Since Apple confirmed that there would be no more support for Aperture in the future and that everything was going through creation of a specific application bringing together the best of Aperture and iPhoto, Adobe has rubbed its hands thinking about the number of users that could be brought to its platform while this change was taking place, so it declared that it would carry out the creation of a tool for all users could export their photo libraries to Lightroom.
Well, it seems that there has been movement since the publication of this announcement so the wait has come to an end for all those who were waiting to make the leap to Lightroom. Adobe has announced the availability of an official plugin to import these photo libraries into the Lightroom catalog that will keep the file format and its metadata completely intact, being of course a free tool.
However the Aperture settings will not be exported to Lightroom so only they will move the original images as well as copies of JPG versions with their settings. Specifically, these would be the points that the tool would handle in any case:
- Flags
- Star rating
- Keywords
- GPS data
- Rejected
- Hidden files
- Color labels (imported as keyword)
- Stacks (imported as keyword)
- Face tags (imported as keyword)
Regarding the import process to Lightroom, it is quite simple, just load Lightroom and go to File -> Plug-In Extras -> Import from Aperture Library and tell Lightroom where to find the Aperture library… that simple. This process may take a little time depending on the size of the library in question, but it is the simplest and safest way to port all your images to this new application.