2 catalogues - merge?

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iRock

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Hey everyone,

First post, forum looks pretty cool with lots of useful information!

Anyway I have a quick question.

I created a lightroom catalogue and saved it on my external hard drive.


I reinstalled windows and lightroom - I then imported photos into lightroom (this would be a new catalogue on the C:\).

Now I only have the option to open either catalogue. I would like to merge both and save to C:\.

Then have a backup of this on my external drive.

Is this possible?


Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers,


iRock
 
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Hey iRock, welcome to the forum!

It's certainly possible.

Before you do anything else, duplicate both catalogs, that way you can easily go back if it goes wrong.

So you already have a catalog on C:\, and you just want to merge the other one into it? Just open that C:\ catalog, go to File > Import from Catalog and point to your other catalog. It'll query what to do with any duplicated images, and by the time it finishes, you'll have all of your images in that one C:\ catalog.

To set the backup location, you need the Backup Now dialog when comes up when it's time to back up. To bring that up at any time, go into Catalog Prefs and set it to back up next time you start - and restart. Once you've set it correctly, allow it to back up, and then put it back to your normal backup schedule.
 
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Victoria Bampton said:
Hey iRock, welcome to the forum!

It's certainly possible.

Before you do anything else, duplicate both catalogs, that way you can easily go back if it goes wrong.

So you already have a catalog on C:\, and you just want to merge the other one into it? Just open that C:\ catalog, go to File > Import from Catalog and point to your other catalog. It'll query what to do with any duplicated images, and by the time it finishes, you'll have all of your images in that one C:\ catalog.

To set the backup location, you need the Backup Now dialog when comes up when it's time to back up. To bring that up at any time, go into Catalog Prefs and set it to back up next time you start - and restart. Once you've set it correctly, allow it to back up, and then put it back to your normal backup schedule.
Click to expand...


Thanks very much Victoria!

I'll give this a go as soon as I get home from work.

;)
 
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Not successful at all!

I can import from the old catalogue and it works fine. But it seems to only link to the old catalogue?

What I want to do is bring them into the new one.

When I delete the old catalogue after importing it says picture is "offline" on each photo that I imported. So, I end up having to restore the photos from the recycle bin so that I can access them.

Is there anyway to do the following

* Get all my photos back out in RAW format.
* Delete the Catalougue
* Import the RAW photos into a new Catalogue (setting this as the default Catalogue stored on my computer).
* Run 1 backup of this Catalogue to an external HD

Its getting very frustrating!
 
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IRock,

I presume when you said you delete the old catalog -- you were referring to the .lrcat file, but not the RAW files? (Please note that you will delete the RAW files if you open the old catalog in LR and literally delete all files within LR.)

Assuming you are merging Cat1 and Cat2, as Victoria instructed, it should be
Step 1) Open Cat1
Step 2) 'Import from Catalog', select Cat2's .lrcat file
Step 3) You will see the import dialog box, click OK
Step 4) Done!

For the deletion, please make sure you only delete the .lrcat file (and its related sub-folders holding the previews. Such folder has the same name as your .lrcat file). You dont need to touch the RAW files at all. If you want to move them to a new location, move it within Cat2 before Step 1, or, move it within Cat1 after Step 3).

Please be reminded that after Step 3), you are seeing only the "Previous Import" by default --> if you want to check that you now have a full/combined Cat1+Cat2, select "All Photographs" under the Library panel on the left.

Hope this helps.

Bosco
 
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So hang on a second, are your catalog 2 images in an Images subfolder next to catalog 2? You definitely don't want to delete that!!! Let's take it back a step - when you've imported into Lightroom, have you asked Lightroom to move/copy the images rather than reference at the existing location?

3 options:

1. Don't delete the images folder, leave it in its current location when you delete the lrcat file. Your updated catalog 1 will reference them there.

2. Move the images folder and relink the files once you've got the in the catalog 1 - depends on how your images are structured.

3. In the Import from Catalog dialog, it asks what to do with new files - add at their existing location/copy/move - so use copy/move when merging the catalogs so that the images end up in the same place as your other images.
 
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Hmm ..... ok - I'm getting confused now. Not with the technology but with all the Catalogues and images.

I'll post more thisevening when I get home and can try this.

Thanks!
 
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I guess an analogy will be a traditional library system: RAW files/images are books; LR Catalog (.Lrcat) is a database of all the books. The database stores (i) the metadata of a book, (ii) a scan of the book cover, (iii) where the book sits physically in the library, (iv) etc., etc

When you merge two databases, you just literally append a long list of record to another list. You dont have to move around the books themselves during this merger, but of course you can do so for better housekeeping provided that you track carefully where you move them.

That said, what LR does is: when you import one catalog into another, you are just merging the two databases of books (as in my example above).

