# Transfer from Picasa



## californick (Jul 15, 2014)

Hello,
Also migrating to LR from Picasa (actually from Windows to OSX as well).  I am new at LR but good with PC's and networks and NAS etc - coming up to speed on OSX.

Initial questions:
1. How to prepare Picasa photos and data so that the following is preserved on import to LR?
a) image quality
b) edits (crop etc) - can these be undone like in Picasa?
c) captions, facial recognition, album associations, (most of my stuff is organized in folders actually) - is the best way to add tags in Picasa first for all this stuff and then LR will see the tags?
d) is there a good article on this somewhere?

2. Quick and dirty mode: In the blissfully ignorant days of Picsasa and jpg, was so easy to pop in SD card to laptop, copy pictures, they looked fine with auto levels, contrast etc.  I am very concerned about losing this convenience.  Initially the RAW files are dark and not nearly as attractive
a) so is there an 'auto' equivalent in LR so when you get home you can make the pics look instantly better than RAW, quickly publish and then go back later and spend more time on the good shots and perfect them manually starting again at RAW.

3. any tips to be extra safe with backups during the transition from Picasa to LR?

4. Also want the wife to have access to LR via windows but that is a project for the future...  She will want to be able to get in and edit like me.  I know this is a tough topic.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 17, 2014)

Hi californick, welcome to the forum!

I've split this off into its own thread so it doesn't get missed.  I'm just switching off for the night, but I'm sure some of our other members have used Picasa...


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## californick (Sep 26, 2014)

Hi Victoria,
Thanks for making the new thread!  No conversation yet.  I can't be the only one who's gone through this, eh?


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 26, 2014)

Although I used Picasa a long time ago, it was mainly for viewing purposes, not editing. So my knowledge of what's possible is pretty sketchy, but here goes:

1.
a) Does Picasa apply its edits to the file, or are they only retained in a database (like Lightroom)? If the edits have been "saved" to the file, i.e. baked in, then of course you will see them when you import the files into Lightroom.
b) Not sure what you are referring to here. If you mean undo any edits that you subsequently apply in Lightroom, the answer is yes of course. Lightroom is a "non-destructive" editor, all your edits are in fact simply parameter changes which are stored in the database (aka the catalog), so can easily be undone. But if you mean can Picasa edits be undone in Lightroom, I think the answer will be no. Even if the Picasa edits are not baked in, I'm pretty sure Lightroom will not be able to interpret the appropriate edit instructions, wherever they be located.
c) Captions? Don't know, if they are written to the XMP block of the file header in the agreed standardised way by Picasa, then maybe. Similarly with keywords (tags), Lightroom should be able to extract those if they are in the right place in the right format. Face recognition: Lightroom doesn't yet support that, though IIRC Jeffrey Friedl wrote a plug-in some years back which attempted to convert Picasa face names to standard keywords. Album associations? Doubt it very much, but Lightroom will import from your existing folder structure (using the Add import option) and preserve that structure as is.
d) Don't know.

2. Check your camera's settings. Although the majority of the settings which affect shooting style/quality are ignored when importing Raw files, there are some (such as ALO in Canon cameras, Nikon has something similar) which actually affect exposure and can often result in the Raw file appearing under-exposed. If your camera has such a feature, suggest try turning it off if you are shooting Raw.
a) Yes, there is "Auto Tone", which will attempt to "auto" Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. This can even be set to be applied automatically as files are imported (in the Lightroom Preferences>Presets Tab), but be aware that some folks don't like it as it is prone to get it wrong sometimes.....but generally I find it'll only be the Exposure that is off, adjusting that one slider usually fixes the issue. But worth a try if you want that "quick and dirty" image for sharing.

3. Backups of what?

4. Yes indeed it is a tough topic, made more so if you want to share a catalog between the two different operating systems.


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## clee01l (Sep 26, 2014)

Like Jim, I'm not tuned into Picasa either.

There are Master originals - copies of the same file just like they came out of the camera. And there are derivatives. Adjusted images with all of the adjustments "baked-in".  If you can, you want to preserve the master originals since these will always lete you get back to the image that came out of the camera and readjust if necessary. Any adjustments made in Picasa need to be preserved as a derivative JPEG or other importable format. As long as you have those two versions of the image, you have the Picasa effort and the Original in LR.  As time goes by, your LR processing skills will improve and you will be able to generate better than Picasa using the LR tools.  LR can not duplicate the Picasa post processing effort, So, if you have a Picasa masterpiece, you will need to hang on to it as a derivative until you have a better version generated from LR. 

If you share your master LR catalog between computers, you need to know some things about how LR stores the reference to the location of the master image files in the catalog and recognize some major differences between Windows and OSX.  Making preparations to do this from the onset will save you lots of hassle later.
OSX uses HFS+ and its native filesystem and Windows uses NTFS.  Windows can not read and write to a volume that is formatted as HFS+. OSX can read but not write to an NTFS volume.  Both Windows and OSX can reada and write to a volume that has been formatted using the exFAT/FAT32 filesystem.  So your Catalog needs to be on a physically shareable exFAT/FAT32 volume.  Yu can store the master image files on a NAS, but because LR uses a SQLlite database for the catalog, you must keep the master catalog on a locally attached drive volume. 

