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Help - I'm so confused at the starting point

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Classic

Classic

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Joined
Apr 11, 2018
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12
Location
Australia
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
Classic 7.2
Operating System
I want to be able to connect to LR Classic on either my Mac laptop (travelling) or iMac (home) computer.
I have thousands of photos which are already sorted into folders eg Africa 08_2000, and sub-folders eg Elephants on external hard drives.
So the confusion is, because I am organised with dates/names/folders at the start prior to importing, I am struggling to find the correct steps to use.
I know I have to import but how do I set up the external hard drive for LR? to use as both my source & destination? to open using the ext HD with all the relevant folders /links to use LR etc
I think I have to use the 'Add' option because the photos are already organized into their folders but I am confused as to how I set up the ext HD.
What folders, what names? Where should the Lightroom.Ircat & Lightroom.Irdata folders go or are they only relevant to the Lightroom application?
Logic tells me (& days of researching) that I am missing important information in understanding how the ext HD needs to be set-up so whatever work/editing I am doing in LR will be read via the ext HD on either Mac device at anytime with the updates.
At this stage of my learning, obviously beginner, I am not going any where near the cloud, the storage is all on the ext HD.
Help!
 
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Lightroom has the option to 'ADD’ to the catalog at import. That means there is no destination to worry about, the images remain where they are. They are just added to the catalog without being moved. That sounds like the perfect option in your case.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
Lightroom has the option to 'ADD’ to the catalog at import. That means there is no destination to worry about, the images remain where they are. They are just added to the catalog without being moved. That sounds like the perfect option in your case.
Click to expand...
Thank you 'Lightroom Guru' your explanation has solved a huge piece of the puzzle regarding 'Add'. Such a simple explanation that I have not been able to find in the huge volumes of info on the internet.
Are you able to explain regarding the confusion I have regarding setting up the ext HD - do I need to set up a LR catalog seperate to my original photo folders eg Africa onto the ext HD?
 
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The Lightroom catalog is completely separate from the images. You can compare it to an address book. The details of your friends (your images) are in that book, such as addresses and phone numbers, but your friends are physically where they always were: in their own houses (the folders on your EHD). You can store the catalog on the same EHD if you want to, but you don't have to do that. The best option is to store it on the fastest disk, because Lightroom does quite a bit of reading and writing to the catalog. Normally that's your internal disk.
 
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Again, thank you Johan. I understand that the Lr catalog is seperate to the images. Lightroom as you have said, reads & writes to the catalog, if the catalog is on my main home computer (faster) & I'm editing photos from my EHD in Lr , what happens when I am using Lr on my laptop (travel) with the same EHD? How will Lr read/write if the catalog is on another computer? My thinking is I need to also have the catalog portable - this is the confusing part for me.
And, if that is the case, how do I do this? Because I travel a lot, I need to access Lr & my photos (work in progress) on both computers at seperate times but keep the workflow consistent. All the info I have read to get started in Lr seems to instruct 'create a catalog' - importantly I am wanting to understand where in my case of 2 computers & EHD, where the catalog should be?
 
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If you want to be able to take the EHD with you and use it on the laptop too, then store the catalog on the EHD as well. There are other ways (using 'export as catalog', then on return 'import from another catalog'), but simply storing the catalog on the EHD is the easiest way by far.
 
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JohanElzenga said:
If you want to be able to take the EHD with you and use it on the laptop too, then store the catalog on the EHD as well. There are other ways (using 'export as catalog', then on return 'import from another catalog'), but simply storing the catalog on the EHD is the easiest way by far.
Click to expand...
Can I keep asking you questions about how to do this re catalog?
 
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Did you already create and use a catalog? If so, move the catalog folder to the EHD and double click on the catalog file (.lrcat) to let Lightroom know it should use this one. You only have to do this once. On the laptop you do the same.

If you don't have a catalog yet, then start Lightroom. It will ask you to create a catalog, so navigate to the EHD and create it there. On the laptop, use double click again once so Lightroom knows where it is.
 
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