How do I batch "import from catalog"?

Hi,
I would like to import multiple catalogs simultaneously into one catalog.
The thing is that I lost my main catalog in a hard-drive failure and my last backup is too old. Fortunately I always "export a folder as catalog" into the original pictures folder, so I always keep starring, color editing, etc.
What I would like to do now is to import each of these litle catalogs into one new main one, without having to import each at a time, but all simultaneously, which would save me an enormous amount of time.
Is there a way to do this?
Thanks a lot in advance
Luís

Thanks for you answer Jim,
I always export each folder as catalog because I keep the originals in a shared network folder, so a coworker can import them over to his main catalog. I don't want him to make changes but just to know which are the starred/labeled ones, and export them with my color/etc editing.
I think this is not possible with a main shared catalog, because it's impossible to open them from a shared network folder.
I always use a main catalogue, the problem was really my lack of backup regularly. It would be great if LR give us the possibility of batch import from all those catalogs. "taking the time to import from each of those catalogs" as you say, will be really time-consuming...
Thanks again

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Import from Catalog -- how?

Every year I go on vacation and take lots of pictures, create a catalog of them on my notebook, and every year I fight with getting them into my main Lightroom catalog. I have almost 4000 photos to import in 37 directories.
This year I decided to try to do it the "right" way. I tried Import from Catalog. There is very little information about this feature in the help. I want to maintain what I've done on my notebook including the tree structure. I pointed to the catalog and LR said OK, fine, what do you want to do. I selected to move them and pointed to the new directory I had created for the tree structure. It started to import and it was clear it was completely ignoring my folder structure and was going to import almost 4000 photos into the single directory. So I stopped the import.
Last year I imported the catalog leaving the files where they were and then intended to move the directories. That worked, except since it plopped the new directories at the top level of my LR hierarchy, I had to move each folder individually, which was a pain. Especially since I think moving folders is only via drag and drop, so I had to drag from the top, letting it scroll to where I wanted it, each time. That might not happen this time because I have a directory above the 37 subdirectories, but it can't be the "right" way to do this.
I can't believe that many many people are doing this and succeeding. What am I missing?
Judy

It's done. This time I had a top level directory in the catalog so it was easy to move the directory tree. However, LR is very slow to move files, so if I had it to do again, I would have copied the files outside of LR and then repointed LR. The other thing is LR does a MOVE, which means it deleted my originals. For me, it was a copy already, so that didn't matter. If I do it myself, I can do a copy rather than a move.
It is done, but this is surely not the correct way!
Judy

Lightroom 5.5 Import from Catalog *very* slow performance.

Importing from a second catalog from a shoot is *very* slow with the last version or couple of versions of Lightroom. It's been about 20 minutes and the import is moving glacially slow and is only about 20% done.
Here are as many stats as I have:
iMac 27" 3.5Ghz Core i7, 32G of ram, 3T fusion drive (the late 2013 model maxed out)
Master catalog has 117,000 images in it.
The catalog I'm importing has 948 images in it.
CPU use during the import is 100% used by lightroom (note that the multiple CPUs can go to more than 100% so this means I think that one CPU is maxed out, though LR can sometimes take 500% of my CPUs during an export)
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Hard drive is fairly full, but still has 366G free on it (so about 10%)
Lightroom Mobile sync is enabled (not on this folder I don't think) but says "service unavailable" at this point.
Lightroom is fully up to date (5.5) on both iMac and laptop (also a mac in case that matters). Both are up to date with the latest OS software.
How I did it was:
Export the shoot as a new catalog on my iMac
Transfer it to my laptop (smart previews only, no masters)
Edit images, metadata, etc
Transfer the entire folder back (.lrcat, previews, smart previews) to iMac
In my master catalog do an import from catalog
Waited for ages for checking for dupes (which I can understand with such a big catalog)
Selected to import all, changing metadata and develop edits, and selecting to put new images in the folder (not sure why it asked as there weren't any new images)
The last time I did an import I started it and then went out somewhere so I didn't notice how long it took, but this seems completely crazy. In the time it's taken to write this up it's now about 20 minutes later and the progress bar is maybe at the 33% range. It's still working away, it's just crazy crazy slow.
Anything to help out or debug would be greatly appreciated. I suspect it's pure size of the catalog, but 120k isn't outside the realm of what I've heard people say works fine, or maybe the Fusion drive (maybe the OS is trying to move files around behind the scenes)?
Either way this didn't seem to be an issue until the last couple of versions (I haven't gone and re-installed 5.4 or 5.3 to check) and it's starting to really frustrate me

