# Apple



## NormandCloutier (Apr 21, 2020)

Hi,
French being my mother tongue I hope my English will be clear enough for you to understand. with the death of Aperture I have been using Apple Photos in conjonction with external editors and since a year or two On1 Photo RAW. I have a fairly large collection of images and I always used the system that I learned from Joseph LInaske (photojoseph) to organized my images. As such all my images are named as following YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that Apple Photos renamed all my pictures using I guess the wad address of each image on their servers. Apple photos did it without even notifying me before going so even if it retain the old file name somewhere on the imp file or in Apple Library.. I was quite upset. If they could do that without warning me what else could they do in the future? So I decided to use now Lightroom. Unfortunately the migration tool in Lightroom does not revert the images to their original name on import. 

So what I am doing right now prior to import is: 1) export all my Albums and the pictures they include (around 20 000) by doing so Apple Photos revert back to their original name all my images and retain the Album structures and names. Reimport all these images to a new Apple Photos database but this time with the images imported as "Reference" only the day the images retain their names.

But but doing so I am loosing all the metadata that were not written to files but stored in Apple Photos Library only and that's a lot. Lightroom Classic would rename my images easily but not CC and I don't want to pay for both just to rename my images.

Some weeks of work ahead.  Is there a better way?

Thanks


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 24, 2020)

Hi Normand, welcome to the forum!

When you're using cloud software like Lightroom, the filenames are no longer of importance, so the first question is why you need to rename them. Is it just because that's the way you've always done it, or is there another reason?


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## NormandCloutier (Apr 24, 2020)

Hi Victoria,  Experience has shown me that filenames in the format of YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS are important unless you accept to manage your pictures and videos in a close environment like Lightroom cloud-based. I have two types of pictures in my database; the ones I take myself as a hobby and family pictures. Family pictures also includes video files. (Christmas, birthdays, grand-children, etc...) Videos shot by me with my Nikon or iPhone or 8mm films that my father took and that were converted to digital files by a professional lab. We all know that video editing softwares constantly change the dates on the video.As soon as you do some edits the creation date of the video becomes the date that these edit were performed and when you sort them by dates they sort all wrong The only way for me the go back and manually change the date to the correct one it by looking at the file name. So yes in my case they are really important to me.

Incidentally same thing with scanned pictures. I have scanned a lot of old family pictures and then I estimated the date they were taken and I have written that estimated date as the file name. We all know that when you scan a picture the creation date becomes the date of the scanning Here too some sorftares will change the date that I have entered and replace it with the date that the edits were done. Then again I can easily rewrite the date of the picture by looking at the filename.


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 24, 2020)

Hmmm. Yes, you are in a catch 22 there. You've obviously spent a lot more time testing Photos exports than I have. I'm assuming you're checking the Export IPTC as XMP checkbox when exporting as original format. Which data do you end up losing?

If you use Lightroom Cloudy's import from Photos tool, which filename is it pulling in, the right or wrong one?


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## NormandCloutier (Apr 24, 2020)

Yes I have done some testing  and when I export a family video from Lightroom to Apple Photos or vice-versa the date that I manually entered as the Creation date is not carried over. It seems that all softwares don't use xmp files the same way. As an ex Aperture user (ex by force and not by choice) I have learned the hard way not to put all my eggs in one basket anymore. Letting a software like Lightroom decides more and more how my pictures should be named and other things is doing just that. I am presently using Lightroom Classic. I have been using Lightroom cloud-base for more that an year and  reverted back to Classic this week. We all know that Classic is presently in the palliative care unit; we just don't know the date the plug will be pulled. I also noticed that Lightroom has been around since 2017 and still doesn't have any print module. I am starting to think it will never have one. When the plug will be pulled on Classic we will be told that Lightroom print module is in Photoshop. I also don't need the 1Tb of Cloud storage. I need cloud storage to share all the family pictures and videos with my family scattered all around the city and planet. Creative Cloud doesn't do that. So I have SmugMug to do that. So I am starting to think that soon I will be asked to pay for a photography formula that will includes Photoshop to allow me to print (as I can't export to Apple Photos and print from there as I can't desactive the color calibration module on my printer and Apple Photos doesn't give me the option either) and 1Tb of cloud storage that I don't need for the reason explained above and because also I don't need it as a back-up as I have a really good back-up strategy. My pictures are safe here in the house and somewhere else.


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## Paul McFarlane (Apr 25, 2020)

NormandCloutier said:


> We all know that Classic is presently in the palliative care unit; we just don't know the date the plug will be pulled.


