Any tips when going from PC to Mac re: PS and LR3?

Hi, guys n gals. Hoping for some tips that might save me a buttload of trouble later on We are waiting on the arrival of our new iMac and when it gets here, the good Apple people are going to transfer the data from my PC to my iMac. But they have told me that they are not sure if they can save my actions/presets and put them on the iMac. To further complicate matters, I had to upgrade from CS4 Windows version to CS5 Mac version; Adobe support told me the LR3 is platform compatible so I should just be able to install it with my software on the iMac (but I still don't know about keeping my presets). Any suggestions, experiences, lessons learned you can share? Thanks!

Yep, catalog's cross-platform, so are the presets. Only things that aren't are the program itself and the preferences file.

Download the latest version of the program direct from Adobe - don't bother to install off the CD.

And before you switch, make sure you've got your folders panel set up as a hierarchy, as you'll need to relink the files once you've moved machines.

There's an older blog post here: http://www.lightroomqu​een.com …htroom-to-a-new-computer/
But I think this PDF version is newer, if I remember rightly: http://www.lightroomqu​een.com …le-13-movingcomputers.pdf

Oh, and finally, think about your hard drives. Are you planning on moving data to new hard drives or leave them on existing drives? Windows NTFS drives are read-only on OSX by default.

Macs are able to be run as a PC if you use Bootcamp or Parallels. My husband just got his first Mac, but much of his specialized business software doesn't run on Mac, so that is what he did. You could run all your photoshopping from the PC side, would that work? If you installed photoshop on the PC side of your Mac, would you be able to keep the presets?

Any actions that you've created yourself needs to be saved. Click on the Action group, go to the little drop down and select save actions. You choose the location where they are saved. Actions are .atn files. I don't have LR, but in ACR presets have the .xmp extension and assume would be the same since they share the RAW engine. I don't know which folder LR saves them, but look somewhere in C:/Documents and Settings/User Name/Application Data/Adobe for LR and look for them.

Owwww, my head!! Just ahve a minute but first--thanks all! Next-- I don't really care if my photos are saved in LR3; I have an external drive that has all the photos I need on it & I can import any i need (I actually have come to use CS$ much more than LP3 but I don't want to lose the purchased presets I have spent money on. Are you saying I have to re-purchase LR3, i can't install with the CD?

Same for CS4--I have lots of actions I purchased I don't want to lose.

Hopefully, anything purchased you will have saved somewhere. I'm assuming you'll be doing a clean install on the mac, so you'll need to reload any actions & presets. You can save any action you have in CS4 and then once in CS5 you'll need to reload the action. Someone else may help with LR questions, but search the folder in my earlier post as to where LR may keep your presets. You can always do a search for your actions (.atn extension) and presets (.xmp extension). However, xmp is also where the settings are stored for any RAW files processed (unless you use the database method).

Is there a way for me to save an action in CS4 and then reload it in CS5?
I think I have most of the actions in separate folders that they were emailed to me in, but seems like some I just downloaded from a website & might not have them anywhere but in CS4

Yes (post#4 ). Highlight the Group that has the action in it (not a individual action), click on the drop down arrow at the top of the Actions panel and choose Save Actions. It will bring up a save dialogue where you can select the name and where you want to save it to. Copy those files over to the mac and once you have CS5 running on the mac, go to the drop down for the Actions panel and choose Load Actions. Point it to where you put them on the mac and it will load them.

You'll pretty much have to reload all of them, since you're doing a new install on the mac.

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #12987127
Are you saying I have to re-purchase LR3, i can't install with the CD?

What Victoria was pointing out to you is that you don't need to use your CS to install LR, you can download it directly from Adobe and so install the up-to-date version (3.4) on your Mac. And, you can use your present serial # to register it. And, evidently the LR presets can be copied and used in the Mac. But, I don't have a Mac, I've been using my PC workstation since, gosh, '07 with CS2, so don't have details.

Photoshop can be more complicated but with Adobe working with you and the Apple support, and with your POTN friends, it sounds like you are getting plenty of help!

