Export TO catalog?

LR of course, doesn't work across multiple machines. Fine.
But is there any way to export INTO another catalog?
After I work the base things and my files of a wedding or other joint shoot, I send them to my wife's machine for her to work her files and do her part of the overall schema.
So, I export-as-catalog the set of folders for the wedding/whatever over to her computer. As a separate catalog, as that is the only way to do it I can find.
I'd rather just import INTO the main catalog on her desk that she does her own work in.
Another unfulfillable dream?
Neil

Christopher,
Thanks, ... I was trying to find a one-step process. Always looking to shave time and steps so as to have a life and try to get ahead, you understand.
Neil

Similar Messages

Puzzled by "negative files" in v1.1 "Export as Catalog"

I've been exploring the new features in v.1.1, and have found something I'm
puzzled by. When I go to File/Export as Catalog, there is an option called
"Export negative files", which will include duplicates of the original image files
in the exported catalog, be they raw, dng, jpg or whatever. I'm confused by
the use of the word "negative" here. I originally thought it was an oblique way
of saying that any image exported with a catalog would be converted to DNG
(Digital Negative), but now it seems that the intent is to use "negative file" to
mean an original digital photo file in a way analogous to how a film negative
can be an original of a photo in film-based photography.
Isn't there a better way of phrasing this instead of "negatives"? I know we're
now "developing" digital photos in the Lightroom instead of developing film
in a darkroom, but another film analogy in this instance in this instance
seems unnecessary and confusing.
Just wondering what others think of this. Personally, it's no big deal to me since
I figured out what "Export negative files" meant by playing with it, but the naming
of features in Lightroom and in Camera Raw is so elegant in general (e.g. Vibrance,
Clarity, Recovery, etc.) that this was a surprise.

Agreed.
"Include original files" would be much clearer.
Specially since digital files feel more like transparencies (slides)
than 'negatives'.
At least they didn't try to be really cute and call it "Export slide
files" and have us all really scratching our heads in confusion.
Edit: Quotation of original post removed by Forum Host

Correct procedure to export/import catalog

I took photos on my vacation and imported them into Lightroom 4 on my laptop. The RAW files are separated by Date folders. I have edited many of them and saved the resulting jpgs in a separate folder called jpg exports, as a subfolder in each date folder.
I have selected each of the date folders and the jpg export folders and selected "Export as a Catalog"
From that window, I have selected my external drive, created a file name Caribbean, deselected "Export Selected Photos only" as I want all of the photos I selected.
Export Negative files and Include Available Previews is selected.
The Catalog Export starts.
That process is underway as I type.
When I did this process in the past, my next step was to plug my external into my desktop, launch Lightroom 4 and import the catalog off of the external drive. When I did this before, the RAW files by date showed up in Lightroom, but each of the jpg folder didn't transfer.
What am I doing wrong or is it not possible to transfer the jpg edits over as part of the catalog?

