• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

I need advice and help on Catalog / Picture management

New Here ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I currently have LR Classic on my desktop, and laptop.  My pictures and catalog reside on drive D of the desktop, LR is on drive C.  I regularly back up photos to 2 separate external drives.  Recently my desktop had to be serviced, and I realized that perhaps it would be preferable to have my pictures and catalog on an external drive, so if my desktop went down, I could still have everything to use on the laptop.

So my desire is to move both the primary photo files, and catalog from Drive D to an external drive.  How do I do this (and is this idea advisable) and not lose any information? 

One other concern is that Windows assigns drive letters, and what might be drive G (for instance) on the desktop, could become H on the laptop, so then LR would not know where to look.

I think I know how to do this, but I want to be sure, so a step by step (by the numbers so to speak) instruction would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

John

Views

392

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

jrwilkie50  wrote

One other concern is that Windows assigns drive letters, and what might be drive G (for instance) on the desktop, could become H on the laptop, so then LR would not know where to look.

Follow the instructions at the below link. I suggest assigning a drive letter such as 'S' that is higher than what you normally would ever encounter with multiple USB devices plugged in (phone, card reader, etc.).

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=137

Next move your LR Catalog top-level folder as outlined at the below link to the new drive location:

How to create and manage catalogs in Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks, I'll review those tutorials tonite.  Now, how do I move the photos?  If I move the catalog to drive S, it will still be looking on D for the photos.  I'd assume the Move command, but do I have to do each folder separately?  Or can I do all photos and will the file structure be maintained?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

jrwilkie50  wrote

Thanks, I'll review those tutorials tonite.  Now, how do I move the photos?  If I move the catalog to drive S, it will still be looking on D for the photos.  I'd assume the Move command, but do I have to do each folder separately?  Or can I do all photos and will the file structure be maintained?

Copy & Paste the image files using Windows Explorer at the highest level folder (i.e. Pictures?) to the external drive so the folder structure is maintained. You will then relink the same top-level folder on the external drive as outlined at the below link.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/move-photos-another-hard-drive-leaving-catalog/

Once you have verified all of your photos are now showing inside LR on the new drive you can delete the image files on the internal drive. Please make sure you have backed up all of your picture files and the LR Catalog file to a different external drive BEFORE doing anything!

In general suggestions are advisable. For best performance the LR catalog file should be kept on an internal drive since external drives typically have lower transfer rates. Having said that many users find this a viable alternative when they need to use LR frequently on more than one system such as when traveling. If your external drive is USB 3.0 the performance difference may not be significant. You can test this for yourself by following the provided instructions, but keep the current copy of the LR catalog folder and image files on the local drive. If you experience a performance issue after testing the external drive configuration for a few days it's easy to revert back to the local drive copies following the same instructions.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

Good idea.  I'm thinking that catalog and photos on external drive would be more versatile.  That said, I don't like to process images on my laptop as the screen angle greatly influences the image appearance.  So right now I process select images while traveling to post to friends, then import the images into the desktop on my return for final processing.  Perhaps I really don't want to have things set up as I was thinking.  In addition I'm getting a new graphics card so I can use the graphics hardware acceleration in LR, which I previously could not use.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

jrwilkie50  wrote

I currently have LR Classic on my desktop, and laptop.  My pictures and catalog reside on drive D of the desktop, LR is on drive C.  I regularly back up photos to 2 separate external drives.  Recently my desktop had to be serviced, and I realized that perhaps it would be preferable to have my pictures and catalog on an external drive, so if my desktop went down, I could still have everything to use on the laptop.

So my desire is to move both the primary photo files, and catalog from Drive D to an external drive.  How do I do this (and is this idea advisable) and not lose any information? 

One other concern is that Windows assigns drive letters, and what might be drive G (for instance) on the desktop, could become H on the laptop, so then LR would not know where to look.

I think I know how to do this, but I want to be sure, so a step by step (by the numbers so to speak) instruction would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

John

I would not move anything to the external HD, unless you plan on using the catalog on both machines over time, for example desktop in the afternoon, laptop in the evening, desktop the next day, etc. You didn't say you were going to do this, so my recommendation is to not move anything.

In addition, you need to make regular and automatic backups of both your photos AND YOUR CATALOG FILE to a different hard disk. You didn't say you were doing thijs, you only said you were making backups of the photos. So step 1 would be begin (right now, today, no excuses) making regular and automated backups of your catalog file to a different physical disk. You use the built-in backup feature in Lightroom. Then, if the disk on your desktop crashes, you have backups which can be used on the laptop. If you have to do this, you can re-link the files to the catalog on your laptop via these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders (or force the laptop to use the same drive letter as the desktop where the photos are stored).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 07, 2018 Jun 07, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks but I do that.  Sorry I did not clearly indicate it.  Thanks for your concern.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines