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The Great Reinstall...

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summerseddy

Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2019
Messages
34
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
9.3
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Hi everyone,

I am finally migrating over to a better system. I've been using a tiny NUC as a PC for the last 3.5yrs, and whilst I've enjoyed many features and perks it brought, it is just nowadays underpowered for many of the tasks I perform. I have a Legion 5 laptop coming tomorrow or Tuesday and so now I need to begin the process of porting across everything...

It's been 3.5yrs since I last did any kind of windows installation or reinstall. Workflow wise with my approach to LR/PS, I basically create a new personal LR catalog every month (so for example right now I load up into 'July '21', and separate catalogs for client work. If the month had work I valued I would highlight only the files I cared about and Export As Catalog that work, and of course Client work was always Export As Catalog in it's entirety. These Catalog Exports are backed up in numerous places, I am not so concerned with that element.

My primary concern is making sure that when I get the new laptop and reinstall LR/PS, that I also successfully port across my prests, custom brushes and PS actions I have created over the years. I kinda feel like Adobe should have some kind of cloud feature built in so when you backup/exit the program it saves all this stuff in their cloud (for subscription based users), as it surely wouldn't take up too much space? Failing that some kind of built in Adobe feature to backup those things, should anything go wrong etc. I get the feeling nothing like that exists and I will have to manually find the right folders for those things and copy them to the next installation?

I'm on the subscription based LR/PS plan, how does installing on a new PC work if my current pc still has a copy installed? Is it just a case of signing out on the old machine and signing in with the new one? I plan to uninstall my current version of LR/PS from this existing machine but only once I have checked everything is hunky dory on the new laptop, but won't Adobe see that I am using LR/PS on two machines at once and thus be cross with me?

And finally... maybe there is a global Windows 10 migration tool that will handle all of this, with less necessity for manual cherry picking of folders etc? As you can imagine I have outlook settings, web browser, so many other things that need reinstalled... I am now wondering if there is a tool or feature that helps with basically just selecting all the programs and things you care about, selecting them and then let it do its thing and voila! It's all done for you? (I do own a copy of Acronis but seldom use it..., maybe I should look into that).

TIA for any support, advice or help.

Eddy.
 
In terms of moving LrC to a new computer, here's everything you should need to know..... https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Before I launch into a lecture on using one (or two if you seperate work from personal) catalog vs dozens or (in your case possibly hundreds), I'd like to hear from you what value you derive from having a seperate catalog for each months worth of personal photos? We can talk about work photos in round 2. Although I've yet to see one, you may very weil have a compelling reason for this strategy and I'd be interested in hearing what it is.
 
In terms of moving LrC to a new computer, here's everything you should need to know..... https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/

Before I launch into a lecture on using one (or two if you seperate work from personal) catalog vs dozens or (in your case possibly hundreds), I'd like to hear from you what value you derive from having a seperate catalog for each months worth of personal photos? We can talk about work photos in round 2. Although I've yet to see one, you may very weil have a compelling reason for this strategy and I'd be interested in hearing what it is.
Thanks for that link, I will check it out.

As for the reason of multiple catalogs, really it started out of pure necessity because my computer (a tiny NUC) just couldn't handle large libraries. I saw a significant improvement when keeping the file number down. A couple years later and I befriended an Adobe LR developer (his name is on the splash screen when you load LR/PS up), we did some troubleshooting at one point, I can't recall now all the specifics about the issue but it did involving rolling forwards and backwards different versions of LR to troubleshoot the issue together. Something went quite badly wrong and my LR developer friend breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he realised that we had only risked a personal catalog with only a few images vs client work or indeed everything. From that point on (and with his advice) I kept it to smaller multiple catalogs as he agreed this was a far safer approach should 'shit happens' (which nearly did). I think the best way to think about it is a little like shooting a wedding. If you shoot the entire event on one sd card, even tow using double slot, if something goes wrong (theft of camera etc or freak double death sd card) then you have nothing at all to give the client. If you shoot with multiple lower gb cards and frequently eject, store safely, put a fresh new card in and carry on, should the unthinkable happen then you at least have saved work from the ejected cards and have only lost a proportion of the event vs all.

