Handing of Apple Live Photos in Lightroom and Lightroom Mobile

[0mx9]

Apple's IOS 9 contains the live photos feature. On the iPhone, they are stored as a .mov and a .jpg. On import into LR, the photo metadata shows File type of Video with a Sidecar of .jpg. I tried checking the option in LR Preferences to Treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separate photos, but that did not have any effect (likely because it was a .mov file vice a raw file.

In the develop module, LR sees the photo as a video and will not edit it.

How can I separate the .mov from the .jpg?

and

How can I develop the .jpg and export it separately?

[john beardsworth]

‌You will probably have to change the name of the jpegs or the movie file outside Lightroom .

[herr*d]

Have the same problem recognized. The separation  works in Apple Fotos. I hope that Adobe will update LR import soon.

[akaJules]

@Omx9 : I just ran into the same problem.

Open Image Capture on Mac, select your device and you will see that the MOV and JPG files are separated.  I went through and painstakingly selected just the JPG files which were duplicates of MOV files that I wanted to import.  I then discovered you can sort by Kind in Image Capture, the column is over on the very right side of the columns listed.  I had 175 photos, so I have now turned off the Live option in my Camera.

Select the Import To destination folder and click on Import (I simply created an Imports folder on my desktop which I will easily delete after import into LR).  Although I only selected 175 files in Image Capture, and clicked on the Import button, not the Import All button, Image Capture imported all MOV files as well as the JPG files I selected into my destination folder (total of 346 items of 445 total on iPhone).  I'm glad I created the Imports folder on my desktop before importing into Lightroom.  Now I just have to clean up this folder.  I sorted the folder by Kind and quickly selected the AAE and MOV files and moved to trash.  Whew.

I went into LR to clean up the MOV files that I had already imported.  At the Sort option on the bottom ribbon in my Previous Import folder (where the previously imported images where I discovered this problem are located), I selected File Extension.  I was able to quickly and easily spot and select only the images that were two or three seconds long (as I did have other videos in there that were shot as videos) and delete those images.  My delete process in LR is to select image(s) and click X.  Once I'm done rejecting all the images I don't want, I go to Photo>Delete Rejected Photos at the very bottom and select Delete From Disk.  I then imported the new photos into Lightroom from my destination folder, as I use a renaming convention when importing iPhone photos.  This was a minor inconvenience and will now be a much quicker process should I decide to use the Live feature on my camera.

Hope this helps!

[0mx9]

Thanks. I'm sure that will work--but I think Adobe needs to address it properly

[dgoldfarb]

I just turned off the live photo option on the phone. If I'm taking "photos" why do I need that video?

[keithweng]

Over in this thread:

IOS Live Photos and LL Import | Lightroom Forums

They note that the 'Treat jpeg next to raw files as separate photos'  option in LR preferences will change how LR views Live Photos from seeing ONLY the video, to seeing both files.

However, some people seem to see both video and full-size JPG,  and some people (me) seem to see only the JPG and the video is no longer accessible.

Any thoughts ?  Thx.

[mpovedano]

Hi Keithweng.

Have you updated to MacOS Sierra/iOS 10? I did, and after updating neither the "Image Capture" nor the "Treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separate photos" methods work anymore. it seems that Live Photos are now handled internally in a different way... and Lr 2015.7 only recognizes the .jpeg files.

Anyone having the same issue?

Thanks,

Miguel Povedano

[evmitch]

Same here in regards to mpovedano​'s comment.  MacOS Sierra / iOS10 and the ONLY way to get live photos onto my machine is using the native photos app or sharing it via icloud photo sharing album.  Image Capture only imports the static image.

[mpovedano]

After some troubleshooting, it seems that the "Image Capture" app works (at leastfor me).

The static image is the only file showed within the app interface, however, when you import it, both photo and movie files appear in the destination folder (the foder that you choose for the files to be imported to).

Try it. Hope it works for you also

[evmitch]

Thank you! Yes I get them all as both static and the .mov but if imported via photos app you actually get a "live" photo.  However, this is just as limiting because the "live" functionality only displays in the photos app and is lost upon export.  *shrug*

[mpovedano]

Do not know if Adobe will finally give full support to Live Photos. Anyway, I would be happy being able to import to import the embedded movie files as before the updates. 

[Jonathan_Look]

Seems like it would be simple enough to stack/unstack the mov file from the jpg file, but for some reason, Adobe doesn't seem interested in supporting this. I don't want to use two different editors, but it seems that is the easiest solution. I tried importing the jpg, but got the message that it was already in the catalog. FRUSTRATING.

[neilp2]

Same issue for me. Import has copied the .jpg and .mov from my iPhone 7 to the hard disk but I can't see the .jpg in Lightroom. My 'real' camera is Canon SLR which will have raw and jpg files that I do want to stack, but for iPhone live photos all I really want is the .jpg.  I thought live photos was fun until I tried my first lightroom import

Even more frustrating, half of the .mov files look ok in lightroom while the other half just show a green square.

Adobe please fix this this!!!

Has anyone worked out an import workflow to workaround this issue in the mean time?

Thanks in advance!  Neil.

[hakuts]

a good method to separate the files is the following (for windows users):

1. connect your iphone to your computer
2. in the file explorer select the iphone in the drives list of your computer
3. select "internal storage", then DCIM and then one of the folders (the one with the highest number is the most recent one)
4. filter the files by searching for *.jpg files
5. select the files, copy them and paste them into another folder onto your harddisk (repeat that several times for each picture folder)
6. go to Adobe Lightroom
7. select import and select the folder on your harddisk (where you copied the jpg files).

You will be able to select as usual with RAW / JPG from your camera / cards when clicking "copy ad DNG" (instead of add). After Lightroom import you can delete the files in the folder on your harddisk (see point 5 above).

That is how I do (if you do not want to loose the mov character of your pictures, or if you get them from a friend).