Copying and combining LR catalogs

[Pete JF]

Hi,

I need to copy a few catalogs and then do some combining..

When I copy a catalog to an external disk, should I only copy the most recent backup at the end of the path string?

Or, copy the entire catalog?


Im basically combining several catalogs are the same except on different computers, managing actual images that exist on one external drive..I'm then going to move the primary Catalog to the external drive and select that one in my Laptop and Desktop..

[Undertow]

Hi Pete,

First copy the working catalog, not the backups. In fact it should be thought of as more of a 'move' than a copy. Otherwise things get more confusing! Include the previews file unless you want LR forced to regenerate all previews.

Next, are you literally working with the same set of photos (on one external drive) with 2 different catalogs on separate computers without syncing them?? So each photo on that drive can have different reference edits in each catalog? Then you want to combine them? That will be a total mess I'm sorry to say.

Combining separate catalogs working with different sets of photos is easy.

But with the same photos, LR will run into issues when trying to combine where one photo has 2 different edits and you have to tell it what to do. I can't recall the detailed interface but there may be an option to use one catalog's edit and have the 'extra' edits saved as virtual copies. But I'm not sure atm.

Also keep in mind the previews file with which you're working as (if the above is correct) you will have multiple previews generated for the same images, wasting a lot of space.

Hope that helps.