Best practices for creating Travel Catalog

[dmwilling]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic Version 10.4

Operating System

1. Windows 11

I've been using LR for years, starting with LR4 and have always kept my catalog on the external hard drive (I know it's slower to perform, one of the reasons I am posting this). So I probably was not following best practices because the reason I stored my catalog on the external drive was so I could use it on my laptop when I travel. I realize after reading much more about LR, I should keep my catalog on my desktop hard drive so that it works faster and probably create a "travel catalog" for use on my laptop when traveling. I will admit to a fair amount of ignorance on the difference between copying, exporting, etc. catalogs. I have questions about how to best do this with minimal goofs and frustration when bringing my photos into my main catalog:
(1) What is the best process to create a Travel Catalog, keeping all my preferences, watermarks, presets, etc.?
(2) After creating a Travel Catalog on my external drive, do I move it to the hard drive on my laptop or just leave it on the external drive for the duration of my travel?
(3) What is the best process to then transfer my photos and the edits I made on the laptop Travel Catalog?
(4) Do I create a new Travel Catalog for each trip made after importing from previous trips or does that catalog remain on my drive (external or hard drive of the laptop) after merging/importing to my main catalog?

I realize this is probably something I should have learned long ago, but here I am finally asking the questions. Thanks for any help on this workflow -- please assume I know less than it appears and use small words

 

[clee01l]

I've been using LR for years, starting with LR4 and have always kept my catalog on the external hard drive (I know it's slower to perform, one of the reasons I am posting this). So I probably was not following best practices because the reason I stored my catalog on the external drive was so I could use it on my laptop when I travel. I realize after reading much more about LR, I should keep my catalog on my desktop hard drive so that it works faster and probably create a "travel catalog" for use on my laptop when traveling. I will admit to a fair amount of ignorance on the difference between copying, exporting, etc. catalogs. I have questions about how to best do this with minimal goofs and frustration when bringing my photos into my main catalog:
(1) What is the best process to create a Travel Catalog, keeping all my preferences, watermarks, presets, etc.?
(2) After creating a Travel Catalog on my external drive, do I move it to the hard drive on my laptop or just leave it on the external drive for the duration of my travel?
(3) What is the best process to then transfer my photos and the edits I made on the laptop Travel Catalog?
(4) Do I create a new Travel Catalog for each trip made after importing from previous trips or does that catalog remain on my drive (external or hard drive of the laptop) after merging/importing to my main catalog?

I realize this is probably something I should have learned long ago, but here I am finally asking the questions. Thanks for any help on this workflow -- please assume I know less than it appears and use small words

Your Master catalog has all of your settings Collections, Smart Collections and Publish services. What it does not have are the presets which are stored in one of two places and your preferences

If you choose “Store Presets with Catalog”, a “Lightroom Settings” folder is created in the same folder as your catalog. All existing Preset folders need to be copied here. New Presets will be created in folders in the Lightroom Settings folder once you choose “Store Presets with Catalog”.

To prepared a travel Catalog, make a copy of your master catalog in the equivalent folder on the travel computer. Copy your Presets to the same equivalent location on the travel computer. If that is a “Lightroom Settings” folder it is simple process to find and copy all of the critical preset folders. A one time copy of the Preferemces file is necessary for only the first time you set up the travel computer.

Note now that the image files are going to be missing on the travel computer catalog file since you have not copied them. If you don’t need to work on existing image files and will only be working on new imported images, you are done with the setup. If you decide the you do need some of the existing images to work on, make sure that they have current Smart Previews in the Smart Previews folder. You can then copy the Smart Previews folder to the folder containing your copied catalog. These are suitable for developing on a laptop and this is the reason Adobe created the Smart Previews folder to allow the user to leave the master image files behind when traveling.

During travel you can import new images into the travel catalog and only these new image files will need to be merged with the master catalog and files.

On returning from your travels, you upon the travel catalog on the travel computer and use the “Export as a Catalog” function to create a package folder containing the catalog containing any changes to the existing images and new imported images along with any new images imported into the travel catalog. Back in the master catalog, you next use the “Import from another Catalog” to merge the catalog created by the “Export as a Catalog” with the Master catalog. You only need to copy the package folder containing the export catalog and the folder containing any new images added while traveling.


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[Califdan]

Another option is to copy the entire folder containing the catalog including the folder containing your presets (as Clee described) to your external drive which contains the images. Make a copy of this drive to leave home (just in case), then take the external drive with you on your trip. Just plug the drive into the Laptop and open the catalog on that drive. You may have to re-link the images file. When you get home, plug the external drive into your desktop and copy the folder containing the catalog back to your internal drive. If you use plugins before you go, make sure that all the same versions of the plugins are available on the laptop as you use on the desktop.

If you're worried about performance on the laptop, optionally you can copy the catalog folder from the external drive to the laptops drive for use while on the road.

On a side note, I keep my catalog on the external drive with my images even when I'm home working on my desktop. Yes, the performace is a bit less but I don't find it bad enough to be annoying. When I used to copy catalogs back and forth for travel, several times I got tangled up (senior moments) as to which copy of the catalog was the current one and wound up having edits in both that were not in the other. I eventually figured out that the time needed to untangle that situation along with the time needed to copy/Export/import catalogs back and forth was more than all the few seconds here, few seconds there time increases due to performance on the external drive. Sp. I just decided to keep my "official" catalog on the external drive for use on both on the desktop and laptop while rraveling. Since I made that decision I have not had to intangle a "senior moment" blunder and can switch between computers in an instant without any copies, exports, or imports (other than a final backup of the xternal drive before I go). But that's is just my choice. More folks probably go with the "travel catalog" method than my method.

 

[PhilBurton]

On a side note, I keep my catalog on the external drive with my images even when I'm home working on my desktop. Yes, the performace is a bit less but I don't find it bad enough to be annoying. When I used to copy catalogs back and forth for travel, several times I got tangled up (senior moments) as to which copy of the catalog was the current one and wound up having edits in both that were not in the other. I eventually figured out that the time needed to untangle that situation along with the time needed to copy/Export/import catalogs back and forth was more than all the few seconds here, few seconds there time increases due to performance on the external drive. Sp. I just decided to keep my "official" catalog on the external drive for use on both on the desktop and laptop while rraveling. Since I made that decision I have not had to intangle a "senior moment" blunder and can switch between computers in an instant without any copies, exports, or imports (other than a final backup of the xternal drive before I go). But that's is just my choice. More folks probably go with the "travel catalog" method than my method.

I too have "senior moments, " and I come by them honestly. I am away from home (and my desktop system) enough that I also use my laptop. Rather than keep the catalog on an external drive (always a risk of damage to the drive from dropping it), I use File Sync & Backup Software | GoodSync.

I need to keep an up to date copy on my laptop of many more data files than just the Lightroom catalog, and Goodsync works well if used properly.