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Author Topic: Can I export "Collection" changes to my Lightroom folder  (Read 1696 times)

Rob E

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Can I export "Collection" changes to my Lightroom folder
« on: January 16, 2016, 10:56:00 pm »

I am looking at my Hard Drive Folders through Lightroom/Library module. There are the Folder and subfolders that I have NOT been working out of for the last five years.

D:
/Quick Pile for Lightroom
/2008 Indy Air show, Bonneville work box, apples, oranges...

Below that, are my Collections:
 
Collections:
/Quick pile for Lightroom/
/2008 Indy Air Show, Bonneville work box, apples, oranges...

Is that enough explanation as to what I have done?
My "Collections" almost mirrors my D drive.

In my mindset five years ago I thought I had to import every single file to a Collection.  I have done so meticulously for 8000 photos.  These photos are the cream of my crop.

My lower ranking ones do not make it to Lightroom and are backed up carefully on my E: and external hard drives.

Of course my .lrcat and .lrdata files are backed up on those drives as well.

SO... I have 8000 photos that have a little, or a lot of, changes to them. ALL done to virtual copies of the original (cr2, tiff, and jpg) files. All of these changes were done to the files in the Collection versions.
NOT the Folder versions.

In a discussion with a friend, who could not understand what the heck I was doing,  I realized, this morning, I did not need to Import every photo and I can work off the Folder versions of all of my Photographs. Create Virtual and edit...   Lightroom takes care of all my changes just like in the imported Collection version.

THE BIG QUESTION:----> Now... Is there a way I can move all of my virtual copies/changes to apply/relate to the Folder version of the Photographs vs the Collection version? 


I know they are the exact photo in both references. but Lightroom will not allow me to move the virtual copies(from the Collection Set) to the Folder version. It will also tell me that if I try to move the original (from the Collection version) to the Folder version it tells me that there is already a copy of that file in the Folder.(kind of a "duh" moment but I tried it nonetheless.)


I think... sigh... that in the last five years of using Lightroom I have created a Frankenstein. Any way to clean up this mess?

Other notes: I do not copy/duplicate files into a Lightroom Folder within Lightroom, all the original files remain on that D: drive. This is Lightroom 5.7

Thank you for reading such a long winded post.  Any help with solving this fandango will be greatly appreciated.
Rob't
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aduke

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Re: Can I export "Collection" changes to my Lightroom folder
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2016, 01:26:11 am »

Rob, welcome to LuLa.

First off, relax, you're in much better shape than you imagine.

When you create a virtual copy in a collection, the data for the VC is stored in the original folder and a new file is added to the database, referencing the original data. So, the first thing for you to do is to select one of the virtual copies in one of your collections, right-click on the on the virtual copy and select the "show in folder" function. This should take you to the original folder and show the selected VC. If you enter Develop Mode, you should see all of your changes to the image.

If all of the above is true for you, you can either keep doing what you are doing or you can delete the collections. The reduction in catalog space will be quite small if you chose to delete the collection.

My own practice is to create a collection for each shoot or trip. This makes it much easier to find all of related images since there are many fewer shoots than there are days of shooting and the collections can be renamed without disturbing the original data, since the collection just references the original data.

Many years ago, I learned the difference between the name of something, what it is called and what it is. Lewis Carrol wrote in "The Hunting of the Snark," a wonderful episode of these three topics in a discussion called "And it's my own invention."


Alan
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fdisilvestro

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Re: Can I export "Collection" changes to my Lightroom folder
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2016, 01:28:26 am »

Hi,

Alan is right, collections are logical grouping of images, they are not different versions of the images in your folders, they are the same images. The virtual copies must be visible in the folders too, maybe they are stacked and it might look like they aren't there.

Mirroring the folders into collections is just a redundant thing, you have gained nothing, lost nothing. You can either delete the collections and your images will still be there in the folders. You can have images in multiple collections according to different criteria and they will always be the same image.

Of course my .lrcat and .lrdata files are backed up on those drives as well.

Backup .lrcat as often as possible and have a backup of your image files. Backing up .lrdata is not that important since that can be regenerated anytime (it might be time consuming)

I think... sigh... that in the last five years of using Lightroom I have created a Frankenstein. Any way to clean up this mess?

Other notes: I do not copy/duplicate files into a Lightroom Folder within Lightroom, all the original files remain on that D: drive. This is Lightroom 5.7

You have not created anything, you just did not take real advantage of the collections, besides the fact that in the develop module you cannot see the folders but can see the collections.

In relation to the location of the files, from the logical perspective, it does not matter where they are as long as Lightroom knows. Chosing a location for the images should be more an issue of performance and reliability.

Manoli

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Re: Can I export "Collection" changes to my Lightroom folder
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2016, 02:15:48 am »

Other notes: I do not copy/duplicate files into a Lightroom Folder within Lightroom, all the original files remain on that D: drive. This is Lightroom 5.7

What Alan and Francisco said.
Just to add/emphasize what happens. 

> If you create a virtual copy WITHIN A COLLECTION, that VC is propagated (automatically re-appears) in the ORIGINAL FOLDER in your Library, as do any subsequent changes/additions/deletions.
> However, if you were to add the VC in the Library folder AFTER creating a standard Collection, you would have to add it manually to the Collection - it doesn't add itself.

If you've done all your 'post work' from within the Collections you're fine.
If you've mixed it up between both Collections and the Library - you'll need to double check.

Talking normal Collections here NOT Smart Collections.

« Last Edit: January 17, 2016, 02:20:47 am by Manoli »
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