"Import from Catalog" will only pay attention to images which are directly represented in the Catalog you have selected - which show a thumbnail there.
The fact that your JPG exports may be physically located inside the same folders as the Raw files that you have imported, or elsewhere, has no relevance here. If when you exported these JPGs, you selected the "import to Catalog" option then they will be represented in the Catalog and will therefore be included... but unless you actively want to see these exports next to the raw based images, in LR, with all the potential for confusion that brings - I am not going to suggest that as a good idea.
It is not necessary to first "Export as Catalog". You can directly put the Catalog you have already made, or a copy of that, onto the external drive. Also you can directly move (probably, Copy is safer) all the image folders bodily onto this external drive. These things can be done in your standard file browser (Finder / Explorer), when Lightroom is not running on the laptop.
Then you can connect your external drive to the Desktop, and start your main LR Catalog there. You can "import from catalog" (merge) all the images thumbnails, with their settings and metadata etc, into the desktop's LR catalog. All the images that you saw in the laptop, will now appear in the desktop too. If you only imported the Raws before, that is all you will see now.
The physical addressing information for each Raw file, as when originally imported, will also be transferred along with the other metadata.
So at this point the image thumbnails you have merged into your desktop catalog appear "offline" - the stored addressing they have, currently does not work in its new context. There will be a whole tree of date-based folders listed, corresponding to how things looked within the laptop, but at the moment showing "not found" so far as the desktop is concerned. This is OK - easily fixable.
You next need to decide where you want these image folders from the trip, to be located long-term. Transfer them bodily into that location (using Finder / Explorer). This should (in one go) include all the Raw files and the prior JPG exports, keeping the relative arrangement and naming of all these folders and subfolders intact.
Then in the Folders list of your desktop Catalog, you can right-click on the highest-level folder which is currently marked as "not found" with a ? icon. Then re-browse that to the new location where you have just put the transferred image folders. LR can then in one operation, not only update the file location information it holds for that folder, but also for all known contents of that folder - which means, all the imported images inside, and their containing subfolder "tree" - the whole trip. This will make all the transferred images from that trip "wake up again", and no longer be offline. You can now carry on editing them just as you did on the laptop.
If you have used a structured date-folder arrangement (such as, one of the automatic ones LR provides) in a 100% consistent manner when working on the desktop and when working on the laptop, your images from the trip can merge seamlessly into your main library.

How about 'Send to . . ' instead of 'Export as Catalog'?

Desktop Win XP SP3 with LR 2.4, Laptop Vista Home with LR 2.3. I have two catalogs: One is All Digital Images, the other All Slide Scans. I know I can have it all in one catalog but prefer this way.
On my desktop My Pictures folder contains all my LR files including both catalogs, both Image files, all previews and a LR Settings file. The other day I did an Export as Catalog of My Pictures including everything except the previews intending to send it to External K. It all ended up staying on my C drive (must have missed a prompt somewhere). Scared the heck out of me because I ended up with only 3gbs on my C drive!!! Anyway, I got that all sorted out by Copying My Pictures to Ext K, backing all of that onto Ext F and Firelite and then deleting the duplicate folder in C. (I also have the daily LR back ups on my D drive.)
As a result, it occurred to me that I might as well just have 'Copied' My Pictures to the external (as I do with back ups) as to Export as Catalog. Is there any good reason not to just 'Copy' or 'Send to'? What would be the difference?
Today I'm going to update the Laptop to 2.4 and will then delete all my images and .lrcats from the Desktop C drive. Because there are some additions and changes on the Desktop files, I thought about doing a new clean 'Export as Catalog' (for practice to see I can do it right) so I can have that on the Laptop when I update it to LR 2.4. Decided to get your answer above before making that move.
A lot of words for a little question . . .

joia small wrote:
I really do wonder where I missed the chance, in Export as Catalog, to direct the export to my EXT drive but prefer not to
It's an option in the first the dialog window that opens when you choose Export as Catalog...

LR4: Issues with "Export as Catalog"

I'm preparing my Windows LR 4.2 installation for a significant computer rebuild. Naturally I need to be able to 'save/restore' all my catalogs, some of which are not small. Having copies of his LR2 and LR4 books for Digital Photographers, I followed the technique recommended by Scott Kelby (which is also the subject of an FAQ on this forum). Aside from the assertation that it doesn't take long (for me, it did) the export of previews, database and negatives from all folders in each catalog, to a USB attached disk, worked ok. Except that...
1. In trying to understand why it was so slow I looked at the structure of the exported 'file' for my largest catalog on the external drive. It seemed to be a simple copy of the .lrdata set of many preview folders plus the .lrcat folder plus the original negatives in their original folder structure. Before attempting to prove this is the case, by repeating this process using Windows Explorer file utilties, I decided to compare the original files/folders with the copies that 'export as catalog' had made. I used 'Beyond Compare' for this (a product which, in my opinion, is exactly that: beyond compare). The results were very disconcerting:
1.1 Out of the hundreds of preview folders, in the .lrdata collection, there was not 1 single identical compare of combined folder and file in the copy. There were folders in the original which did not appear in the copy. Even worse, there were folders in the copy that did not appear in the original (explain that!). In those very few cases where there was a folder match, the enclosed .lrprev file did not match in either file name or file size. In other words the original and copy were completely different.
Is this as one should expect?
1.2 Overall the original .lrcat and .lrdata objects differed in size and date/time to the copy, with the originals being larger and dated/timed later than the copy, even though I had performed no library or development operation on the catalog, aside from closing it (which initated an automatic backup). What additional information has been added to the catalog after I copied it, and by whom?
2. On one catalog the export process repored that it could find no preview data for any of the photos, even though it shows them to me when I open the catalog. In addition, the original .lrdata folder is far larger than the exported copy of that folder - 599MB versus 3MB. So the preview data is definitely there in the originals. Why wasn't it exported?
Overall, the comparison using Beyond Compare suggests to me that a simple file copy of the catalogs and images should work - and it will certainly ensure that originals and copies are identical. Can this process be used to ensure that a valid catalog set will be produced for the subsequent 'restore' step?

