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Working with a Copy of a Catalog

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Terry Hewitt

New Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2017
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9
Lightroom Experience
Power User
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
Ligthroom Classic 8.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Please could someone advise that this should be the correct workflow
  • On my desktop Export as a Catalog a folder of around 9,000 photos, but only export the Previews and Smart Previews and NOT the original raw files
  • Copy it all (around 20GB) to my laptop
  • Make changes to the images in LR Classic on the laptop
  • Transfer the .LRCAT file ONLY back to the desktop
  • Import from a catalog on the desktop using the file I uploaded from my laptop
    • I assume my desktop will now merge the laptop catalog into the main catalog and I will have the modified images available.

Or must I upload the previews and smart previews as well?

Best wishes
Terry
 
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That would work fine. So maybe your next step is to test it on a small scale.
 
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Should work but may be simpler to:

  1. make sure you have smart previews for images of interest on desktop (may want to remove smart previews from images your done with)
  2. close LR on both computers
  3. copy catalog and various other "previews" folders (especially the Smart Previews folder) to Laptop
  4. work on laptop.

5) Copy catalog back to desktop from laptop (with Smart Previews folder if desired)

If you use a tool for the copying that only copies "changed" files if you do it a 2nd time most of the smart previews would be skipped in the copy process
 
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John,

Thanks, and I should have thought of a small test. Just done some tests and it does want I expected and want.

Thanks very much.

Best wishes
Terry
 
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Califdan said:
Should work but may be simpler to:

  1. make sure you have smart previews for images of interest on desktop (may want to remove smart previews from images your done with)
  2. close LR on both computers
  3. copy catalog and various other "previews" folders (especially the Smart Previews folder) to Laptop
  4. work on laptop.
5) Copy catalog back to desktop from laptop (with Smart Previews folder if desired)

If you use a tool for the copying that only copies "changed" files if you do it a 2nd time most of the smart previews would be skipped in the copy process
Click to expand...

Califdan

I understand and that would also work. I was reluctant to do that as the desktop catalog has 60,000 images in and I didn't want to risk making a mess of that.
and getting rid of the not needed smart previews would be a pain.

I can certainly see when I would use it though.

Thanks for the advice.

Best wishes
Terry
 
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Califdan's method is what I actually do - since the introduction of smart previews made it viable to have large numbers of images available on the laptop. Providing you backup your main catalogue, it's probably more convenient.
 
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