I'm not seeing a basis for saying that, and disagree. Classic is a mature product but is continuing to receive enhancements. Cloud is aimed differently and while great for a number of users isn't for many others, so the Classic & Photoshop Plan combination is a good one for a high proportion of us.


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## NormandCloutier (Apr 25, 2020)

HI Paul,

I respect your opinion but I too disagree. Another hint: You can migrate an Apple Photo library to Lightroom but you can't to Lightroom Classic. You can migrate a Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom but you can't migrate a Lightroom catalog to Lightroom Classic.

They don't push the product anymore and for me that's says it all.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 25, 2020)

NormandCloutier said:


> They don't push the product anymore and for me that's says it all.



Personally, I prefer to focus on what they do, rather than what they don't do. While they continue to enhance the product, I'm happy to carry on using it.


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## clee01l (Apr 25, 2020)

NormandCloutier said:


> HI Paul,
> 
> I respect your opinion but I too disagree. Another hint: You can migrate an Apple Photo library to Lightroom but you can't to Lightroom Classic. You can migrate a Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom but you can't migrate a Lightroom catalog to Lightroom Classic.
> 
> They don't push the product anymore and for me that's says it all.


I see this differently.  Lightroom (cloudy) has a larger potential user audience.  Probably the same  pool as Apple's Photos  app. It does not need a quality print function because those users are not printing at all or aren't likely to be entering in a juried print exhibition.   Commercial Photographers "prosumer hobbies" started with Photoshop years ago and perhaps still use it as their primary photo app.  Lightroom (Classic) came along and has been adopted for its superior organization features over Bridge and integration with ACR.    The Classic app has features not included in the cloud app.   One reason is that the Lightroom (cloudy) app is designed to offer the same feature set on all platforms.  These platforms include iOS and Android mobile devices and more recently a version on the Windows and MacOS platforms with a feature set that matches what is technically available of the simpler iOS and Android platforms . 

Simply stated, Adobe can make more money selling to the same audience that Apple acmes the Photos app toward.    Just like there is a dedicated audience for Photoshop, there is a defined audience for Lightroom Classic.   Both are mature products and if you look at the more recent enhancements in Lightroom Classic, you will see that it now includes functionality formerly found in Photoshop only. It would not surprise me if one day you did not see a merging of Lightroom Classic with Photoshop/Bridge.


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## NormandCloutier (Apr 25, 2020)

I hope you are right but from past experience (Aperture)  I have learned the hard way to prepared myself with a Plan B just in case. For that I often export my library to other softwares to look at what I am loosing in the process and if I can I adapt the way I enter data and so on to make sure I will loose the minimum if I ever have to leave the Adobe environment. As I said Lightroom cloud-based is not for me. That being said I refer to my first post; this is exactly why I still use the template YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS to rename all my files on import even if told that filenames are irrelevant now. They are irrelevant if you accept to remain in the Adobe cloud system for the rest of your life. In other words allow yourself to be captive because any attempt to leave that environment will be painful.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 25, 2020)

clee01l said:


> I see this differently.  Lightroom (cloudy) has a larger potential user audience.  Probably the same  pool as Apple's Photos  app.


Much bigger pool than that, Cletus, got to factor in the Android/Google Photos users as well.


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## clee01l (Apr 25, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> Much bigger pool than that, Cletus, got to factor in the Android/Google Photos users as well.


I meant to include them too, just got hasty in my reply.    Basically they are people that take photos and don't see the necessity of a Desktop OS or a printer.


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## NormandCloutier (Apr 26, 2020)

Here again with all due respect I don't agree. The Lightroom Cloud-based ecosystem is mostly designed to give you access to your pictures on all your devices to allow you to show your pictures to your clients and customers. Hence Photoshop for iPad and the access to Adobe Stock, Behance and Portfolio. Lightroom cloud-based is not solely design for iPhone shooters who will delete their pictures in a few weeks anyway so then why 1Tb minimum of cloud storage?  That's for RAW images. And look at the graphical interface of Photoshop. it's more and more in line with the one of Lightroom. If Lightroom cloud-based ecosystem was mainly aimed at cell phone shooters they would have plan for 250 Gb, 500 Gb also and their cloud would be design to allow you to share easily the pictures or even your catalog with family and friends like iCloud does or even better SumgMug. Or it would allow you to sync your easily transfer your pictures on another cloud like Google Photos or Amazon to share them with your love one. This is what most cell phone shooters do isn't it?Especially true in these time of confinement. But it doesn't, it's not designed for that purpose.


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