Hello CliveHello,

In my use of both PhD & Lr I'd never attempted to get them to "talk to each other", assuming that wouldn't be an option. That's consistent with much of the photo & video software I use, so a fair assumption.

In LrC, when you "Export as Catalog..." you create a Catalog folder containing sub-folders & the Lr Catalog file (.lrcat format). PhD does not recognise this format, just as Lr doesn't recognise PhD's project file format (.phd). I wouldn't have expected them to.

In order to "migrate" from Lr to PhD, retaining all your metadata, tags etc, it's going to be necessary to export all the photos in your Lr catalogs, making sure you select the right options in the export dialogue.

Once that is complete you can import the photos/folders into PhD, which will recognise all metadata, keywords, face tags, etc.

Yes, just as Lr detects the folder structure on your drives so does PhD. If you have (for example) a folder structure that looks like D:\Pictures\Photos\YackPix (along with various other sub-folders) when you import the Photos folder into PhD, you'll see the same folder structure reflected.

If I've missed something, please point it out.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Quote Hello CliveHello,


In order to "migrate" from Lr to PhD, retaining all your metadata, tags etc, it's going to be necessary to export all the photos in your Lr catalogs, making sure you select the right options in the export dialogue.

Once that is complete you can import the photos/folders into PhD, which will recognise all metadata, keywords, face tags, etc.

Thank you again. Very helpful. Can I additionally ask for clarification. I have a compination of RAWs and JPEGS. Do you think i can export the RAWS with the metadata that I've added to them and keep them as RAWS? In the export dialogue there's the option to export as DNG or original (in my case RAF). I presume I choose that for the RAWS so I'd end up with RAWS with the same metadata?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Sep 01. 2021 18:05

Hello again,

Exporting from Lr in .DNG format will allow you to migrate tags etc without too much compression (Adobe describes it as "efficient" compression) of the original .RAF files from your Fuji camera. You'll see a significant decrease in file size (e.g. 111MB RAF > 65MB DNG), but I wouldn't be too alarmed about that.

Another option, if file size isn't an issue, is to export your RAW files from Lr in .TIF format (e.g. 111MB RAF > 292MB TIF). That's up to you.

Either option will allow PhD to "read" your tags etc.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Here's some light reading on the DNG format that may assist you.

PIX YouTube channel