Merging catalog from laptop into master catalog on desktop

[photojon]

I have searched the fourms on this topic and through various threads, I think I know most of the solution, however I am missing a few key elements.

Background: My master lightroom catalog and images reside on my desktop computer. I have just returned from vacation where I used lightroom on my Laptop to manage the images I took while on vacation.

Goal: I would like to be able to import the photos from my laptop and merge the lightroom catalog that I created on my laptop into my master Lightroom catalog in an effort to avoid having reflag, keyword, etc.

Solution: From vaious posts, it appears the way to do this is to Export the catalog on my laptop with the "selected images" box UNchecked. This way I will get all images. And then import from Catalog into my master catalog.

Questions:
1) I assume the images need to be copied over separately since the Catalog will not contain them. correct?
2) If yes, what is the best way to import the images? My thought is that using the import with LR will add them to the existing catalog. How do I import the images plus catalog
3) Once the "laptop catalog" has been imported to the "master catalog" is there anything else I need to do or will all the images appear (and behave) as if I imported them directly into the master catalog from the flash cards only already having flags and keywords set?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jon

 

[RikkFlohr]

1. Provided you tell Lightroom to send the images with the exported catalog, it will contain them. Export Selected Unchecked, Export Negative Files Checked, up to you on previews.
2. Import Catalog will add them to your master and it will ask you where and how you want to store the actual image files.
3. Everything will work fine without any additional effort. Any keywording, metadata changes, captions, rating, editing, etc. will accompany the files into the Master Catalog.

 

[photojon]

Rick,

Thanks for the quick reply and clarification of the steps. That's fantastic news. I guess "negative files" means the actual images. I thought that perhaps it was Adobe's DNG format which I don't use.

Thanks again.

Jon