@Gregg, Your workflow seems sound - especially as it works for you. If others wish to emulate this there are a couple of minor points in this model which i'll mention below. These are not significant but are good to know in case they are something you care about.
1) When you import the "edited RAW" files, you will get final state of the edits but not the history of how they got there. In other words the history panel for the images will be empty.
2) If you make significant use of collections, any such work done on the laptop on the road will not be transmitted to the desktop upon import
3) Depending on how you establish your empty catalog on the laptop when you leave for your trip, you may or may not have some or all of your exising keywords available in the Keyword List while on the road.
4) It would be good if the LR preferences and settings on the desktop and the laptops were the same. Likewise, if you make use of plugin's it would be good to keep the ones on the laptops the same as on the desktop.
PS - if you use "Import from another catalog" to merge the trip into the desktop catalog instead of just a straight import, you would not have point 1 or 2. But you need to experiment ahead of time to determine which settings to use on the Import from another catalog dialog box. Some settings will maintain your laptop folder structure and some will not.
Dan,
Thanks so much for the tips. They are instructive for all here, not just me. I knew all of this from experience and previous posts by Victoria about this on earlier threads. I just repeated my strange workflow here on this thread for the OP.
I know what work I am losing by doing the straight copy of edited raw files from my laptop to my PC and then just the straight import relying solely on XMP (sidecar files or write to the DNG) for all the work done on the laptop to transfer to the PC without importing or syncing the catalogs.
So, let's cover what affect it has on me. Here is what I lose doing not transferring/syncing the catalog but just relying on XMP data and the impact it has on me:
- History: History does not transfer. I don't care about history and never have. I know how to edit my images to get what I want, and I have no desire to record every change of a slider or input of any kind for future reference.
- Collections: I never use them on the road and rarely use them at home. I know collections are a powerful tool in LR. I just never use it, mainly because I'm a travel shooter and I have a folder for each shoot or trip I've done for the past 40 years. Plus, my early work in raw is not key worded well. It is now though.
- Preferences: They are the same on my laptops and PC. Plug-ins are the same.
- Key Word Master List. The key words I put in on the road on the laptop do transfer with the XMP data. The master list is of course separate and does not match between systems, but it is not a problem for me. But that is a good point that I have not thought of.
- Virtual Copy: You did not mention this, but virtual copies don't transfer with XMP. It does hurt me to lose the virtual copies I make on the road. I use them a lot to do B&W versions of the edit.
- Flags. Flags don't transfer in XMP. That has no impact on me. Flags are just a tool I use early in postprocessing, and I don't care if the transfer to me PC.
- Previews. Doing it my way means the 1:1 previews already built in post on the laptop don't transfer with the catalog to the PC. So when I import a folder already copied to the PC, The system starts building 1:1 previews again. That is an important point. For example, after my Sicily trip I came home and the import was 4,000 raw files. I sat there and watch my rig launch into the stratosphere as it built 4000 1:1 previews, which I think is the same thing as building 4000 full size jpegs! That is a serious computing task and could be avoided by importing the cat the right way vs my way.
Anyway, I will keep my eye on doing it the way you guys all do. I know that is the way Adobe intended, but I don't like the results and the mess it can make. But I also know that is my fault because if I practiced it a few times with sample files that I could just later delete if it gets messy, I would learn exactly how to tailor that dialog box on importing the laptop cat to the PC and avoid the less it can make with folder structure and folder/file names.