Yes, you can simply copy the whole lot and it will function the same in the new location, provided the same image files (or equivalent copies thereof) are available to the Catalog at the same filepaths in both places. I believe the previews are found using a relative filepath starting from wherever the Catalog now finds itself. So the relative arrangement needs to be preserved. Or, if previews are not copied over, the Catalog still works fine, and will generate previews automatically as you go thereafter.
It may not be necessary to have Develop previews for every single image in the Library right at the start - remembering that previews for less recently edited images will have by default cleared themselves anyway, after a certain period.
If the image filepaths are going to be different in some systematic way - different drive letter, different folder location - then it is easy to update LR's internal records about that; for example, through a single operation on the parent folder, one can re-address an entire tree of subfolders and their contents at the same time.
As a database, one would expect a fresh copy written-out by Export to be optimised in terms of how the data is stored (disk block level) and also that it would be free of any accumulated redundancy (e.g., records and related indexing for items that are marked for deletion but still physically present). Perhaps this would be exactly the same as a database that had just been optimised by LR, perhaps not - the point of Export as Catalog is that this is NOT a whole-database operation, it is a SELECTIVE operation, based on whatever images have been highlighted. So the result is not necessarily ever going to be identical.
The previews folders are not intended to be human-readable, and can IMO be therefore thought of in the same functional terms - this effectively constitutes a second database. When previews are included in an Export, this is a second brand new structure being created, even if some of the data within that is a straight transfer.

Export as Catalog unresponsive

For some reason I am no longer able to export information to new Catalogs. I choose a folder in the Folders panel and go to File / Export as Catalog... and then nothing happens. No error message, no activity, no nothing.
After purging the preferences file I managed to export one catalog before the function hid itself again. After reinstalling LR 2.1 from scratch (although I did not clean the Windows Registry) I was allowed to export another three catalogs.
Has anyone else experienced this? I don't know where to look for errors.
I'm running LR 2.1 in a Win XP Professional environment.

Photo files are missing usually implies that you have moved or renamed or deleted the photos (or the folders that contain them) outside of Lightroom. In particular, there may be an excalamation point icon on the photo indicating it is missing, or a question mark icon on a folder, indicating it is missing.
To fix the problem, you need to locate the photos in your operating system, and then follow these instructions to reconnect in Lightroom: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

Export as catalog does not work

When i try to export as catalog, i get a message "Lightroom was unable to export the catalog" & the process ends there...
BTW, i get the message but no explanation... would be nice if the message could say "unable to create the catalog because of..."

I've seen the error message before, but can't recall in what circumstances.
You should try again with a new catalogue, importing images so you know for certain that they are online, and exporting to a place where you know you have write permissions.

