Help With LightRoom Please

[Mitchell]

OK I was an idiot. Filing, organization, and naming consistency were for sissies.

I accumulated 8,000 mages organized like a teenager's bedroom.

I saw the light and worked mind numbingly for a few weeks getting folders in order on my G5.

Today was going to be a big day in the annals of filing!
I was going to transfer a folder with many subfolders containing a few thousand newly organized images in LightRoom from my Hard Drive 2 on my G5 to a external hard drive.

But, error message. Repeatedly.

So I guess I'm trying to transfer too many images or folders at the same time.

I think I could do this outside of LightRoom in the Finder, but then the files would be lost to LightRoom. I could then, in LightRoom, Locate them, but only in small groups which would take at least a day.

Any suggestions would be Greatly appreciated.

Best,

Mitchell

 

[tashley]

Try the Export as Catalog option... it'll take a while but it'll keep everything in the correct relative positions and with all the required catalogue and processing info.

 

[Mitchell]

Thanks so much. I'll try it.

Will this create a new catalog? I would like to have one catalog. Is there a way to combine catalogs?

I really appreciate your help. I was stuck.

Best,

Mitchell

 

[tashley]

Thanks so much. I'll try it.

Will this create a new catalog? I would like to have one catalog. Is there a way to combine catalogs?

I really appreciate your help. I was stuck.

Best,

Mitchell

Yes it will create a new catalog. If you export your entire collection it will create an exact copy of the catalog you already have. If you export a subset, it won't, but you could export several subsets adding up to the entirety of your collection and then you could open one of them and import into it all the others and end up with an exact copy of what you started with.

It's all very useful, especially for when you're out in the filed with a laptop and want to add the shots you've got in LR on that machine to your main desktop machine's library.

Best of luck

Tim

 

[Godfrey]

Mitchell,

I wrote this up a while back. Hopefully it will help...
---
To move a large collection of files to another storage location, I've found this to be the most efficient way to do it:

1- In Lightroom, Library module, Grid view. Select the "All Photographs" entry in the Catalog panel. Select all in the Grid View. Elect the "Metadata->Save Metadata to File" command. When it's done, go to the Folders panel and use the right-click command to "Include Parent Folder" until you obtain the root directory under which all your photos on the present drive are included. Then quit Lightroom.

2- backup both your files and the catalog database to an external volume off-line from your working set.

** ALWAYS have a backup before you make major changes to a large catalog and file repository. **

3- move the files' directory tree to the new destination maintaining the same root directory structure, and delete them from the original location. Put the LR catalog (the whole directory containing the LR catalog and previews, etc) where you intend to keep it for use.

4- Open the catalog with Lightroom again. The folder panel should show the directory tree in Red and the thumbnails will be marked with a question mark. Right-click on the root parent directory in the Folder panel and use the 'find missing directory' command. Navigate to the parent directory in its new location, and select it. LR will update the root directory and all relative paths underneath it.

That should do the whole job for you.

If you're unsure, I would recommend creating a new LR catalog and making a subset collection of files in a separate directory tree to practice with first before disrupting your main working catalog and file repository.

Godfrey

 

[Mitchell]

Tim and Godfrey,

Thanks for your help. Greatly appreciated.

I haven't tried it yet. I've had issues with LR in my laptop loosing track of a couple a thousand shots so I'm taking a breath and waiting to calm down.

I do OK with processing, but folders and catalogs do me in.

Best,

Mitchell