Best way to put RAWs on one drive, JPEG on another?

[reubenfield]

I have thousands of JPEGs (personal, from iPhone) as well as thousands of RAWs (from professional shoots) all on a single disk. They organised only by date, which means thousands of folders contain a mix of personal JPEGs and professional RAWs.

I want to move the RAWs (only) to a separate disk. What is the best way to accomplish this?

New to Lightroom (coming from Aperture). Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

[cmgap]

Are all of your RAW images in Lr? What version? What OS are you on?

[reubenfield]

Thanks for replying cmgap.

Yes, all images are in Lr.

Lr version 2015.10.1

Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5

[cmgap]

I would sort them as Richard suggests using Lr's filter and move the jpg files to another disk. I wouldn't recommend creating another catalog to manage though.

How are you organizing your files now? Do you have an iPhone folder? If not you can sort your jpg files, create an iPhone Photos folder in Lr and on your other drive and move the files to that folder. I suggest moving the jpg files over the RAW files because they are smaller and it may take less time that way. Does that make sense?

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

If doing this for space reasons, personally I would divide images up year by year (often that's made part of a folder scheme, which is then easy) rather than purely by file type. For example: if you've sometimes used an editor such as Photoshop, what happens to those files?

That said, what you've asked about is two operations: 1) moving RAW files along with the creation of a duplicate set of folders to house those in; and 2) having your LR Catalog contain altered image paths which point to everything as appropriate, either in its new place (for a Raw) or in an unchanged place (for a JPG) respectively. By using LR to do the job, you can coordinate these two operations.

My suggestion (images currently in disk1, Raws to move to disk2):

• Start by making an up to date backup to some entirely other drive, of all your image files where they currently are, plus a backup of your Catalog as it currently is.
• Go to All Photographs
• Library: Photo menu / Stacking / Expand all stacks.
• Filter your view down to showing only images of file type Raw - this will include virtual copies derived from a Raw original.
• Highlight all (Ctrl A / Cmd A) and select "Export as Catalog", selecting as destination the folder in disk 2 -
• note: check at least the top 2 options in the Export as Catalog dialog: Export selected images only, and Include negative files.
• This makes copies of just the highlighted image files into the destination, making subfolders of that as needed to correspond with the source folders arrangement in disk1
• It also adds a selective Catalog there, containing the edits and organisational stuff to do with these same LR images, but referring to those at their new location within disk2.
• those images are all still highlighted in your current Catalog: Delete these (this is why you backed it up!) also selecting the option to delete the related files from disk (this is why you backed those up!)
• Still in your main Catalog, use Import from Catalog to merge the previously exported Catalog, and all the (relocated) Raw derived images that it houses, back in.

[reubenfield]

Thanks Richard! I've just done some tests and it seems to be working. I was most worried that this approach would break my collections, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

One follow-up question: as far as you know, is the new, intermediary catalogue file redundant after I have merged it into my main library? Safe to delete?

[richardplondon]

That exported Catalog was just a temporary means to an end. It becomes redundant after its contents have been safely merged back into your main catalog, so can then be deleted.

regards, RP

[dj_paige]

reubenfield  wrote

I have thousands of JPEGs (personal, from iPhone) as well as thousands of RAWs (from professional shoots) all on a single disk. They organised only by date, which means thousands of folders contain a mix of personal JPEGs and professional RAWs.

I want to move the RAWs (only) to a separate disk. What is the best way to accomplish this?

The best and safest method of doing this is explained in detail in the section entitled "Part 2 — Updating Folder Location" in this document:

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

I too question the need to separate via disk location JPGs from RAWs, when this separation is extremely easy and requires a lot less work if you do it in LR using the Filter Bar. Doing it with separate disks seems unnecessary extra work (and continues to require extra work as you move forward and take new photos); doing it with the filter bar is a few mouse clicks when needed.

[reubenfield]

Thanks everyone – richardplondon's solution worked well for me.

For the record, I have a solid reason for splitting RAW and JPEG onto two different drives: I like to keep the maximum possible number of master files with me on my laptop. I have enough laptop space for all of my personal masters (iPhone JPEGs and videos), but not enough space for all of my professional RAW masters. Hence, I want the RAWs on an external drive.

Cheers

Reuben