When you first launch Lightroom after a major update, such as the recent update to 9.0, it asks your permission to upgrade your catalog - but why? Is it safe? What does it actually do? Sometimes database changes need to be made in the catalog to … Click to continue
How do I rearrange existing photos into a new dated folder structure?
In a previous post entitled How do I reorganize my Folders panel we discussed how to create, rename and delete folders, and how to move photos between folders. If you're moving to a dated folder structure, Lightroom won't create the folder structure … Click to continue
How do I reorganize my Folders panel?
Lightroom only automatically organizes photos (for example, into dated folders) while importing. But if your existing folder structure is a mess, you can tidy it up manually by creating, moving, renaming and deleting folders and photos. While … Click to continue
Lightroom Classic Catalogs – Top 10 Misunderstandings
Lightroom Classic has two primary functions - organizing your photos and editing them. Although its organizational tools are powerful, they're also the most misunderstood. These are some of the most common catalog-related misunderstandings. #1 - … Click to continue
How do I consolidate photos from multiple drives?
When you start to run low on hard drive space, you may try to solve the problem by buying additional hard drives. However, over time, it's easy to end up with photos all over the place, and then it’s hard to check that they're all being backed up. In … Click to continue
How do I move only my photos to another hard drive, leaving the catalog where it is?
If you need to move photos to another hard drive, perhaps because you’ve outgrown your existing hard drive, there are two main options. As a rule of thumb, you can use option two for moving a few photos/folders, but option one is safer when moving … Click to continue
How do I find and move or rename my catalog?
When you opened Lightroom the very first time, Lightroom created a catalog to store the information about your photos. Whether you're tidying up, moving to a new hard drive, or even just checking your backups, you'll need to know where to find … Click to continue
Moving Lightroom to a New Computer – New FREE eBook
One of the questions we're most frequently asked is ‘How do I move Lightroom to a new computer?’ It's one of those scary moments when you know all your precious photos and edits rely on getting the move right, and unfortunately there's plenty of … Click to continue
Which Lightroom files do I need to back up?
Whether you're backing up Lightroom ready to move to a new computer, upgrade your operating system, or you're just double checking your main backups, you'll need to know which Lightroom files to include in your backups. There's a fair number of … Click to continue
How do I clean up duplicate photos?
Over time, you may have ended up with a load of duplicated photos that you need to clean up. Merging catalogs can introduce duplicates, but so can importing photos with Don't import suspected duplicates unchecked, importing exported photos or using … Click to continue
How do I copy metadata or edits between photos?
It's easy to end up with duplicate photos in your catalog that need cleaning up. These may be real files on the hard drive or virtual copies. Either way, some will have edits you don't want to lose. For example, you may have edited one copy of the … Click to continue
Merging Catalogs – Stage 4 – Cleanup
In the last few posts, we've been merging multiple catalogs into a single new Master catalog. Once the photos are all in a single catalog, you can finish cleaning up. Fix Missing Photos If any photos are still marked as missing, now's the time to … Click to continue
Merging Catalogs – Stage 3 – Using Import from Another Catalog to Merge
In the last post, we finished gathering information about the catalogs and created a plan of action. With all of the information to hand, you're ready to start merging catalogs. Open Lightroom and go to File menu > New Catalog. This will … Click to continue
Merging Catalogs – Stage 2 – Prepare Catalogs for a Clean Merge
In the last post, we figured out which of your multiple catalogs you want to merge into your new Master Catalog. There's a little more preparation work to do, which will help to avoid problems later, and then we can go ahead with the merge. Stage 2 … Click to continue
Merging Catalogs – Stage 1 – Identifying Catalogs
In the last post in the series, we gained an overview of the process of merging multiple catalogs into a single Master catalog. The first task is to identify which catalogs contain metadata you want to keep. The easiest way to do this is to make a … Click to continue