back up and hopefully in about 8 hours I will be able to go for the OS upgrade. I will also be taking your advice on Aperture and reading your help on migration. Hopefully when I've done all of this I can also get my iPhone to talk to my iMac again!

[chachafrisk]

Hi again

Well, I bit the bullet, having made a back up of my system, via Time Machine, and finalising my Aperture library on another  external drive.

The upgrade to OS Sierra 10.12.3 seems to have worked ok, after a few warnings etc, and my iPhone has once again been accepted for update by iTunes, and Image Capture has grabbed my photos and videos.

Aperture, however, will not open now, and there is apparently no upgrade available to my version available in the Apple Store, despite the original warning message box suggesting that there is a free one there.  I guess I could try to do a restore and see if I can upgrade Aperture whilst on OSX 10.7.5, and then return to Sierra again, but that would be a real pain.

The good news is that now that I am on Sierra, the Lightroom and Photoshop CC have both successfully been installed. I found the option to import my Aperture library into Lightroom, and it is now on 19%, so it's on course to complete in 4-5 days!  Before it started, however, it did present me with a warning message saying that some features would be lost as it's an old version of Aperture. Do you have any thoughts on this please, before I get to Friday/Saturday and find that it's been a waste of time?

I was wondering if there is a way in which I could run 2 partitions on the iMac, with OS X10 on one and Sierra on the other, but that could lead to problems I guess.

Thanks, James

[john beardsworth]

The up-to-date version of Aperture is available in your purchases section of the Apple Store, if you registered it or bought it directly from Apple.

Make sure you read the options in my article linked above. In Aperture there's the Reorganise Masters command, while in Lr's Import plugin it's important to consider the options available from the Options button.

[chachafrisk]

My attempt to export from Aperture to Lightroom failed, and I have now partitioned my iMac drive and reloaded OS X 10.7.5 in the second one, and reloaded Aperture into it. It runs very slowly but I do at least have access to my library.

There is no option therein to Reorganise Masters: I have looked everywhere, including in the Help. There is also no later version available in the App Store. I am on 3.4.5 and it looks like that's the best I can do.

I am thinking that I may have to export all masters and versions into files that I can then import into Lightroom. That could take a very long time, I know, but I think it will preserve my changes and keep my library intact. Running two partitions is not a long term solution as it's too slow and I want to start using Photoshop (and Lightroom - or maybe I should try Apple's Photos).

[john beardsworth]

On the Apple AppStore, sign in and go to the Purchased section. I see Aperture listed there. If you bought through the AppStore or registered Aperture, it should be there.

In Aperture 3.6 the command is File > Relocate Originals. Earlier versions used "Masters" instead of "Originals" - I don't recall when that changed, but the command was there for a very long time.

You can certainly export everything and import it all into Lightroom. If you can use the Relocate menu commend, and write metadata back to the files (Metadata > Write IPTC Metadata), things will be quicker. Versions would still need exporting as they aren't real files.