Is there no way to set multiple copies as masters at once?

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XavierB

XavierB

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Hello! Great source of info, this forum! My name is Xavier, and this is my first thread... I hope I do well!

This is the issue: Recently I had to restore an older catalog in LR 6.1 and now have VCs for around 2000 images recently edited. What I now want to do is set all the VCs (that is, the photos with the most recent, changed settings) as Masters and then get rid of the (now) copies (that is, the photos with the old settings LR automatically restores as masters). However, (and this is so absurd that it makes me wonder WHY Adobe hasn't implemented this option by LR 6.1) you apparently can't set multiple copies as Masters... you have to do it one by one... Am I correct in this terrible discovery? If so, is there any other way? A workaround or plugin? Setting 2000 copies to Masters one by one will severely ruin my month! Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

Thanks in advance!
 
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Welcome to the forum. You can indeed set multiple Virtual Copies as Master. The only time where this might fail is if you should have two or more VCs for the same Master image.

I just had this same problem arise and solved it just as I described.
 
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Hi Xavier, welcome to the forum!

Some of the 'promote VC' options are limited to 100 photos at a time... perhaps that's the limitation you're running into?
 
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Victoria Bampton said:
Hi Xavier, welcome to the forum!

Some of the 'promote VC' options are limited to 100 photos at a time... perhaps that's the limitation you're running into?
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How to set a VC to a Master? Is an XMP file created when doing so. If not, where does L/R keep the instructions to that image? If I create a Master, can I then get rid of the first Master and remove from disk without any removal of the VC which has now become a Master.
 
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Merrill Mack said:
How to set a VC to a Master? Is an XMP file created when doing so. If not, where does L/R keep the instructions to that image? If I create a Master, can I then get rid of the first Master and remove from disk without any removal of the VC which has now become a Master.
Click to expand...
The LR catalog is where the develop history information is always stored. The develop history are the instructions on how to create an adjusted derivative JPEG etc. Normally there is only one history path. This is called the 'master'. When you create a virtual copy, you are only creating a second develop history path. These are assigned Copy names defaulting to 'Copy 1', 'Copy 2' etc. When you promote one of the Copies to master, all you are doing is setting a pointer in the LR catalog database designating that one of the VC path's is now the master path and the master path is now a copy.
 
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If you do that, do you still get the truncated history in the new Master? That is, a history from when the VC was created, rather than from when the images was Imported?

Dave
 
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Howdy. It's a few years later, and the same question arises.
I can set any single virtual copy to be the master. But when I select a bunch of virtual copies and try to set them all to masters, the change is only applied the the *most selected photo*.
Of course Ii can go through them all one at a time but how do I do it in bulk?
Thanks
 
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Nope, can't be done (at least, I've never been able to find a way to do it). I agree that it is incredibly frustrating at times.
 
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Ah. Not what I was hoping to hear, but thank you Jim and Cletus for clarifying the issue.

I set up a Keyboard Tamer shortcut which helps. So at least doing them one at a time is fast, which helps. I hope they fix this sometime soon.

Thanks again.
 
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