With the eventual demise of Apple’s Aperture photo management software on the horizon, Adobe is wasting no time offering up Lightroom as an alternative. Although users still have plenty of time to make a decision, Adobe has released its Aperture Import Plugin for Lightroom 5, designed to make it easy for Aperture users to move their photo library into Lightroom from either Aperture or iPhoto.
The plug-in requires Lightroom 5.6 or later on the Mac and can be downloaded from Adobe’s website. A couple of months ago, Adobe put out a fact sheet detailing migration techniques in advance of the new tool.
The following data from your Aperture and iPhoto libraries will be imported into Lightroom: Flags, Star Ratings, Keywords, GPS Data, Rejects, Hidden Files, Color Labels, Stacks and Face Tags. Color Labels, Stacks and Face Tags will be imported as Lightroom keywords.
And whereas virtually nothing in the Adobe orbit takes place far from its Creative Cloud subscription service, Aperture users who subscribe to its Creative Cloud Photography plan also get a free three-month membership to the KelbyOne training program.
Formed from the merger of KelbyTraining and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, KelbyOne is familiar to many Photoshop users because of Scott Kelby, the author of many digital photography instruction books.
The KelbyOne membership features a step-by-step training series to help users transition from Aperture to Lightroom, full access to training videos on Lightroom, Photoshop and on lighting and photography and a three-month digital subscription to Photoshop User, alongside other content. The deal applies only in the US and UK and ends on November 28, 2014.
Despite the lure of free training, note that Photoshop Lightroom is available as a traditional license from Adobe for $149. It does not require a Creative Cloud subscription.
Adobe’s step-by-step download instructions are outlined on a blog post.
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