Should I store my presets with my catalog?

Last week, we discussed the options for using your catalog on more than one computer. When you open your catalog on the second computer, however, you may find that your presets are missing. These include Develop presets, Metadata presets, Import presets, Print templates and so forth.

By default, your presets are stored in your user account on your computer, but if you’re using your catalog with multiple computers, you can choose to store them with the catalog by checking the Preferences dialog > Presets tab > Store presets with this catalog checkbox.

Before you rush off to check the checkbox, there are a few warnings to note, as this checkbox causes as much confusion as it solves:

• Lightroom doesn’t move the presets to the new location automatically, so we’ll step through how to do that in a moment.
• If your presets ever seem to have ‘gone missing’, that checkbox is probably to blame.
• When checked, the presets are only available to that specific catalog, so don’t check it if you need to use multiple catalogs (unless you want different presets with each catalog).
• Some settings are always stored in the user account, regardless of the Store presets with this catalog checkbox state. These include default Develop settings, custom point curves, lens and camera profiles, and email account settings, which are always tied to a single machine.
  • (There is a way of using Symbolic Links and Dropbox to sync presets, including these defaults and profiles, which is covered on pages 515-517 of my Lightroom CC/6 book.)
• In most situations, this checkbox causes unnecessary confusion, so I’d recommend leaving it unchecked unless you have a specific reason for using it (such as using a single catalog on multiple computers or requiring different presets in different catalogs).

Checking or unchecking the Store presets with this catalog only changes where Lightroom looks for presets and stores new ones.  It doesn’t copy any existing presets to the new location, so you need to manually copy them.  To do so:

1. Go to Preferences > Presets tab and uncheck Store presets with this catalog and press the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button.
2. An Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) window opens, showing the presets in your user account.
   • You can also navigate to this location manually. The full path is:
     Windows—C: \ Users \ [your username] \ AppData \ Roaming \ Adobe \ Lightroom \Mac—Macintosh HD / Users / [your username] / Library / Application Support / Adobe / Lightroom /
3. Keep the Explorer/Finder window open in the background and switch back to Lightroom.
4. Check the Store presets with this catalog checkbox and press the Show Lightroom Presets Folder button again.
5. A second Explorer (Windows) / Finder (Mac) window opens, showing the catalog-specific Lightroom Settings folder.
6. Drag (or copy/paste) your presets from the user account folder to the catalog-specific one (or vice versa, depending on where you want the presets stored.)