Lightroom Help

Iron Flatline · Feb 11, 2010

Hi all.

I recently began using Lightroom, and am quite happy with it. I have now installed it on my laptop, and want to take the last two months' images with me. They are sorted into folders by shoots (containing the RAW files) with a sub-folder each for PSDs and JPGs.

Currently they are all listed as folders in Local Disk, as well as All Photographs under Catalog. I do not have any images in the Quick Collection, nor do I have Smart Collections (I need to learn what that is, to be honest.)

In the past I would simply copy over the folders, and navigate to the images using Bridge into Photoshop. However Lightroom seems to have a whole Catalog and Library process that I don't fully grasp yet.

What is the best way to move data from my Desktop to my Laptop? Export with Presets? Export as Catalog? I want to retain the processing that I've already applied to the images...

What to do? Please advise.

Big Mike · Feb 11, 2010

I only use LR on one machine, so I'm not 100% on the 'transfer' process.

But I think that if you copy over (or maybe export) the catalog file, you should be able to see the images (and edits) on the new machine...even without moving the RAW files over.

In LR (on the laptop), you would see the images, but they would be shown as 'unknown location' or something like that. You should still be able to edit them, but you wouldn't be able to export them because that requires access to the RAW files.

If you do want full access/control of the files, I'm guessing that you would need to copy over (export) both the RAW files and the Catalog file. I'm certain there is a way to do this, while keeping the edits you've already done....I'm just not 100% sure of how to do it. :scratch:

davebmck · Feb 11, 2010

Assuming you now have a copy LR on your laptop, you should copy your photo folders over to the laptop with the same directory (folder) structure as your desktop. Next you will need to copy over the LR catalog file, catalog.lrcat. It is located in c:/programdata/adobe/lightroom/catalogs/mycatalog. That's where it is in Win7, so if you have a different OS you may need to do a search for it. Note that when LR installs, it creates a catalog file of this name and you will need to replace that one with your old one. If you have already put photos in the new catalog, there is a way to merge them, but I don't know how to do that. You can always have multiple catalogs.

One you do that, open LR and in the Library module, click on the folders tab. You should see your directory structure. Right click on the Pictures folder and select Synchronize Folders. LR should be able to find all of your images, even if they are not exactly in the same locations.

Hope this helps.