Export as Catalog... and include publish services

[jimvetter]

I maintain a Working Catalog for all active jobs and then move each job to its own catalog when the job is finished. Within my Working Catalog I use multiple publish services for every job. For example, I have several SmugMug publish services to create separate published galleries for clients, vendors, twobrightlights, animoto, etc.

When I move a completed job out to its own catalog, I lose the publish services if I use the "Export as Catalog..." feature of Lightroom.

To retain the publish services that I've setup in my Working Catalog, I make a copy of the Working Catalog, rename it with the Job name, then remove all of the other jobs from the catalog. This leaves me with a Job catalog that includes all of my publish services as well as any publish folders I've created and populated within the Working Catalog. Needless to say, this is a pain in the neck and takes significant time.

Is there a better way of moving jobs to a new catalog such that publish services are retained?

This really should be a feature of the Lightroom "Export as Catalog..." function but its not. Does anyone have a better way?

Thank you!

Jim Vetter

jim@jimvetter.com

http://vetterphotography.com

[john beardsworth · Accepted solution]

jimvetter  wrote

Is there a better way of moving jobs to a new catalog such that publish services are retained?

No, there's no other way.

I suppose you could reverse your workflow. So instead of processing the job in the main catalogue and then cloning/emptying it, process the job in its own catalogue. That new catalogue may be one based on the main catalogue but emptied, so you'd start each job with a copy of this catalogue.

[jimvetter]

Thank you for the suggestion but reversing the workflow defeats the purpose of having a single working catalog where I can process multiple jobs at once. I just need Lightroom to allow for exporting publish service settings.

Cheers,

[dj_paige]

All these problems, and the huge amount of work involved in creating new catalog and archiving all the time, can be eliminated if you use a single catalog. This is one of many many many advantages of using a single catalog.

[jimvetter]

Single catalog is not an option for me. I shoot thousands of images per week and I need to revisit jobs for print/album making down the road. Lightroom can't handle hundreds of thousands of images nor would I want them all together for various reasons.

Lightroom really needs to be updated to cater to the high volume shooters that use it.

[johnrellis]

Lightroom can't handle hundreds of thousands of images

Many people have reported successfully using LR catalogs with hundreds of thousands of images.

[jimvetter]

I shoot 70-150 jobs per year and I create multiple collections and publish folders for each job. Even if Lightroom could handle the image load, I could not handle the volume of items in Lightroom. Thanks though.

[john beardsworth]

I work with someone who shoots 4-6000 images a week, currently 700000 images in a single catalogue.

[Just Shoot Me]

jimvetter  wrote

Single catalog is not an option for me. I shoot thousands of images per week and I need to revisit jobs for print/album making down the road. Lightroom can't handle hundreds of thousands of images nor would I want them all together for various reasons.

Lightroom really needs to be updated to cater to the high volume shooters that use it.

You are sadly mistaken. If you use a folder structure for the jobs and or keywords or even collections for different jobs you can revisit them anytime you like without see any other images in the LR catalog.

Your problem starts with not understanding how LR actually works and how to work with LR.

[dj_paige]

jimvetter  wrote

Single catalog is not an option for me. I shoot thousands of images per week and I need to revisit jobs for print/album making down the road. Lightroom can't handle hundreds of thousands of images nor would I want them all together for various reasons.

Lightroom really needs to be updated to cater to the high volume shooters that use it.

Using proper organization inside of Lightroom makes it easy to use a single catalog in your case. Yes, Lightroom can handle this, as john beardsworth points out.

[johnrellis]

You could make a "template" catalog with all the publish services set up, along with whatever settings you want. Then export the job into a temporary catalog, make a new copy of the template catalog, and import the temporary catalog into that.  That might save a few of the steps.

[jimvetter]

Thank you for the suggestion but this would be just as cumbersome since I'd be opening and closing multiple catalog files in the process.

[jimvetter]

While I appreciate everyone's suggestion to maintain a single catalog, I am not going to do that. If you have an alternative suggestion, I would love to hear it. However, if your suggestion is to use a single catalog, please refrain from responding.

Thank you.

[johnrellis]

This really should be a feature of the Lightroom "Export as Catalog..." function but its not.

You can post a detailed feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum: Photoshop Lightroom | Photoshop Family Customer Community . Product developers actively participate there but are rarely seen here. The more details about why you want a feature, the more likely it will influence Adobe.  Merely linking back to here won't have much impact.

[jimvetter]

Thank you, John. Yes, I'm also doing that. 

[michaelk45853018]

Now there is a Way!

Take a look to this awaresome plugin:

http://alloyphoto.com/plugins/lrvoyager/

It moves publish service, yu can filter it, ...

Regards

Michael