Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: AFairley on June 14, 2014, 07:08:41 pm
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I want to do some Lightroom housekeeping (keywording and rating) on my laptop while I am on an extended vacation, and want to make sure I'm on the right track.
I don't have enough room on the laptop drive to take along all the old images, but I believe I can use smart previews to save space. I also will be shooting and editing during that time, and I'd like to keep the new images on the laptop and back up to a portable drive, and this is where I get a little confused.
My Lightroom catalog resides on the desktop computer where I do my editing; my image files reside on another internal hard drive on that computer.
I am assuming the following will work to get the smart previews on the laptop:
Copy desktop catalog to laptop; map desktop HD to laptop with same drive letter so the laptop catalog knows where everything is.
Generate smart previews for everything in the catalog.
Mapped drive will be disconnected (obviously) on the road and LR will use the smart previews.
So, now I have smart previews I can use for tagging, etc. on the road. New images will be imported to the laptop HD using my normal folder structure (yyyy\yyyy-mm)and show up in the catalog.
When I get back home, I copy the catalog back to the desktop; the original images are where the catalog expects them to be, with updated metadata in the catalog. I copy the folders of new images to the desktop HD, LR will now show the images as missing in the catalog, so I point LR to their new location. Now I have my original images with the added keywords and ratings, plus the new images with whatever I did with them on the road all in my "original" catalog, correct?
Please let me know if I've got something wrong or there is a simpler way. Thanks!
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My first thought is that if you are only doing metadata adjustments on the archive pictures then you don't need to build smart previews. Smart previews would only be necessary if you want to (re)develop some of those older images.
Jon
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Alan, your overall understanding is correct and I'd endorse the workflow you propose. I've been doing so etching very similar since smart previews were introduced, taking my entire main catalogue with me when I'm away for long periods (the only difference being that I generated the smart previews).
John
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Which would be the best way to move the new images to the desktop?
Transfer them to the new location and then point Lightroom at them, or to move the images within Lightroom?
I ask because I will need to do it in the next few days.
Ray
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Is your circumstance the same as the OP?
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I have my main catalog copied to the laptop, but no smart previews.
I have added images over the last 10 days.
As I see it I can either transfer the original RAWs (which are on a portable drive) outside of Lightroom and then point Lightroom at the files, or transfer them within Lightrom.
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"As I see it I can either transfer the original RAWs (which are on a portable drive) outside of Lightroom and then point Lightroom at the files, or transfer them within Lightrom. "
To be honest, I don't think either method will work, though I'd go for the second since everything remains under Lightroom's control.
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Thanks John.
I have returned home and eventually managed it. Part of my problem was that I have just bought a MacBook and so it was Mac to Windows and the drives were formatted, either so that Mac couldn't write to it (NTFS) or so that Windows couldn't do anything with it.
Also there were some errors on the drive.
I also managed to select ALL my images by mistake and then moved 8000 before I realised my mistake.
I'm not sure why you thought either might not work - both seem to have worked as I did a bit of both.
My folder structure is simple, year/month/day.
I think my advice would be to keep the same folder structure on the road (If I was away for an overlap of more than one month I would make the top folder a year, and if away for the same month, then I would just use the month and import as days), with the top most folder being month or year. (Hope that makes sense).
Import the images as normal into Lightroom and work on them.
On returning home, COPY the folder to retain the folder structure to the main storage, copy the catalog back to the desktop, and then use find missing folders.
I would advise the copy method, as in the LL video they advise import via copy rather than move. And it would also avoid the mistake of trying to copy ALL the images.
Also get all the images onto the same drive.
Ray