In addition to this issue, I have on occasion done collabs with other designers and being able to share just that catalog between us could have proved useful. I realise there are inbuilt tools I think to do this (Share albums?), but yeh it was a thought that was there and just added another layer of value to having things compartmentalised a bit.

It's certainly not anything I recommend to anyone, I am sure another LR developer would be happy to recommend one large catalog. Certainly my method has drawbacks, perhaps finding a particular image becomes a headache, opening various catalogs to hunt and close till you find the shot you want. Thankfully this is not really anything I do. The times I have gone back to an old image to edit, hasn't taken me more than 5mins to find it (and I've done it less than a handful of times in 3-4yrs).

I'm not sure also from a backup perspective, but perhaps the idea of regularly choosing JUST the images you care about on your monthly catalog and exporting that, just helps keep backup sizes down? I dunno...

Like I said, nothing I'd recommend, just what I've been doing because I kinda had to, but then was reinforced to being practice from an employee within Adobe LR/PS (so I just carry on).
 
@summerseddy

If there is a BestBuy near you, they have Geek Squad which used to offer a service to reinstall all the software for you. Never used it, but I know a couple people who did years ago. They thought it was worth it, now they are retired so they have more time and grand-kids who will do it.

In terms of the multiple catalogs, each time you change SD cards you risk damaging the camera. So you are increasing the risk of failure :)
On the professional side, small catalogs makes sense from the minimize backup/recovery time especially when you basically never go back to look at images.
For personal, I would think it would be a giant step backwards, and sort of defeats the purpose of a digital asset manager.
 
@summerseddy

If there is a BestBuy near you, they have Geek Squad which used to offer a service to reinstall all the software for you. Never used it, but I know a couple people who did years ago. They thought it was worth it, now they are retired so they have more time and grand-kids who will do it.

In terms of the multiple catalogs, each time you change SD cards you risk damaging the camera. So you are increasing the risk of failure :)
On the professional side, small catalogs makes sense from the minimize backup/recovery time especially when you basically never go back to look at images.
For personal, I would think it would be a giant step backwards, and sort of defeats the purpose of a digital asset manager.
Yes agreed, I honestly don't use the digital asset management side of LR very much... because I haven't been able to! But on the other hand... I have seldom felt the need either personally or professionally to go back and find something to reedit or whatever. I value the syncing of images mostly from LR (and the 3rd party support).
Anyway, as I said tho... you have it straight from the horses mouth about the pros of having separate catalogs from a developer of LR them self. If he can see the merit and wisdom (and actually recommend it), then I'll prolly continue as is. I guess the bottom line is digital asset management for everything you do is super cool, but also comes at a risk that I think some users are perhaps not completely aware of. During our troubleshooting session, IIRC we did lose a months worth of personal edits as a fall out (RIP catalog :cry:), thank god we were testing something that really wasn't important, if we lost 2 weeks worth of wedding edits I was about to strangle him! hhaa

Truth is, many of the real long term work I value are PSB files and I think for a long time LR wasn't supporting them, when it comes to print work all I really care about is just one folder full of PSB files, not even LR catalogs. I have yet to have a client (within 2yrs of completing the job) come back to me asking for the images again because they lost them or a reedit etc.
 
Unless you work 24x7 and never exit Classic, then you should never lose 2 weeks of edits.
Classic should be configured to backup on exit, assuming you take a lunch, the most you should lose is a half day.

I rarely go back and re-edit. However I often go back and search and create temporary collections for digital picture frames. And since I have multiple sized frames, I export a collection for that specific resolution/frame.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
Unless you work 24x7 and never exit Classic, then you should never lose 2 weeks of edits.
Classic should be configured to backup on exit, assuming you take a lunch, the most you should lose is a half day.

