Migrating from Lightroom: A Practical Guide

If you already pay Adobe $14.99/mo, this guide will not pitch you Affinity Photo or Capture One unconditionally. Switching now means weeks of re-importing catalogues, re-learning shortcuts, and re-validating every plugin — to save $180/yr. Whether that trade-off is worth it depends on the size of your catalogue, how many plugins you rely on, and whether you actually use Photoshop’s Generative Fill or Lightroom’s cloud sync.

This guide helps you make that decision with real information, not marketing copy.

What you’re actually migrating

Before deciding to leave, inventory what you have in Lightroom:

1. Original files — your RAW files, always portable. This is your data. It goes with you.
2. Develop history — your edits stored as XMP sidecars or inside the Lightroom catalogue. Most of this is non-portable across platforms.
3. Star ratings and colour labels — portable via XMP if you’ve written metadata. Partially portable to most tools.
4. Keywords and captions — stored in XMP, generally portable.
5. Collections — not portable. You’ll rebuild these in the new tool.
6. Presets — Lightroom .lrtemplate or .xmp presets are Lightroom-specific. Capture One and DxO have their own preset formats.
7. Crop and straighten — stored in XMP, generally readable by other tools.
8. Adjustment brushes / local adjustments — not portable. The local adjustment model in Lightroom uses Lightroom-specific data that Capture One and DxO cannot read.

The hard truth: your develop history and local adjustments don’t migrate. You’re migrating your originals and your basic metadata (ratings, keywords, captions). Your edits start fresh in the new tool.

Migration paths by destination

Lightroom → Capture One

Capture One can import a Lightroom catalogue directly (File → Import Catalog → Lightroom Catalog). What transfers:

• ✓ Original file locations and folder structure
• ✓ Star ratings
• ✓ Colour labels
• ✓ Flags (pick, reject)
• ✓ Basic metadata (keywords, captions, GPS)
• âœ- Develop history (sliders, tonal adjustments)
• âœ- Local adjustments (brush, gradient, radial)
• âœ- Collections (rebuild in Capture One sessions/albums)
• âœ- Lightroom presets

After import, every image opens at its “zeroed” state in Capture One — no adjustments applied. Your originals are unharmed. Your edits are gone.

Time estimate for 20,000 images: 2–4 hours for the import plus a weekend re-editing your selects to Capture One’s rendering.

Lightroom → DxO PhotoLab

DxO doesn’t import Lightroom catalogues. The migration is folder-based:

1. Export XMP sidecar data from Lightroom (Metadata → Save Metadata to Files). This writes your ratings, keywords, and basic edits to .xmp sidecars alongside each RAW.
2. Point DxO’s library at the same folder structure.
3. DxO reads the XMP metadata (ratings, keywords) but not the develop history.

What transfers: star ratings, keywords, GPS, captions (via XMP). What doesn’t: local adjustments, tonal adjustments, presets.

DxO PhotoLab does not have a full library system — it uses a folder browser model. If you rely heavily on Lightroom’s album/collection system for finding images, you’ll miss it.

Lightroom → Affinity Photo 2

Affinity Photo 2 is not a Lightroom replacement — it’s a pixel editor, not a DAM. It has no catalogue. The correct migration from Lightroom to Affinity is:

1. Keep your folder structure in Finder / Explorer. This is now your library.
2. Use Affinity Photo to edit individual images when you need compositing or pixel-level retouching.
3. If you need a replacement for Lightroom’s organisation: consider Finder + Spotlight tagging (lightweight) or a dedicated DAM like Apple Photos (free, good for hobbyists) or Photo Mechanic ($119 one-time, fast for professionals).

Most photographers who leave Lightroom for Affinity end up pairing Affinity Photo with either DxO PhotoLab (for RAW processing) or with a dedicated file browser.

What you actually lose by leaving

Be specific about this before deciding:

If you answer “used it frequently” to 3+ of those: the switching cost likely outweighs the $180/yr saving. If you answer “rarely or never” to most: a migration weekend is survivable.

The migration checklist

If you decide to migrate:

Before you start:

• Write all metadata to XMP: Lightroom Catalog Settings → Metadata → Automatically write changes into XMP
• Back up your entire Lightroom catalogue and original files (you know this, but do it)
• Export a flat list of your collections/albums (screenshot or export as text) — you’ll need to rebuild these
• Note which presets you use regularly; download multi-format versions if available

During migration:

• Import into Capture One / DxO / your chosen destination — verify file counts match
• Verify star ratings imported correctly on a sample of 50 images
• Verify keywords on a sample — check hierarchical keywords specifically

After migration:

• Keep Lightroom installed and the old catalogue accessible for 60 days — questions will come up
• Re-edit your 20 most-important images in the new tool — this is your muscle-memory recalibration

Honest recommendation

If you have fewer than 10,000 photos and don’t use local adjustments heavily: migrate. The process takes a weekend; the long-term benefit is real.

If you have more than 50,000 photos with extensive keyword hierarchies, face recognition, and complex collections: weigh the migration cost carefully. A 50,000-photo catalogue with 5 years of meticulous organisation is worth more than $180/yr saved.

If you use Photoshop’s Generative Fill or rely on cloud sync for a multi-device workflow: stay on Adobe. There is no equivalent outside the Creative Cloud ecosystem for these specific features.

If you shoot primarily Fujifilm and care about colour science: Capture One’s Fujifilm-specific perpetual licence ($149) is worth the switch even with the migration cost.