Can I merge a JPG and RAW folder in a catalog and keep the edits?

Question

I usually shoot RAW plus JPG and always used to copy all of them into the same folder. That worked fine, but was a little pointless as the JPG was only used as a temporary preview before the RAW was loaded in behind it. For speed of editing at events, I started to split the files in to two separate folders and import both, but tag and do basic edits, crops etc on the JPGs so for 'news' website use, then work on any higher quality client requirements from the RAW. It would be nice if I could later merge the two together so that those basic edits - and ratings etc - were then applied to the RAW files. They have the same names - bar the extensions, of course - having be renamed by LR on import. I tried it on a test shoot, but it just seems to add separate JPG and RAW images to the catalog. Is there a way to have it associate the unedited RAW with the edited JPG?
Guy

Answer 1

Cornelia-I wrote:
Hello Guy gswarbrick,
I am not sure I understand where your current workflow with the JPGs saves you time:
Do you load them into your LR catalog, and do you do the ratings and crops there?
Then for selling on the web you export the JPGs thusly edited from LR?
Do you use a laptop on site/in the field for this?
I am just wondering, where you would actually loose time if your workflow would be the following:
General preparation of your LR set-up:
Define a default develop setting for RAWs that matches your camera's JPG-conversion pretty fine, so that the result would be almost identical without any explicit develop edit.
Define a default export setting for your JPGs to be sold on the web on the day: choose the quality, the size (resizing rules) fit for web, colour space most probably sRGB, ... (no adding to the catalog)
Workflow during the shooting day:
Only import RAWs, no JPGs at all.  [Do you fear this takes longer than imprting the JPGs?]
Do the quick stuff during the day like you do today on the JPGs, just on the RAWs. Should also be rating/labeling and cropping, nothing more thanks to your prepared default develop settings.
...Compared to any option with ExifTool or the like for the final RAW-work (4.) you would definitely save the time there.
So the question is: would you really loose time during the critical phase on shooting day?
I guess not, provided your default develop settings achieve pretty much your camera's jpg-conversion. You may need to experiment a little there, make these defaults specific to ISO ranges and camera serial number if you shoot with several cameras, but once this prep is done there should be no more substantial delay.
Unless you post the images directly from camera to the web without passing through LR catalog. Or your field laptop would be of very low spec.
Where to start? Let's start with my laptop; it's about the highest spec available, coupled with Sandisk Extreme Pro cards and a high speed card reader. What about my fear that importing the RAWs would take longer than the JPGs? Well, a small, basic JPG is about 500k, the equivalent uncompressed RAW file is 12Mb, so I reckon about 24x as long to import - give or take. Plus the time to render the RAW file, which isn't required for the JPG. And that's assuming I'm not adding default develop settings, which have a small but not insignificant overhead. For that reason, the RAW imports are usually done after the events or during (rare) breaks.
I've arrived at this workflow through 5 years of experimentation. RAW-only simply does not work for these sorts of events. Most of my 'competitors' shoot JPG-only, for that very reason, but I don't want to lose the RAW option for the print work.