I rarely go back and re-edit. However I often go back and search and create temporary collections for digital picture frames. And since I have multiple sized frames, I export a collection for that specific resolution/frame.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk

Yeh, this was exceptional circumstances, it wasn't to do with typical norm use. I think (IIRC) it might have been something like when you have to upgrade an old catalog to latest version, but then the issue is worse or more broken on the newer version of LR, so then you roll back to an older version of LR but now that catalog you upgraded no longer works on the old version of LR or something (it was over a year ago so I can't recall all the specifics). Whatever it was it meant the backup cat wasn't playing ball either (and I do set that to backup on exit too, which might have also been part of the issue had I not done that). Was a little scary, thankfully not work I really cared about. I may have had another copy of that catalog elsewhere that wasn't updated that would have worked... thankfully it wasn't important stuff and we just continued to troubleshoot.
It was enough to spook the LR/PS developer tho and what prompted our own conversation about why I was doing multi little catalogs (as a choice, but it wasn't really a choice my end, just necessity to get some decent LR performance on a machine not really adequate to cope with Adobe products). At the end of that conversation and experience he felt I make a good call (be it flukey) and thought it was fine to keep doing what I was doing if it wasn't bothering me in any ways. Man... I am so looking forward to a decent machine to finally process my work. I have invested all my $$ in camera gear and lights, PC always gets last love :D

Anyway, I am certainly not advocating others to follow my 'multi cat' workflow, it's a by-product of this thread. I just meant to say from a backup perspective I feel I have that area covered. The Exported Catalogs exist in various locations as well as cloud. It's the 'resetup' I'm concerned about, and if Adobe get cross seeing me trying to use their product on two machines at the same time whilst I sort this migration out.

I am more concerned with making sure on my new machine that all my brushes, presets, 3rd party plugins, PS custom actions, etc... that all that stuff is effortlessly ported. Even the way I have my Develop module set up, where about the presets are in the list etc, I hope I don' have to manually drag and drop things in order on the preset list etc... :(

Would be really good if there was just a backup/Image Adobe thing to make it exactly like it is on another machine to spare this headache.
 
Thanks for that link, I will check it out.

As for the reason of multiple catalogs, really it started out of pure necessity because my computer (a tiny NUC) just couldn't handle large libraries. I saw a significant improvement when keeping the file number down. A couple years later and I befriended an Adobe LR developer (his name is on the splash screen when you load LR/PS up), we did some troubleshooting at one point, I can't recall now all the specifics about the issue but it did involving rolling forwards and backwards different versions of LR to troubleshoot the issue together. Something went quite badly wrong and my LR developer friend breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he realised that we had only risked a personal catalog with only a few images vs client work or indeed everything. From that point on (and with his advice) I kept it to smaller multiple catalogs as he agreed this was a far safer approach should 'shit happens' (which nearly did). I think the best way to think about it is a little like shooting a wedding. If you shoot the entire event on one sd card, even tow using double slot, if something goes wrong (theft of camera etc or freak double death sd card) then you have nothing at all to give the client. If you shoot with multiple lower gb cards and frequently eject, store safely, put a fresh new card in and carry on, should the unthinkable happen then you at least have saved work from the ejected cards and have only lost a proportion of the event vs all.

In addition to this issue, I have on occasion done collabs with other designers and being able to share just that catalog between us could have proved useful. I realise there are inbuilt tools I think to do this (Share albums?), but yeh it was a thought that was there and just added another layer of value to having things compartmentalised a bit.

It's certainly not anything I recommend to anyone, I am sure another LR developer would be happy to recommend one large catalog. Certainly my method has drawbacks, perhaps finding a particular image becomes a headache, opening various catalogs to hunt and close till you find the shot you want. Thankfully this is not really anything I do. The times I have gone back to an old image to edit, hasn't taken me more than 5mins to find it (and I've done it less than a handful of times in 3-4yrs).

I'm not sure also from a backup perspective, but perhaps the idea of regularly choosing JUST the images you care about on your monthly catalog and exporting that, just helps keep backup sizes down? I dunno...

Like I said, nothing I'd recommend, just what I've been doing because I kinda had to, but then was reinforced to being practice from an employee within Adobe LR/PS (so I just carry on).
Fair enough.
 
and if Adobe get cross seeing me trying to use their product on two machines at the same time whilst I sort this migration out.
You can use Lightroom Classic on two machines without invalidation your license. You can even install on a third machine and Adobe will ask you to decide which to the first two to remove from the license scheme.
 
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