LR was unable to export the catalog's previews and negatives

My first posting in this forum. I want to remove everything from my iMac in order to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard, then reload back. First job is to 'Export as Catalog' all my pics (around 6000) from the Mac to an external hard drive (Maxtor One Touch 4Plus, 450 GB available). I've tried 6 or 7 times and every time get a similar message - see Subject line. I've deleted unnecessary folders, gotten rid of unused keywords, and exported 2000 odd of my earlier photos as JPEGS to archive to reduce the volume. I've reloaded LR and updated to 2.6. And in the Export dialogue box I've ticked 'Export Negative Files' and 'Include Available Previews'. The export gets to about three quarters of the way through each time before I get the error message and I have to abort.
Appreciate any assistance.
Raymond
Melbourne, Australia

Is ALL PHOTOS included in your LR folder hierarchy? If it is not, then you need to right-click (or whatever the Mac equivalent is) on one of the folders in your LR hierarchy, and choose Include Parent Folder. Once you've done that, and copied everything over, you can just Locate Missing Folder on that one top folder and it'll find everything underneath it. If you don't have the parent folder in LR before you copy, you'd have to do Locate Missing Folder on each of the top-level folders.
Once you've copied your photos over, you can rename your local copy of ALL PHOTOS to make sure you're not accidentally finding it, then do the Locate Missing Folder to make sure it works on the Remote Location.
Once you're satisfied your catalog is seeing all the remote photos, and when you're ready, copy your catalog and your previews and backup folders over, and rename the local copy of the Lightroom so you won't accidentally open that copy of the catalog, again. I would copy things, instead of moving them, in case something happens you can start over.
If you are going to immediately upgrade your mac, then copy all three folder, other than the iChat ones, from Pictures to your remote drive and open the remote catalog and find missing folders all in one shot. I suggest doing only the photos, first, in case you want to continue working on the photos, the local copy of the catalog will be faster, but if you're ready to upgrade then just do all the copies at once. The ALL PHOTOS and the previews will be the time-consuming copies, the catalog, itself, won't take very long.

LR 3.6 Export as Catalog fails

I have about 40,000 images and the Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat is about 390 MB.
I have removed the 1:1 previews.
I have quit LR and did the backup with all the error checking. No errors ... so the catalog seems to be well-formed.
When I do Export as Catalog (in preparation for going to LR 5) .. the process seems to create all the files/folders and then after starting "Copying new catalog to final location" ... it runs for a while and then pops the generic "error" with no details.
I have tried 3 times. Same behavior.
Any suggestions?
I have 100 GB free.

There are several Lightroom authors, some of whom I'm personally acquainted with, and none of them have suggested that particular upgrade method. No doubt Martin has his reasons, but I certainly wouldn't do it that way from the outset. Here are a couple of links from other authors with their suggested upgrade method:
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/confused-upgrade-catalog-lightroom-5/
http://laurashoe.com/2013/06/09/how-to-upgrade-to-lightroom-5/
Incidentally, at the end of Victoria's blog post is an addition that I wrote. Although it was mainly targeted at the early beta testers, the final paragraph explains why any Publish Services users should avoid "import from catalog" whenever possible.

LR4 Export - Import Catalogs

When I export a catalog, what naming convention and folder structure do I export -to-?
That is, I have a My Documents\Picture Folder\05_MillerPhotography\20120930_MarlboroughSoccer (containing the images) hard drive-Lightroom4 folder structure and I want to export the Marlborough shoot to a temp folder and then import it (in the exact same structure) to a different catalog that does have the My Documents\Picture Folder\05_MillerPhotography\ structure, but not yet includes a folder for Marlborough.
It seems that when I do the import, it sends my new folder way down past 05_MillerPhotography\, such as repeating the entire structure -starting at- my 05_MillerPhotography folder in the new location.
I can be exporting from a Catalog on an external drive or different desktop drive, or particularly my laptop to my desktop.
Thanks.

I assume you ment Export-SPWeb not Export-SPSite command.
There is no known limitations in file size, except the compression file size that is set to 24MB by default. If you exceed 24MB, the cmp file will be splitted into several files. You can change the default 24MB value up to 1024MB, using the -compressionsize
parameter.

Keywords - Export as Catalog Exports Only Some

I have a fairly large hierarchical keyword list in my main catalog. When I "Export as Catalog ..." some of the photographs in my main catalog, only the keywords attached to the exported images are exported. How do I force Lr to export the whole hierarchical keyword list ?
Why isn't there a an option to ask Lr to do this, like there is one to tell Lr to "Export negative files" ?
Cheers !

