Hi…I used to use Lightroom (version 2.7) when I was last doing photography, but since I don’t do too much anymore, I’d prefer to move to RawTherapee to avoid tying myself to an ongoing Adobe subscription.
My question is, can RawTherapee import and retain my previous Lightroom work/database? I’m mostly concerned about all the previous adjustments and such I’ve done to individual photos…but it would certainly be nice if it also retained all the folders and such I’d created to organize things.
Your folder structure should remain intact, as RT doesn’t import or arrange files on the filesystem.
Tools are not portable from editor to editor unfortunately, so it won’t carry over your edits. It is possible to write a script to carry over star ratings and keywords and such.
I have been using Lightroom from version 3 to 5.7.1 and after having tried some open source raw converters for a while in order to find out which one I’d like to switch to, RawTherapee has become my new raw converter now. Therefore, I am in a similar situation.
The good news is that the file structure of your hard drive stays intact. However, the database cannot be imported, since there is no such thing in RawTherapee. Therefore, Lightroom adjustments and collections cannot be imported in RawTherapee either, since they are part of Lightroom’s database. Even if you chose to use sidecar files to store your adjustments in Lightroom, RawTherapee wouldn’t be able to apply that information.
Fortunately, I have exported my work to JPEGs from the beginning, such that I have all my developed images available even after owning a machine with a working version of Lightroom. If I want to change some images, I have to either use Lightroom (which is still on my machine) or develop the particular images in RawTherapee anew. That is, I’d recommend you to do the same: export all your developed raw files to JPEGs before switching to RawTherapee.