Transfering previews and working on another machine without access to library

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ben

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Hi all,

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere but I've spent days searching other posts and haven't managed to find the answer to my problem yet. Any help hugely appreciated!

Basically, my main machine is a Dell Studio 15 with 3gb Ram and decent hard drive which is where my primary library is located, but I've started archiving older files off onto external hard drives via Lightroom so it still knows where everything is. I'm running LR2.2 and backing up the catalogue frequently, and it's this latest backup catalogue that I have moved over to my other machine (an Assus Eee PC, 2GB Ram - not great for photo work, but small and functional enough to get images off the CF cards and onto other media during a job).

Now, I'm about to go away on an extended trip and want to take the Asus and access the catalogue, complete with standard sized previews. The Asus has LR2.2 installed and I've copied the main catalogue across (the latest catalogue from the Lightroom/backups folder) as well as the Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata folder, and dropped both into the Lightroom catalogue on the Asus. Howevber, when I open up this catalogue on the Asus I can't get it to link up with what I assume are the preview files. Instead I'm left with grey boxes and question marks.

When I connect the two computers via ethernet and tell LR on the Asus where the files are (i.e. on the Dell hard drive), the question marks go and it starts making previews as I scroll through the catalogue. However, when I'm abroad, the Asus won't have direct access to the catalogue any more, but I still want to be able to access my library previews. How can I do this?

Sorry to keep going on, but there's another (linked?) issue here too, which is that on my Dell, when I scroll through the catalogue for images I haven't accessed in a while, 'rendering preview' seems to come up. A month or so ago I rendered standard sized previews for the whole catalogue in the hope that this would get rid of this process and speed access to everything, but it seems that they may have been discarded. Does LR2.2 discard the standard previews created on import? I have it set to discard 1:1 previews after 3' days, but that shouldn't remove standard sized ones, should it. Or am I just confused?

If anyone can help I'd be so grateful. I may not have much hair left these days, but what there is I am tearing at already.

Thanks in anticipation folks,

Ben
 
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Re: Transfering previews and working on another machine without access to librar

Ben, why not just copy the folder with your working catalog and previews to the Asus? That will work just fine.Ooops, welcome and I suggest you upgrade to 2.4 first through the Help menu.LR doesn't discard the standard previews. Which view are you seeing the message in? What size are your standard previews, they should be set (in Catalog Settings/File Handling) to be larger than your screen pixel width.I've lost most my hair so don't bother about tearing it out any more!! :D :D
 
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As you have admitted yourself, the netbook is not great for photo work. I can see where it would be an advantage to have immediate access and editing capabilities for your photos taken on your extended trip. The problems that you are encopuntering are compounded by LR getting confused. What is Local on one machine is not Local on the other. Local in Windows is "C:\" What I would recommend for portability and flexibility is to maintain two catalogs. A Master on your home computer and a temporal catalog on the netbook. Export to the temporal catalog what images you need to take with you and add to the temporal catalog during your trip. When you return, export the netbook folder as a Catalog and import it into your home computer Master Catalog.
 
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Thanks for your help folks - I love this forum! Really makes you feel that you're not alone i the (still) confusing world of digital photography!

A couple of rejoiners, though - first to you Kiwigeoff:

1) Just upgraded to 2.4 as recommended.

2) The 'rendering larger preview' message comes up (albeit briefly) in Library module. Is this just a default message to signify it's retrieving the preview from the previews folder, perhaps? In fact, any idea what the previews folder will be called?

3) Screen pixel width is set larger than my screen

4) The really important question. You say 'copy the folder with your working catalogue and previews to the Asus'. Well, I'm not sure which this is. The only catalogues I'm aware of having are in a folder labelled 'Backups' within the Lightroom folder, and a new file is created every time I run the backup (i.e. on restart). This file (which I assume is the catalogue file) is what I have been transfering over to the Asus. However, the 'Backups' folder doesn't contain any preview files. They, I assume, are the many folders ('-9 and a,b,c, etc) that reside in the 'Lightroom/LightroomCataloguePreviews.lrdata' folder, which is seperate within my 'Lightroom' folder. What I have tried to do is move the latest catalogue file across to the Asus, then move the entire 'Lightroom/LightroomCataloguePreviews.lrdata' across too. No luck so far. Any suggestions?

5) Just discovered that all the folders I have archived onto an external HD now don't appear as thumbnails within LR on the Dell anymore - just the same grey boxes and question marks. Anyone any idea what is happening here?

And now to you, clee:

I like the idea a lot, but when I tried to do this (i.e. imported a shoot into a new catalgue on the Asus for rough editing while on a job, then tried to combine the catalogues on return), I couldn't do it. I know I can export a catalogue using the export catalogue function (but what does this do, exactly?), but then how do I merge catalogues? Sorry - I'm aware this is probably a very daft question, but although I've been using LR for a couple of years, I've been doing it a particular way and, well, you know about dogs and new tricks and all that...

