What settings do I need when importing from another catalog to get the desired results.

[AviatorTim2]

I'm running LR 6.0 on my PC desktop and Macbook Pro. I'm running one master catalog on my PC. I started editing some photos in the Ukraine\Kiev subfolder. I had edited about 50 out of 440. I had a long trip and decided I would export the photos to my MacBook to edit while traveling. I just copied the entire folder of original photos to the MacBook and created a new catalog called Uktraine.lrcat on the Macbook.

I finished editing the photos in the Ukraine folder (about 390 edits). Now I'm trying to bring the work back to my desktop from my MacBook using File>Import From Another Catalog. But it seems I may have buggered myself by making some of the edits on my PC and some on my laptop.

I copied the Ukraine.lrcat from the laptop over to the PC. I also over-wrote the entire Ukraine folder on the PC from the laptop Ukraine folder. My thinking was there was around 64 new HDR photos in the laptop folder. Rather than find them all and add them to the PC folder, I just over-wrote the PC's entire Ukraine folder. Maybe that was a mistake.

In the Import Another Catalog dialogue box, there are three options under Changed Existing Photos:

Replace Nothing: This appears like it only intends to bring in 64 new HDR photos I created on the laptop because only those photos are highligted in the screenshot above. 376 of the 440 photos in the Ukraine catalog already exist on the PC, so the only photos that are highlighted for import under this option are the new HDR photos. It would appear to me if I use the "Nothing" option, none of the edits I made on hundreds of photos will be imported; Only the HDR photos will be added. Is that correct?

Replace: Metadata and develop setting only: When I check this, all of the photos are now highlighted. That would lead me to believe this will bring the work I did on my laptop over to the PC by writing all the develop settings I worked on on my laptop onto the PC's LR catalog. This seems closer to what I want except what will happen to the 50 photos  I had previously edited on the PC? It seems like my prior PC work will be lost as it would be over-written by the develop settings from the laptop.

Replace: Metadata, develop settings, and negative files: I don't understand what this is doing differently than the option above.

Is there any way, I can preserve the 50ish desktop edits and the 390ish laptop edits into one, fully edited Kiev folder on my desktop?

It would be a pain in the ass but it appears what I need to do is select the "Metadata and develop setting only" (or maybe the "...and negative files..." option), Check All, the individual uncheck any photos I had previously worked on on the PC to prevent that work from being over-written by the Ukraine.lrcat develop settings import. Is that it?

Thanks!

Tim

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

"Is there any way, I can preserve the 50ish desktop edits and the 390ish laptop edits into one,"

For this question-

With this option checked (as in your screen-clip)

"Preserve old settings as a Virtual copy"  does exactly what it says. After the catalog is imported, for the images edited on both computers, you will see two preview thumbnails for the one photo, each will show the edits done on each computer.

Julianne Kost has a good video tutorial on this topic at- Lightroom 5: How to Use Lightroom 5 On Location - YouTube

The Catalog Import talk begins at about the 16 minute spot.

And you will find more videos at- How to Merge Lightroom Catalogues from a Laptop to a Desktop PC - YouTube

[AviatorTim2]

Thanks for the speedy and helpful reply. I was aware of the virtual copy option. I didn't want to be too long winded with my question (although I probably already failed, LOL). I didn't want to use that because I didn't need to have all those virtual copies. I did nothing to the original 50 on the macBook that I would need to preserve a copy of what I'm bring over to the PC. I haven't done anything on the PC to the other 390 on the PC that I would need to preserve them. I was hoping to end up with one "clean" library on the PC with the PC work combined with the macBook work without all the virtual copies. Is there any alternative way to do this without all the virtual copies?

[JohanElzenga]

AviatorTim2  wrote

I'm running LR 6.0 on my PC desktop and Macbook Pro. I'm running one master catalog on my PC. I started editing some photos in the Ukraine\Kiev subfolder. I had edited about 50 out of 440. I had a long trip and decided I would export the photos to my MacBook to edit while traveling. I just copied the entire folder of original photos to the MacBook and created a new catalog called Uktraine.lrcat on the Macbook.

Replace: Metadata and develop setting only: When I check this, all of the photos are now highlighted. That would lead me to believe this will bring the work I did on my laptop over to the PC by writing all the develop settings I worked on on my laptop onto the PC's LR catalog. This seems closer to what I want except what will happen to the 50 photos  I had previously edited on the PC? It seems like my prior PC work will be lost as it would be over-written by the develop settings from the laptop.

The first paragraph sums up your problem. Instead of copying the images to the laptop and creating a new catalog on the laptop, you should have used 'Export as Catalog'. That would have created a catalog for the laptop that contained the edits already done on the main computer, so you could have started from there, and now use 'Replace: Metadata and develop settings only'.

Because you created a brand new catalog, you now have two catalogs that both contain partial edits. Replace: Metadata and develop settings only will indeed overwrite your PC edits, so the only solution now is to replace nothing and use that Virtual Copy option.

[Metchy]

That's a reasonable question, and I have it too. I'm also trying to combine two catalogs. When I do "import from another catalog" the import window tells me there are 190 new photos and like 18,000 changed ones. I only want to import the new photos and not the changed ones. Is there really no "new photos only" separate from "changed photos only" option? I don't want two thumbnails and/or virtual copies.

[JohanElzenga]

I’m on the road with sometimes a poor internet connection or nothing at all, that is why I could not answer earlier. Just select the ‘Replace Nothing’ option.