Hi Jim,
Great suggestion! It opens perfectly fine on its own. I even went as far as re-exporting it once it loaded but am still experiencing the same issue. That same catalog loads perfectly fine on my assistant's iMac.
I can't really think about anything that changed in my environment with the exception of a new Bootcamp partition to run windows on an external Thunderbolt HD but I doubt this is related.
I'm open to any suggestions while I am trying this again... 10 minutes of 'Checking for changed and duplicate photos'.

Import from Catalog- Why is metadata changing?

Whenever I run Import from Catalog (going from portable drive to desktop), the dialog box shows several photos that have been "modified," even though I haven't touched them since they were last imported to the desktop. I'm guessing, the desktop install of LR is finding metadata changes in some files. In fact, some thumbnails even show the "metadata changed" badges even though I haven't touched them.
I'm using LR 3 Macintosh, and want to share catalogs between my laptop and desktop using Import from Catalog. I consider my desktop the "master catalog" and mainly use the laptop for capture or editing when I'm traveling. The laptop catalog and photos are stored on a portable drive.
Here's what I did to try to isolate the problem - all of this was executed on my desktop machine so the LR settings should be identical:
1) Created a new catalog on the portable drive while attached to desktop.
2) Restart LR with new portable drive catalog active.
3) "Import to catalog" and import 10,000 photos to portable drive from the desktop catalog. This ran with no problems as expected.
4) Restart LR w/ original desktop catalog.
5) Run "Import from Catalog" to import form the portable drive. -- NOTE I hadn't touched ANY photos on portable since step 3.
6) Import from catalog show 0 "new" photos but about 10 "changed" photos. Why?? It shouldn't show any.
7) Cancel step 6 and run Import from catalog again. This time it shows 0 new and 0 changed. (that's what I'd expect).
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9) Give up and post this question. What is changing the metadata?
As background, I'm running most current versions of OS X and LR 3. My library contains mostly DNG files with some jpg and some TIF and PSD. The "modified" files that are showing up all seem to be DNG files. The files in the library were shot with Canon, G2, G10, 10D, 20D, 60D and 7D. The "modified" files appear to be from the 20D, 60D and 7D (all files shot in last 6 months). The library has some virtual copies and stacks, but this doesn't appear associated with the "modified" files.
Thank you in advance.
Marshall

Ian;
Thank you for your response. I suspect you may be correct, although I can't trace the problem to explain lens profiles as the issue either at this point. Each time I try to "Import from Catalog" back and forth between two catalogs - both made from the same instance of LR, it shows a different set of photos with who's metadata is changed. I make absolutely NO changes to any photos. I just choose "Import form catalog," look at the list of photos it says are changed, select, 'cancel," and then select "Import form catalog" again. Each time it gives me a different set of, and total amount of changed photos. First its 9 photos, then 32 photos, then 447 photos, etc.
This has "BUG" written all over it. If it's actually a feature, I wish someone could show me how to control it.
A lot of people complain about LR's ability to share catalogs between computers and keep multiple catalogs in sync. If I could master "Import from Catalog," I'd feel I'd have a workable solution for managing multiple computers (with one photographer / editor).
Just my opinion on this one feature. Overall, I LOVE working with LR.
Thanks again,
Marshall
PS. Thank you, Ian for the many tips and tutorials you've provided over the past years. I've learned a lot from them.