Thanks again for all your help guys - I really appreciate it!

Cheers,

Ben
 
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Re: Transfering previews and working on another machine without access to librar

Ben, lets track down your catalog and previews folder.Usually this is in your Pictures folder in a Lightroom folder.You can also find it most likely using in LR File/Open Catalog which should go to the folder where the catalog is.Lets see how you go with finding your main catalog, there will be the two files .lrcat and previews.lrdata.
 
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On Win, the preview cache, catalog_name.lrdata is a folder. On Mac, I believe it's a different hyrbid entity called a package.

So, you'd want to be copying, catalog_name.lrcat (a file), and catalog_name.lrdata ( a parent folder, with a gazillion subfolders) to the new location. As Geoff says, they're always side by side, usually somewhere in the User's folder tree, Pictures, My Pictures, something like that depending on exact OS.

Given those two, you should be able to see preview/thumbnail versions of the images, and do metadata(rating, keywording, etc) work with them.
Those *.lrcats in the backup folder are just that, of course, backups. If you haven't already, make sure those are not on the same drive as the working catalog files, discussed above. Wouldn't want a single drive failure to lose your working and backup files together.
 
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Okay - I've succesfully located and transfered the catalogue and previews folder which were in a single dated folder. And I've opened the catalogue on the Asus. However, now I get the "(filename) is offline or missing" and a grey screen. Still no previews...?
 
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I'm not sure about the dated folder part. That still sounds as if you're using the backups.
You should be looking at x:\username\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat, and x:\username\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog Previews.lrdata\' thru F\... as the default location. x:\username\ will be the path to your default user data locations, Desktop, Documents, Pictures, etc. Defaults to C:\
 
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Hi Brad - thanks for taking me on here!

In the Pictures/Lightroom folder I have: Backups, Lightroom Burned Exports and Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata.

When I try 'Open Catalog' in LR, I'm taken to the "public documents" folder in explorer which is where this dated folder is. I take it that this the catalog I'm working from?
 
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It must be, which presents a different confusion. I believe the .lrcat file and .lrdata folder are required to be side by side. I think you can hack around that on a Mac, but not so much on Windows.

Have a look in that Public Documents folder for an .lrdata previews folder.
Truly, it shouldn't be this hard. Lr is designed to do what you're looing for, we just need to get the correct catalog connected with the correct previews.
 
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Right - here's what I've done. I've moved that 'dated' folder back into the Lightroom folder, and renamed it 'LR Main Catalogue' and opened the LRCat file from within it (So inside the C:User/Pictures/LR folder there are now: 'Backups', 'LR Burned Exports', 'LR Catalog Previews.lrdata', and the newly renamed and re-located 'LR Main Catalogue'). Anyway, I now have LR open and working from the LRCat from inside 'LR Main Catalogue'. However, I've also gone one step further.

Currently I am re-rendering standard sized previews for the entire catalogue. OVernight I did those stored on the internal HD of the Dell (and when I open one now it reads: 'reading from previews' very briefly rather than 'rendering' - hooray!) and now I'm processing the DNGs on the external HD. I'm hoping that somehow, the computer has lost most of the older previews, or that the older previews are that 'LR Catalog Previews.lrdata' folder sitting within the main LR folder. Either way, the 'Lightroom/LR main catalogue/Lightroom 2 Catalog Previews.lrdata' folder is now something like 3GB (for the around 11,''' files in the Dell HD library), which I'm hoping means the previews have been rendered, and referenced, here. This does mean that now I have both previews and catalog sitting next to each other in the 'LR Main Catalogue' folder at least.

Anyway, when I finish rendering the archived images on external HD, I'm going to copy across the entire 'LR main Catalogue' to the ASus and see if I've finally solved it.

Do you think the LR Catalog Previews.lrdata within the main LR folder are possibly the older ones that go with a now-lost catalogue? It might have gotten a bit confusing when I started moving catalogs around to the 'shared' folder.

And one final question - If I then work on 'LR Main Catalogue', on the Asus for a few months (I won't have access to the DNGs, but will just be 'rejecting' offline images from the catalog), then when I re-transfer it to the Dell and it all links back up, I should be fine to go? I guess I'd probably be best importing new images shot while abroad into a different catalogue, right? Then merge them all when I get back?
 
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Yes(with that folder name possibly from Lr 1.x?)
Yes, you should just be able to copy back the catalog with the ratings and etc. changes
Yes, use a new temp catalog for new images in the interim and merge after.
 
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Hooray hooray horray! All is well with the world again!

Asus now up and running, previews showing everywhere and I've come to a much better appreciation of how this program works to boot.

Thank you so, so much Brad, and everyone else who took the time to help out with this. I can't tell you how grateful I am.

Now, if anyone can answer questions about solar... (just kidding).

Thanks again folks,

Ben
 
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