I believe you have to export the keywords (a routine in LR) to a text file and import them on the new machine you are taking the partial catalog over to. It is not exactly what you are hoping for but will get you there.
Jeff

How to export a catalog from 1.0 to 2.5 on different computers

(Excuse me for asking this, but I couldn't find an answer online to my question.)
I recently bought a new iMac (snow leopard). and Lightroom 2.5.
I have a catalog with thousands of pictures stuck inside my old mac, in Lightroom 1.0 and apple OS 10.4.
I want tot take all my collections, selections, folders and developments to the new mac with LR 2.5.
So far I'm stuck. I can't seem to export a collection or library out of LR 1.0.
I can't upgrade either to a higher version on the old mac, as it's reached it's system limits (hence the new iMac).
Does anyone have a clear cut solution to share with me? It's been two months now and I'm still stuck.
Does anyone know what the oldest LR version is where you can export a complete catalog/library, and what the minimum system requirement would be for the mac?
Can anyone recommend a LR/mac expert in the Netherlands who could help me out with this?
Thanxx.

If you can figure out a way to copy the catalog and photos from the old computer to the new computer (via a network connection or USB HD or whatever) then you can just open the LR1.0 catalog in LR2.5 and it'll convert it and let you use it. In other words, there no need to "Export" anything, just copy the catalog file, itself, and the previews directory.

Lightroom 1.3.1: Export/Import Catalog

I did a Catalog export of a folder with 2 sub-folders inside. Worked fine. When I tried to import the exported catalog in my home computer, Lightroom did not maintain the same structure with folder and sub-folders. All the files were imported in the same folder, so I lost the structure I had in my notebook.
Another thing:
1) The import window (home computer) didn't show the folder structure, just the main folder (root);
2)I did another test, trying to import the files in the notebook. The import window showed folder and sub-folders structure.
Any idea in how to solve this problem? Anything wrong with I tried to do?
Thanks for your help.
Sylvio.
Home computer with Windows Vista.
Notebook with Windows XP.

I had similar problems. It is not clear to me how it is supposed to work. I ended up importing the directories and then having to move them which I did not like.
I would like to get clarity on a good laptop - Home Base catalog workfolw if anyone has one.

I want to copy edited files to a second computer, do I need to export the catalog or can I just copy

I find that I edit files on my laptop but I want the files, with their edits to reside on my desktop computer also.
I had been exporting the folder as a Catalog, but can't think of shy I can't just copy the folder with both the RAW and XMP files and import the folder on the Desktop PC. This option seems to work just as well as the catalog option.
Any reason I should choose one way over the other?
Using Lightroom 4.2
Thanks
Kelvin

I'm sure this isn't a complete list, but here goes:
flags
virtual copies
collection membership
stacks
edit history

Export as Catalog yields invalid lrcat / library.

I've tried this several times, both with and without previews.
I'm trying to make a copy of my masters with sidecars etc. so that I can examine the entire catalog on my laptop with an external hard drive.
On my destop PC I export all my images as a catalog to the external drive (it's a Terabyte drive ) and when done I cannot read the catalog on either the machine that created it or the laptop. I'm running Vista which seems to work ok with evertying else. I've tried both with and without previews thinking it would be a smaller amount of space by leving out the previews.
When opening the catalog from the file menu in LR 4.4 or by clicking on the saved .lrcat file it gives an error message that the catalog/library is invalid.
What can I do?
Dave
[email protected]

The name , excluding file extension, was DesktopAll.
The external drive was formatted NTFS.
The photos selected were all photos at the top of the left side. Export was for all images and to not export previews. I found I had some images without previews ..
I'm trying to perform experiments breaking the export into pieces.
For example, I can use metadata for the year the images were created to break the catalogue into portions.
So far I've been able to export a portion. I will have to take more time to export the remaining pieces and then import all into a new catalog.
So far, its a slow process.

Export TO catalog?

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