D Thompson wrote in post #12987647
Yes (post#4 ). Highlight the Group that has the action in it (not a individual action), click on the drop down arrow at the top of the Actions panel and choose Save Actions. It will bring up a save dialogue where you can select the name and where you want to save it to. Copy those files over to the mac and once you have CS5 running on the mac, go to the drop down for the Actions panel and choose Load Actions. Point it to where you put them on the mac and it will load them.

You'll pretty much have to reload all of them, since you're doing a new install on the mac.

Ok, let me see if I folly (which is what I usually do, folly not follow!) Let's say I have a whole bunch of Nichole Van actions-- one is Color Boost Gentle, another is Color Boost Bold, Color Boost Everyday, etc...are you saying I need to save the entire colelction as one thing, not individual? And I can save those to, say, a cd and load into the iMac that way?

tonylong wrote in post #12988305
What Victoria was pointing out to you is that you don't need to use your CS to install LR, you can download it directly from Adobe and so install the up-to-date version (3.4) on your Mac. And, you can use your present serial # to register it. And, evidently the LR presets can be copied and used in the Mac. But, I don't have a Mac, I've been using my PC workstation since, gosh, '07 with CS2, so don't have details.

Photoshop can be more complicated but with Adobe working with you and the Apple support, and with your POTN friends, it sounds like you are getting plenty of help!

Ok, I see, thanks, Tony!

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #12990912
Ok, let me see if I folly (which is what I usually do, folly not follow!) Let's say I have a whole bunch of Nichole Van actions-- one is Color Boost Gentle, another is Color Boost Bold, Color Boost Everyday, etc...are you saying I need to save the entire colelction as one thing, not individual?

Correct. All of the NV actions may/may not be stored in the same group. I would think they would be. If not, you can always put them in one. You can't save an individual action in a group, only the group.

Correct.

You actually folly pretty good!! I'll post a screenshot in a minute.

Hope this helps. Individual actions are stored in groups (yellow). If you have several different groups of NV actions, I would put them all into one group. This is rather simple to do. Just highlight the individual action and drag it into another group. Highlight the Action group, click the arrow at top and it brings up the menu (red). Choose Save Actions and then you can choose a name and location where it saves to. Repeat for each Group you want to save. You can copy them over to a cd, thumb drive, whatever to load on you mac. Once you've got CS5 up and running on the mac, go to the Actions panel, click the arrow, and select Load Actions. Point it to the cd/whatever and load them. Repeat as needed.

Post a screenshot of your CS4 action panel if you'd like.

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^^THAT is awesome! ^^^ I might just be able to do this! Thank you so much!

i just discovered last night that our iPad2 (my husband's contribution to our business change-over) will not play flash websites; and guess what my current website is ? Flash. An Apple rep told me to download this app called Skyfire, which I did but have not figured out how it can help me view my website. I'm guessing the iMac is going to have the same restriction...

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #12997350
I'm guessing the iMac is going to have the same restriction...

No.
A mac can display flash. An iPad, iPod or iPhone cannot. (which is a very well known "feature", quite surprised you found out only now)

You could (should!) have your website automatically switch to a flash-less "mobile" site.

Then again, I'd abandon Flash altogether, since it adds nothing but eye-candy (which can be done in HTML) and problems: "heavy", not that well colormanaged, less SEO friendly, won't play back everywhere (I use a flash blocker in my browser), etc.

Most problems can be "worked around", but IMO, flash is very much (over)used on websites that do not require it.

Oh. And some people (like me) hate websites that start playing music automatically

Hmm, that's an interesting question -- I admit, in my little stint of learning Web page work, it was personal/non-commercial stuff and I never delved into flash and very little scripting and such (this was in the early days of the WWW, when we still worked with HTML I and II then made the scene, but I was already getting out of it by then).

But, I imagine that somebody has come up with a way of redirecting devices that are not flash-capable, as long as you have prepared an alternative non-flash path. I don't know that with any certainty, but I know I occasionally get redirected for one reason or another (nothing to do with flash).

I guess I'd have to ask a Web person, someone here on POTN who "knows stuff", if I could find one!