Setup Guidance - Beta: Best Practices?

[rrzimmer]

First - my appreciation to the LR team for LR2 and the Beta's features.

At the risk of my seeming a bit dense, could you provide some guidance on setting up the use of Catalogs / Libraries after installing the Beta on a machine with a working version of LR 1.3.1/1.4 with about 18K image files?

Is a new LR 2 (beta) specific file area created and used for for the catalog/DB?

Should I use New Catalog, Open Catalog, Import from Disk?

Should I be running the LR 2 Beta on a second, separate machine to avoid corrupting the existing Catalog & Metadata?

Thanks in advance -

 

[Victoria Bampton]

You are fairly safe installing the 2.' beta on the same machine - it uses different catalogs, preferences, etc. Presets are shared. On the other hand, if you have a spare machine....

It won't allow you to upgrade a 1.x catalog, so it'll create a new catalog the first time you open it.

Import from disc - but remember, this is a beta - no guarantees it won't burn your files, so it's suggested you work on duplicate files (or at least have backups that the beta never sees).

 

[Steve Holmes]

I would also recommend leaving the option to automatically write changes to XMP off, as it is by default. Because of what it says in the release notes below, I prefer to play it safe with this.

"Develop settings applied in Lightroom 2.' beta are not guaranteed to transfer correctly to the final version of 2.'. This is particularly true for localized corrections."

 

[Denis Pagé]

I would also recommend leaving the option to automatically write changes to XMP off, as it is by default. Because of what it says in the release notes below, I prefer to play it safe with this.

"Develop settings applied in Lightroom 2.' beta are not guaranteed to transfer correctly to the final version of 2.'. This is particularly true for localized corrections."

This is why I work with duplicates of originals. So, no harm with Ctrl-S that way...