Library Folder Hierarchy Problems!

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alliemac9

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I'm struggling with working with the library folder hierarchy. Basically, I have several catalogs (this one is called PersonalPhotos). All photos for this catalog live in one directory called PersonalPhotos (actually located on a NAS drive at \\NAS-'2-5A-63\Photos\PersonalPhotos). The lightroom catalogs all exist locally, but my laptop is getting old and there just isn't enough room for the photos on the local drive, so the photos are all on a NAS drive.

Anyway, I can't figure out why Lightroom seems to see the NAS drive as two separate areas (one with \photos and one with \Photos - there's only one "Photos" directory on the NAS drive, and it is with a capital P). If you look at the attached PDF, you'll see that there is a folder structure that should be NAS\Photos\PersonalPhotos\Events yet the Events folder appears to exist in two separate places (under each of the two NAS headers).

This has repeatedly confounded me, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to cause this situation and if there's a way to undo it. Please help!! :rolleyes:
Thanks,
Allie
 
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What happens if you map the network drive as a Letter and combine all the folders in the network desifnations to this newly added folder in LR?
It appears thatthe NAS was added as a network link in LR twice and different capitalization was used each time making them distinct in the logic of LR. The Windows OS has never made capitalization distinctions like UNIX or OSX and this has compounded your problem. LR OTOH is designed to work with OSX so it does make the distinction.

There are several ways to achieve this merge, but I am unsure which method might be best or easiest.
 
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Interesting, I didn't realize LR (or the Mac OS for that matter) recognized capitalizations. The only way I've ever pulled photos in is via import or sync, so I'm not sure how I ended up with this. The problem is if I go sync the folders in one set to try to pull everything in under one NAS, it ends up reimporting and I believe my edits are lost, right?

I've never thought about mapping that drive to a letter. Interesting suggestion - I'll go look into that. Part of my motivation here is to clean things up as I'm getting prepped to move to a new laptop. I've spec'd enough space to hold the files locally and just use the NAS as a backup.
 
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If your ultimate plan is to use the NAS as a backup, outside of LR create this empty folder on the NAS. B:PhotosArchive and map it to the "B:" drive letter in your local OS.
Add this empty folder to LR and in LR, drag PersonalPhotos to the new empty Parent. B:PhotosArchive Then drag any folders not in ..Photos but in ..photos to the proper place under B:PhotosArchive\PersonalPhotos Once you have emptied all the folders in the \NAS-'2-5A-63 and \Nas-'2-5a-63, you can remove them from LR.
 
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If I do that, how do I move the LR data so that edits are still tied to the photos? Do I need to do a bunch of exporting folders as catalogs and merging them into a new catalog or something?
 
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[quote author=Brad Snyder link=topic=8454.msg57266#msg57266 date=1258855193]
If you move the images, as Cletus describes, within the Lr folder browser interface (Left Hand Panel) everything will be fine. The edits will be retained.
[/quote]"Just drag and Drop". Really, just grab the folder and drag it to its new parent. If you already have a folder and only need to move the images, then open the source folder in the Grid View and select all the images in the grid. With the mouse, position the cursor <u>inside</u> one of the images and whle clicking and holding, drag the image group to the new folder in the folder panel. When the destination folder highlights, let go of the mouse button.

You can only move one folder at a time. As lightroom moves the folder, it will update the pointers in the catalog to the new location.
 
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[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=8454.msg57244#msg57244 date=1258826574]
... LR OTOH is designed to work with OSX so it does make the distinction.
[/quote]
The correct answer to this is that Lightroom is based on SQLite and that it is SQLite that distinguish between Upper and Lowercase.
 
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[quote author=alliemac9 link=topic=8454.msg57238#msg57238 date=1258823738]
... This has repeatedly confounded me, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to cause this situation and if there's a way to undo it. Please help!! ::)
Thanks,
Allie
[/quote]
Back to the original question:
Try this: Make another root folder on your NAS and call it for say, TEMP. From Lightroom, move all folders in "photos" to TEMP. Let it work and once done, delete the now empty "photos" from catalog and move from TEMP to "Photos".
 
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