In addition, LR is very clever that it gives you some flexibility for housekeeping -- you can actually choose whether you want to move the books, or status quo.

Scenario 1 (corresponds to Vic's option 1):
If you have all the books in the same library, then you probably only merge the databases without moving the books. (ie all your RAW images on the same storage system) --- select "Import at their current location" in LR.

Scenario 2 (corresponds to Vic's option 3):
Your are moving books from Library1 to Library2 (= RAW images on 2 separate storage systems). Then you may want to (i) merge the databases corresponds to Lib1 and Lib2, AND (ii) move the books at the same time so that your new/enlarged Lib2 will become Lib1+Lib2 -- select "Copy new photos to a new location and import" -- this is telling LR to "Duplicate the books in Library 1 into Library2 AND merge the databases"

Hope this wont make you more confused.
 
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what happens to edit info?

I thought I would append my question to this post since its very related.

Hi All, after lurking for a few months, finally doing a first post! I've been using Lightroom for a few months and have created multiple catalogs on the same computer and would like to merge them together. Yeah, yeah, why did I do that? Well... one catalog had family photos (Family), one had all photos, etc which sometimes included family photos (All Photos), and another had work photos (Work). And let's not get into folder naming conventions at this point.

I want to merge Family and Work catalogs into All Photos, so I've got All Photos catalog open.

It is very possible that I've made edits within Lightroom (develop, tags, captions, etc) for some photos that are also in another catalog.

I see the choices for "Replace: Metadata, develop settings, and negative files; Metadata and develop settings; nothing"
and a check box for "Preserve old settings as virtual copy"

If I want to say that the All Photos has the master information... (which it might not, but gotta make some decisions), would I want to use Replace: nothing? but now I can not select 'preserve old settings as virtual copy'

What happens to the metadata/ develop settings from the imported catalog for duplicate photos? Is a virtual copy made?

I know I can just make backups (which I'll do anyway) and wing it, but think you folks would have the correct method at your fingertips.

Your suggestions are most welcome!
Shelley
 
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Hi Shelley, welcome to the forum!

Sounds like you've got the idea - well done!

Metadata for the duplicate photos will be ignored, unless you allow it to be imported. If you say 'update' then a 'virtual copy' option appears, as you've noted, and that will hold the other set of data.

Either way, you'll have a bit of a job tidying up.
 
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[size=small]Hi everyone. [/size]
[size=small]I've been looking over this thread because when I first set up lightroom, I made four catalogs. Now, after a few months and a great deal of learning, I've decided I want everything combined into one catalog. If I use catalog merge, will it merge not only the database of assets but presets, keyword lists, etc?[/size]
Thanks
Snoopypood
 
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Catalog merge? Specifically what do you mean by that?

Generally, you would choose or create a 'master' catalog, and 'Import from Catalog', from the other 'subsidiary' catalogs.
That will import the images, with their adjustments and metadata into the master (some detailed configuration is possible in the import dialog). The keyword list will be imported, but not intelligently. That is, identical keywords, with different hierarchal ranks will be duplicated. I'm not sure whether the entire 'subsidiary' keyword list is imported, or only those keywords actually applied to the set of imported images.

Presets depend on the setting of the 'Store presets with Catalog' preferences setting. If this is unchecked, then your presets are 'global' and already shared between catalogs. If the preference is checked, I don't know what happens during an 'Import from Catalog'. I don't work that way, and that's exactly the reason.
 
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Thanks for your quick reply. Here is what I've done. I maintain all of my images on a portable hard drive. I find it less confusing when switching between using my desktop and my laptop. (They are also backed up to yet another hard drive.) I currently have 4 Lightroom catalogs: Travel, Family and friends, etc. The Lightroom catalogs are also on the portable hard drive. That way when I switch from one computer to another, everything is there. Sometimes, there are photos from a travel shoot that include people or other things that would also fit into one of the other catalogs so rather than try to figure out what should go where, I'd like to make one catalog with everything. I realize that I can simply import all photos from disk into the travel catalog but wouldn't that eliminate any adjustments that I made to the images? If I could "import from catalog", I am under the impression that all adjustments will be imported also. I guess I could delete all keywords from those images that I want to import and then start over but there are roughly 2,3'' images in those other catalogs to deal with. Finally, since I will be importing into the travel catalog (it has about 6,''' images in it), I was wondering if I can rename it to something more appropriate?
Thanks again for your help.

Snoopypood.
 
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Import from Catalog will do exactly what you want.

You can rename a catalog outside of Lightroom, while Lightroom doesn't have it open. Rename both the .lrcat file and the previews database that sits alongside. Alternately, you can create a new catalog, and import all your catalogs into that.
 
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