Exporting Keywords to a second machine

[SteveH]

Hi, my first post here so hope this is correct. I intend to use my 2nd copy of Lightroom on my Macbook for travel photos using the new catalog technique - i.e. import and work on my pics (including metadata & keywording) on my travels and then export / import the catalog into my master catalog on the desktop machine at home.
Now it seems to me I could export a copy of my extensive keyword list from my desktop... and import it into my laptop with the intention of doing all my keywording during my travels.
I can't see much on that subject anywhere, so does anyone know if that would work okay?
Keywording away from my main catalog always frustrates me - it's not supported in LR Mobile, and typing keywords directly into a laptop new catalog seems to me likely to result in un-nested duplicates or spelling variations when it gets imported into the desktop machine.
Clearly any subsequent changes to my desktop catalog keywords would not be synced to the macbook but then I would expect to start afresh with a new catalog and a fresh import (replacement) of keywords each time I travelled. Hope that makes sense. Any thoughts?

 

[clee01l]

Welcome to the forum.
You want all of the LR important parts The easy part is that you want a copy of your master catalog file on your laptop. Copy that there and most of your work is done. On the laptop, you can open that catalog file with the instance off LR that you installed on the laptop.
It will look just like your master catalog with two exceptions. All of your previews will be blank gray squares and all of your cataloged images with show as missing. On the laptop click on the "All Photographs" special collection in the catalog panel. Select all of the images in that collection. right click on the selected images in the grid view and choose {Remove} Now your laptop catalog will be an empty version of your master catalog.

You want to also duplicate your presets and other critical parts of LR including your plugins
Presets and templates are located in /Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/[preset or template folder]/[preset or template filename.lrtemplate] or in the Lightroom Settings folder if you have ticked the checkbox labeled "Store Presets with Catalog"

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If you simply want to use a fresh catalog: yes, exporting a keyword list from your main catalog and importing that into the new catalog on the laptop works fine and prevents duplicate keywords outside the hierarchy when you import that travel catalog.

As far as typing keywords is concerned. If you use Lightroom's keyword suggestions, recent keywords and keyword sets, you don't have to type much. You can enter most keywords with a single click of the mouse.

 

[LouieSherwin]

Hi Steve,

A good tool to help with applying keywords is the AnyTag plugin by John R. Ellis especially if you as you say as "extensive" keyword list. I use it a lot and have it setup to activate using the Ctl-T keyboard shortcut.

When typing into the entry field it returns the full hierarchy of each matching term so you can select the desired hierarchy. It also searches synonyms, if you have any, something Lightroom still does not do.

Because of limitations of the Lightroom API it extracts all the existing keywords and builds its own data file. If you add new keyword terms within AnyTag they are added to both the AnyTag data file and to Lightroom. However, if you add a keyword term in Lightroom you have to remember to click the "Reload keywords" button. For me it takes about 5-10 seconds to reload 3600 keywords with 360 aliases.

-louie

 

[rob211]

I generally and by habit export and import the keyword list in switching between catalogs on different machines, but that's in part cuz I review it in a text editor and import/merge it into Photo Mechanic. Works pretty well and helps me catch mistakes (Macphun's software when exporting often screws up in writing hierarchical keywords).

And there are two ways to deal with new keywords generated on your laptop. If you write to metadata from the catalog on the laptop then the new keywords and their hierarchies are stored in the images or sidecars and Lr would automatically add them upon importing those images even if you don't export/import the catalog. Or you could export/import the keyword list itself.

And a super +1 on AnyTag. One of it's best features is that you can use it in other modules. I find it useful in Maps, eg, so I can add a correct name for a location to a keyword hierarchy without having to exit the Library or fire up Google maps to search for it. In addition, in Develop you can add keywords like "panorama" or "BW" or similar stuff related to the develop process as you do the developing. Helps to create a keyboard equivalent to AnyTag to invoke it easily.

 

[SteveH]

Wow, excellent responses folks, many thanks. I will explore those options and have tested some already. Laptop catalog looking good and I will be putting your ideas to proper use in a week's trip to the English Lake district. thanks.

 

[SteveH]

Welcome to the forum.
You want all of the LR important parts The easy part is that you want a copy of your master catalog file on your laptop. Copy that there and most of your work is done. On the laptop, you can open that catalog file with the instance off LR that you installed on the laptop.
It will look just like your master catalog with two exceptions. All of your previews will be blank gray squares and all of your cataloged images with show as missing. On the laptop click on the "All Photographs" special collection in the catalog panel. Select all of the images in that collection. right click on the selected images in the grid view and choose {Remove} Now your laptop catalog will be an empty version of your master catalog.