The LR catalog stores two reference path fields as pointers to the master image file copies.  One is an Absolute path field and the other is a relative path field. The Absolute path field will always contain a value, the relative path field will be populated ONLY if the path from the catalog to the master image file copy is resolvable.  In Windows, the Absolute path contains a drive letter.  OSX does not use this naming convention that is unique to Windows/DOS and no other OS.  So, if you store the master image file copies on a NAS, you need to use the UNC reference in Windows (i.e. //MyNAS/MyLightroomPictures/ ) and in the LR catalog.  The mount point in OSX needs to use the identical Volume name as the one Windows has mapped.  
A better solution for a portable LR catalog is to store the master image file copies in folders that are in subfolders of the same folder containing the LR catalog. When that happens, the relative path field in the LR catalog is resolvable and you can open this catalog on any computer that has LR installed.  It is the solution that I use between my iMac and my rMBP.    This covers all of the critical files except presets and plugins.   These too can be stored with the catalog. Although storing presets with the catalog still does not include all of the important LR files, it does store the most important and transitioning from one computer to another is a seamless operation.


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## californick (Oct 6, 2014)

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the reply.  I realize this is very specific knowledge and the skills required will likely only ever be used once by any individual photographer (you only migrate once).  I have searched quite a bit on it already.  I think I could figure it out but I'm hoping someone who's done it before can remember enough to speed me up - taking and editing pics is more fun than this!  If that's not you.  No worries...

1.a) Picasa saves instructions on how the file was edited - the changes are undoable (in Picasa).  The orig is still there.

b) question was: I want to preserve all edits (the final Picasa version) but want to know if there is a conversion to be able to back upo steps that were done in Picasa once in Lightroom (import Picasa metadata to Lightroom)
For example here is some stuff I have read: http://superuser.com/questions/230950/where-does-picasa-save-the-edits-i-make-to-images
_*Saving Edits: Saving photos*_
_Picasa is designed to keep your original photos safe when you save your photo edits. This is done by creating a new JPEG file that's a copy of the original with your edits applied. The original photo is never altered, but depending on how you save the file, its location on your hard drive may change. Here's a brief overview of the different save options in Picasa, based on how they affect the location of your original photos._
_*Move your original photo*_
_When you use the Save to Disk and the File > Save options, Picasa creates a copy of your photo with all edits applied and moves the original to a subfolder called '.picasaoriginals'. This subfolder is hidden on your computer and isn't visible in Picasa. This automatic backup lets you undo or revert your saves._


_Save to Disk_

_File > Save_
_*Keep your original photo in its current location*_
_Unlike Save to Disk and the File > Save function, the following options don't move your original photos. These options create and save a new copy of your photo with all edits applied, leaving your original photo unmoved. The new copy with edits applied is saved to a different location depending on the option you choose._


_Export_

_File > Save a Copy_

_File > Save As_
1.c) I can do some work here and create tags in Picasa that will be friendly to Lightroom later - looking for experienced advice on what can be done in Picasa that will read accurately in Lightroom.  Some works some doesn't.

2. "Auto Tone" - cool! Sounds like the ticket for that job.

3. Just meant any tips to be extra careful when messing with years of photos - apart from regular backup care.


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## californick (Oct 6, 2014)

Hi Cletus,
Thanks for confirming that LR cannot duplicate thee Picasa post-processing moves.  I figured but wanted to be sure.  So my efforts should center on extracting the originals and the final edited version of each photo.
Thanks for the tip about exFAT.  I have a QNAP NAS TS-212.  The internal drives use EXT3 or EXT4.
Sounds like you have a good solution for moving from one mac to the other seamlessly.  I may have to get up and running first on one mac then perhaps move the catalog and do that file management later to expose to another machine.  I fear I'll get too bogged down with this as an IT project if I try to do it all at once (at same time as export/import Picsasa, learn LR etc etc).

Thanks so much!


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 6, 2014)

Sorry, can't help. Have never done a conversion from Picasa, so don't know how it would pan out. You need someone who's tried it.....


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## Cuzzinbrucie (Jan 25, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> Sorry, can't help. Have never done a conversion from Picasa, so don't know how it would pan out. You need someone who's tried it.....





californick said:


> Hello,
> Also migrating to LR from Picasa (actually from Windows to OSX as well).  I am new at LR but good with PC's and networks and NAS etc - coming up to speed on OSX.
> 
> Initial questions:
> ...



I'm not sure where to jump into this older thread but here goes anyway. I too am transferring my Photos from Picasa to LR. I am an LR newbie. My question is keyword related. While trying to learn as much as I can about associating keywords with images, I discovered two things. The first is that it looks like when I import captioned photos from Picasa, people's names that are in the captions become keywords in the LR world. Can anyone confirm that this is correct? I have not knowingly created any people keywords in LR for any of the images I imported from copies of Picasa folders. Are there other metadata resident fields whose content is used by LR to create keywords?  Title, etc?


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## Roelof Moorlag (Jan 25, 2017)

Does this help?
How to convert Picasa albums into Lightroom collections


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## Cuzzinbrucie (Jan 25, 2017)

Roelof Moorlag said:


> Does this help?
> How to convert Picasa albums into Lightroom collections


I read through this document. My conversion is much simpler than yours was. I can count the number of albums I have in Picasa on one hand. 90%+ of my images in Picasa are in folders. I'm doing a gradual conversion folder by folder into LR. I do a SAVE on all the image changes and then I copy the SAVEd images to another folder destined for LR.


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