how to save the developing work done in LR on one computer to another?

[Eric Brody]

I just returned from a short trip during which I took almost 300 images. I imported them to Lightroom 5 on my Macbook Pro and spent some time with about 20 or 30 developing them in Lightroom. Upon returning home, I took the card from the camera and imported them into Lightroom on my new Mac Pro desktop. Obviously the files were untouched. It seems as though there ought to be a simple way to transfer the modified files from one Lightroom catalog (on the laptop) to another (on the desktop) but I do not know how. I am certain that if there's a way, some helpful person on this forum can tell me and save me quite a bit of work.
Thanks for any ideas.

[aduke]

There is, of course.  To do it, open the catalog on your laptop, select the files you want to transfer (I usually transfer all of them), and choose 'Export as Catalog' in the File pulldown menu. You should also check the 'Export negative files' box at the bottom of the dialog that allows the choice of destination. Either export directly to your desktop, if the two machines are networked, or to a convenient medium that you can move to your desktop. The last time I did this, I just wrote the catalog and and images to an SD card.

Alan

[Eric Brody]

Thanks Alan, it worked just fine. Now all the time I spent processing, labeling, and keywording is not wasted. This will be a huge help on my next trip which will involve LOTS more photos. I appreciate the quick help.

Eric

[eliedinur]

One more step to add to what Alan described - to avoid a proliferation of small catalogs on the desktop and get them merged into one or two big catalogs (recommended) open the master catalog and do File/Import from Catalog.

[Eric Brody]

Thanks Elied. I did what you suggested and simply added the new catalog to the old which now has over 50,000 images. If I had infinite time, I'd go through them and trash the junk but storage is cheap and my time, even as a retired bum, is taken up with making new images and processing them.
Thanks to all.