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1. Re: Correct procedure to export/import catalog
Heirloom Bob Apr 9, 2013 9:30 AM (in response to Heirloom Bob)I have the catalog from my laptop, exported onto an external drive. I plug my drive into my desktop, open lightroom 4 and import from another catalog. I navigate to my external, select my folder, Caribbean. I now see all the date folders containing photos from that date AND the jpg edits I did as well. Do I select the file called Caribbean which is the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog? I did and the import preparation has begun. Catalog contents are 1758 photos and each date folder AND jpg folder is selected. File handling is Copy new photos to a new location and import. Update metadata and develop settings is selected. Preserve old settings as a virtual copy in unselected.
Copy missing files and copy to previous location if possible are selected as well. Show Preview is also selected. All photos are selected and I hit Import.
The import process has begun and I have to head into work now. I will post the results of this tonight.
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2. Re: Correct procedure to export/import catalog
Heirloom Bob Apr 9, 2013 6:23 PM (in response to Heirloom Bob)Import completed. Some jpg exports folders did NOT import but most did. I have given up on the ones that didn't import and resaved the RAW files as jpg. Lightroom has kept my edits on the RAW files so it was just a case of export to jpg to get them back. I am however still intrigued as to what I have done wrong.
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3. Re: Correct procedure to export/import catalog
richardplondon Apr 10, 2013 2:12 AM (in response to Heirloom Bob)"Import from Catalog" will only pay attention to images which are directly represented in the Catalog you have selected - which show a thumbnail there.
The fact that your JPG exports may be physically located inside the same folders as the Raw files that you have imported, or elsewhere, has no relevance here. If when you exported these JPGs, you selected the "import to Catalog" option then they will be represented in the Catalog and will therefore be included... but unless you actively want to see these exports next to the raw based images, in LR, with all the potential for confusion that brings - I am not going to suggest that as a good idea.
It is not necessary to first "Export as Catalog". You can directly put the Catalog you have already made, or a copy of that, onto the external drive. Also you can directly move (probably, Copy is safer) all the image folders bodily onto this external drive. These things can be done in your standard file browser (Finder / Explorer), when Lightroom is not running on the laptop.
Then you can connect your external drive to the Desktop, and start your main LR Catalog there. You can "import from catalog" (merge) all the images thumbnails, with their settings and metadata etc, into the desktop's LR catalog. All the images that you saw in the laptop, will now appear in the desktop too. If you only imported the Raws before, that is all you will see now.
The physical addressing information for each Raw file, as when originally imported, will also be transferred along with the other metadata.
So at this point the image thumbnails you have merged into your desktop catalog appear "offline" - the stored addressing they have, currently does not work in its new context. There will be a whole tree of date-based folders listed, corresponding to how things looked within the laptop, but at the moment showing "not found" so far as the desktop is concerned. This is OK - easily fixable.
You next need to decide where you want these image folders from the trip, to be located long-term. Transfer them bodily into that location (using Finder / Explorer). This should (in one go) include all the Raw files and the prior JPG exports, keeping the relative arrangement and naming of all these folders and subfolders intact.
Then in the Folders list of your desktop Catalog, you can right-click on the highest-level folder which is currently marked as "not found" with a ? icon. Then re-browse that to the new location where you have just put the transferred image folders. LR can then in one operation, not only update the file location information it holds for that folder, but also for all known contents of that folder - which means, all the imported images inside, and their containing subfolder "tree" - the whole trip. This will make all the transferred images from that trip "wake up again", and no longer be offline. You can now carry on editing them just as you did on the laptop.
If you have used a structured date-folder arrangement (such as, one of the automatic ones LR provides) in a 100% consistent manner when working on the desktop and when working on the laptop, your images from the trip can merge seamlessly into your main library.
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4. Re: Correct procedure to export/import catalog
Heirloom Bob Apr 10, 2013 6:17 AM (in response to richardplondon)Richard, thanks for the info.
Firstly, all jpg's and Raw files were showing as a thumbnail on my laptop.
In the past, I would simply copy the Raw and jpg's from my laptop and import into Lightroom. I read a tutorial though that suggested the better route to go was export/import. They said that if for example, you were on a photo shoot, put the photos into Lightroom maybe or maybe not doa few edits, that the export catalog and import catalog is the route to go. That's where this all came from.
I think I will go back to the way I was doing it before but in this case, I am still confused why all RAW folders and some JPG folders transfer over with the export/import but not all.
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5. Re: Correct procedure to export/import catalog
richardplondon Apr 10, 2013 12:13 PM (in response to Heirloom Bob)I personally advocate merging images from a Catalog, over re-importing files from scratch. The re-addressing issue is a small matter, in practice.
Some things you might have done during the trip, such as keywords and latest Develop edits, certainly can be written out to the files externally - automatically if LR is set to do this, otherwise manually on demand - and these will then get recognised during a fresh import. But: some other things cannot, such as your full editing History, and the membership of the images in Collections, and any Virtual Copies you may have made.
If you are going to merge in all of the images of your laptop's Catalog, then you can just use that directly - all or nothing. If however, you only want to bring across a subset of the images in the laptop - then you will need to Export just those selected images into a dedicated, intermediate Catalog (and then probably delete that afterwards).
Opinion is divided about the benefits vs the downsides of having JPGs that you have exported, represented in the catalog. Many regard "exports" as purely disposable and ephemeral - suited in their nature and purpose, for usage outside of, rather than inside Lightroom.
regards, RP