You want to also duplicate your presets and other critical parts of LR including your plugins
Presets and templates are located in /Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/[preset or template folder]/[preset or template filename.lrtemplate] or in the Lightroom Settings folder if you have ticked the checkbox labeled "Store Presets with Catalog"

Hi. Thanks for the advice. Thought I'd post my experience of my error... It all worked except for one part I should have spotted and did not tell you about... My DT catalog included Collections and quite a few synced with LR Mobile. I made sure that my install of a second copy of Lightroom on my Macbook did not set itself up as the primary catalog for sync with mobile (I only want to load camera shots in the field, edit, tag etc then export to the DT on return home and delete the laptop catalog when certain all backed up etc).
Even so, when I did my global removal of "All Photographs" referenced images on the Macbook copy I watched in horror as my iPad LR Mobile app did a count down of synced images to zero! Aaagh! Of course, I knew the originals would still be in place on the iMac and the Apple images in the MobileDownloads.lrdata folder.
Upon returning home and firing up LR on the iMac, the sync quickly removed the image references to zero in synced Collections. Groan. Next step was to Delete all Data in Mobile Preferences and then re-do some collections afresh. All synced and fine now. I don't know if there was a shorter route but it was a good learning curve!

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Hi. Thanks for the advice. Thought I'd post my experience of my error... It all worked except for one part I should have spotted and did not tell you about... My DT catalog included Collections and quite a few synced with LR Mobile. I made sure that my install of a second copy of Lightroom on my Macbook did not set itself up as the primary catalog for sync with mobile (I only want to load camera shots in the field, edit, tag etc then export to the DT on return home and delete the laptop catalog when certain all backed up etc).
Even so, when I did my global removal of "All Photographs" referenced images on the Macbook copy I watched in horror as my iPad LR Mobile app did a count down of synced images to zero! Aaagh! Of course, I knew the originals would still be in place on the iMac and the Apple images in the MobileDownloads.lrdata folder.
Upon returning home and firing up LR on the iMac, the sync quickly removed the image references to zero in synced Collections. Groan. Next step was to Delete all Data in Mobile Preferences and then re-do some collections afresh. All synced and fine now. I don't know if there was a shorter route but it was a good learning curve!

This is exactly the reason why I prefer to export a catalog with all images selected, rather than use a copy of the main catalog. An exported catalog will not contain synched collections or publishing services, so you can't make a mistake and have all your images removed from LrM or from some publishing service. I know it shouldn't happen with a copy of the catalog either if you do everything right, but that's the point. We're only human, so we don't always do everything right. Better safe than sorry.

 

[johnbeardy]

Even so, when I did my global removal of "All Photographs" referenced images on the Macbook copy I watched in horror as my iPad LR Mobile app did a count down of synced images to zero!

Why did you do this? This is your mistake, not using a copy of your main catalogue.

 

[SteveH]

Why did you do this? This is your mistake, not using a copy of your main catalogue.

Yes, well I know that now. As I said, my mistake in not understanding the implications of copying the cat over to a laptop, aim being to bring a copy of my prefs and keyword hierarchy over, not my photos. It comes from trying to get around the fact that LR is really only designed to be one machine. All good fun!

 

[johnbeardy]

Learning by experience is often a good way!

I go to the Lakes 5-6 times a year, coincidentally where I think you have been. My main catalogue contains pictures of many places I'm planning to visit again, so taking it and its smart previews allows me to prepare for each day's photography as well as often copying keywords and other metadata. That's a big benefit.

But Mobile's ability to cope with moving one's catalogue doesn't fill me with confidence, so I usually switch Sync off before copying the catalogue from my main PC to my Mac laptop, and leave it disabled until I return home. I don't think one really needs to do this, but I don't see any point in letting Sync run through looking for all the thousands of originals which I don't have with me.

Overall though, since smart previews were added to Lightroom, I've preferred to take my main catalogue on the road.

John

 

[Johan Elzenga]

But Mobile's ability to cope with moving one's catalogue doesn't fill me with confidence

I agree. I have seen at least once that LrM started to sync with a copy of my main catalog, while I don't remember having said that it should. It just did as far as I could tell. I prefer to use an empty copy of my catalog when I'm on the road, mainly because that makes the process of verify/backup/optimize so much faster. But because of this uncertainty about sync I prefer to export a catalog rather than copy it. Turning off sync before you copy it is also a good idea.