Import From Catalog Not Importing

Hi,
I'm using LR 3.4.1 on an 2.8 Dual Core imac running Osx 10.5.8 and 4 gigs Ram.
Im new to LR but have used photoshop (and teach it) for many years so not a complete novice.
Anyway I have decided to import all my ctalogs into a single blank Master one as I can see this will be much more convenient.
I have imported 1 catalog so far using Import from catalog >I then get a preview and option to uncheck or check files I want > then I select>Add new photos without moving.
This worked a treat and I have appeox 55,000 images so far in the Master catalog.
I now want to add another 2 external drives which I also already have catalogs for BUT after selecting >Add new photos without moving nothing happens.
Have I reached a limit of how many images can be in one catalog ? I don't think so.
All my images are keyworded but I'm not sure this makes a difference although I did read something somewhere that this can cause problems with version 2.
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Freeze on "Import from Catalog" at "Checking photo locations"

Hi there,
Before going away, I exported a LR catalog with a subset of my images from my desktop machine onto my laptop. I added additional images to that laptop catalog while I was away, and now want to re-import them into my desktop machine catalog.
Steps taken:
1) Copy catalog from laptop, with all supporting files and the image files, to desktop machine.
2) Open that catalog on the desktop machine, confirm that it can access and read its own images.
3) Open primary catalog on desktop machine.
4) Select "Import from Catalog" under the "File" menu.
Problem:
Rapidly makes duplicate copy of the catalog, then moves on to say "Preparing to Import from Catalog: Checking photo locations". It rapidly moves up to about 35% of the progress bar complete, then hangs there and does not progress no matter how long I wait (i.e. even leaving it sitting there overnight)
Any ideas?
(Mac OS X 10.5.2, Mac Pro 2 x 2GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 4Gb RAM, Lightroom 1.3.1.)

Hi there,
Before going away, I exported a LR catalog with a subset of my images from my desktop machine onto my laptop. I added additional images to that laptop catalog while I was away, and now want to re-import them into my desktop machine catalog.
Steps taken:
1) Copy catalog from laptop, with all supporting files and the image files, to desktop machine.
2) Open that catalog on the desktop machine, confirm that it can access and read its own images.
3) Open primary catalog on desktop machine.
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Problem:
Rapidly makes duplicate copy of the catalog, then moves on to say "Preparing to Import from Catalog: Checking photo locations". It rapidly moves up to about 35% of the progress bar complete, then hangs there and does not progress no matter how long I wait (i.e. even leaving it sitting there overnight)
Any ideas?
(Mac OS X 10.5.2, Mac Pro 2 x 2GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 4Gb RAM, Lightroom 1.3.1.)

LR3: Import from catalog over a network?

Just upgraded to LR3 on two networked Macs. LR2 catalogs have been upgraded to LR3 format by launching LR3. Both catalogs seem to work properly with their local application. When I try "Import from Catalog" from Mac1 to Mac2 over the network, I get this error message: "Lightroom can not import from this catalog. The catalog does not appear to be a valid Lightroom catalog." However, catalog import appears to work properly with the reverse case: importing from Mac1 to Mac2.
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Hi Bert,
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Strange...
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Cannot import from catalog, LR quits and I get about 2 or 3 photos imported.
Adobe was no help, they had no idea why.
Have tried to "import from Cat" twice. Moving two different catalogs into my main desktop catalog. Both did not work.
All three catalogs ( two from laptop and my main LR cat) work fine and I can import photos no problem.
Would like to import all the changes of photos that I have made with these two catalogs that I did on my laptop. (Both cats are on an external hard drive).
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I am having some issues with my video card. Screen right now is a bit pink. This would be the fourth video card I will need on this Mac Pro. Would this be the cause?
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flyboys911 wrote:
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Lightroom has a preferences file, which sometimes gets corrupt and can cause all kinds of weard behaviour. You can delete (or rename away) the preferences file, and LR will build a fresh one when started. If you rename it, you will still have it if you decide you want it back.
To rename the preferences file, rename the file
"[username]/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Lightroom3.plist"
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Becky,
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