Possible to over-write Star Ratings Only?

[John Caldwell]

In tidying up my primary LR catalog today, I apparently, but unintentionally, assigned 5 stars to all 200,000 catalog images. Is it possible to use a prior catalog backup file that has the "correct" star ratings, but does not reflect any of the other catalog work I've done since saving backup, to import only the Star ratings? I'd like to leave everything as it now sits in the "cleaned up" catalog except the Star ratings.

I'm aware the can can Import From Catalog and save virtual copies for all all content that differs, but that won't help here.

John Caldwell

[Rhossydd]

I don't think there's an easy way to do this.

I guess the answer will involve opening the new catalogue file in an appropriate SQL database application, then cutting and pasting the rating values from an old backup file.
It may be one of those tasks that could be quite simple, but practice first with some back up copies of the files before committing any changes to your master files.

Hopefully someone like John who knows more about the catalogue structure will be along to help soon.

[John Caldwell]

Yes, your insights are helpful and I have reached out to John. Many thanks,

John-

[john beardsworth]

Hopefully we're close to a solution. It's based on scripts (Adobe SDK) as for a few reasons I try to avoid directly updating Lr's SQL. But it could be done that way too.

[John Caldwell]

John Beardsworth rescued me! John wrote a couple of scripts that were easy to use and efficient. The scripts extracted only the Star Ratings from my backup catalog, copied those ratings to the destination catalog, and left all other catalog work intact. I was able to restore star ratings on a 198,000 image catalog in a few hours. I suspect the process could have been batched entirely at once across all 198,000 files, but because of my inexperience, I chose to restore the entire catalog in stages - treating as many as 40,000 images at once.

I am really indebted to John and can't imagine what I would have done without his help, aside from retracing a few dozen hours of key wording work.

John Caldwell

[jjj]

Nicely done John.

Though the first thing that struck me, since I've applied a batch star rating on a few occasions by mistake, was to simply use the undo command Cntrl/Cmd+z to fix issue.
Or had you already closed LR?

[Tony Jay]

Yes, John is a good bloke and a great resource!

Tony Jay

[john beardsworth]

Ah, thank you chaps

[John Caldwell]

Nicely done John.

Though the first thing that struck me, since I've applied a batch star rating on a few occasions by mistake, was to simply use the undo command Cntrl/Cmd+z to fix issue.
Or had you already closed LR?

Hours of catalog work, with many steps, have been done until I discover my error.

[jjj]

Hours of catalog work, with many steps, have been done until I discover my error.

Wondered if something like that had happened.
Anyway thankfully solved by one of our scripting gurus.