Lightroom classic and traveling

[sh1209]

I wanted to ask and see what others do when they’re out of town for an extended period of time while using Lightroom classic. I have all my images stored at home on a large external drive, and have my laptop with me. I was thinking of possibly opening a new catalog and trying to merge that once I get back home because I don’t have my external drive. I was wanting to get some pointers on the best way to do that. I do have Lightroom mobile on the laptop but obviously I can’t use my plug-ins or anything like that so I was going to just install Lightroom classic while I’m out of town and use it. Any help appreciated

 

[MartyD]

Steve does have a video on how he uses Lightroom Classic on the road.
Link

 

[arbitrage]

Usually I create a new catalog for my trip and then merge it into my main catalog back at home. But this was back when my main catalog resided on my iMac. Now I use my MBP as my main computer for both home (hooked up to 32" monitor) and travel. So my main catalog is always on the laptop anyways. So for future travel I will just use my main catalog. I will bring my "Current Year" 2TB SSD that I house my working RAWs on to add to while travelling. At home I backup onto different spinning drives (and one offsite drive). On the road I will bring some extra SSDs to backup my RAWs and would probably keep one set of backup RAWs on the laptop HD space permitting (I have 2TB internal with 1.61TB available so no problem there).

I don't use LR mobile...the sync is not fluid enough for me. Load LR Classic on the laptop.

 

[sh1209]

Usually I create a new catalog for my trip and then merge it into my main catalog back at home. But this was back when my main catalog resided on my iMac. Now I use my MBP as my main computer for both home (hooked up to 32" monitor) and travel. So my main catalog is always on the laptop anyways. So for future travel I will just use my main catalog. I will bring my "Current Year" 2TB SSD that I house my working RAWs on to add to while travelling. At home I backup onto different spinning drives (and one offsite drive). On the road I will bring some extra SSDs to backup my RAWs and would probably keep one set of backup RAWs on the laptop HD space permitting (I have 2TB internal with 1.61TB available so no problem there).

I don't use LR mobile...the sync is not fluid enough for me. Load LR Classic on the laptop.

I have plenty space internally for my photos I'm going to upload so I just need to install it creating a new catalog then import that when I get home? I also have a 2TB Samsung T5 with me as well so perhaps it would be best to use that for storage.

 

[arbitrage]

I have plenty space internally for my photos I'm going to upload so I just need to install it creating a new catalog then import that when I get home? I also have a 2TB Samsung T5 with me as well so perhaps it would be best to use that for storage.

I would keep one set of RAWs on the internal and a backup on the T5 SSD. Actually you might want to use the T5 as your working RAWs because then it is easier to merge back at home. You could run your travel catalog on the T5 also or on the laptop. If on the laptop you'll need to copy the catalog to the T5 and then hookup the T5 to merge to your main computer when back at home.
Alternatively, you could copy your main catalog and preview file to the laptop and then copy them back when back at home. But the preview file can be very large. If you don't copy the preview file and only the catalog then it will create a new preview file that won't merge with the old one still on your home computer. So if your main catalog and preview file stays on a home computer then using a new catalog and merging when back home is the best way. Previews get merged into your existing preview file back on your home computer.

You are allowed to run two instances of LR classic without logging out of them. You can install LR Classic on as many computers as you wish. But only two can be logged in at any given time.

 

[sh1209]

I would keep one set of RAWs on the internal and a backup on the T5 SSD.
You could copy the catalog and preview file to the laptop and then copy them back when back at home. But the preview file can be very large. If you don't copy the preview file and only the catalog then it will create a new preview file that won't merge with the old one still on your home computer. So if your main catalog and preview file stays on a home computer then using a new catalog and merging when back home is the best way. Previews get merged into your existing preview file back on your home computer.

You are allowed to run two instances of LR classic without logging out of them. You can install LR Classic on as many computers as you wish. But only two can be logged in at any given time.

So I guess the only thing that I’m misunderstanding is if I leave the original images on the internal drive and edit them in the new catalog and also have a copy on the external drive, once I copy or import that catalog when I get home, do I just import those images from the external drive just as I would any other image? Sorry for all the questions.

 

[arbitrage]

So I guess the only thing that I’m misunderstanding is if I leave the original images on the internal drive and edit them in the new catalog and also have a copy on the external drive, once I copy or import that catalog when I get home, do I just import those images from the external drive just as I would any other image? Sorry for all the questions.

The easiest way is to have your travel catalog and the RAWs on your T5. Hook the T5 to your home computer. Open your main home catalog. Select File-Import from another catalog. Select the travel catalog on the T5. It brings up a window where you tell it where to send the RAW files. It will then transfer the RAWs to your storage drive at home (that you select) as it merges the catalogs.

I'd suggest just doing a test run. Create a new catalog. Import a couple RAWs from somewhere and do all this on your laptop/T5. Then try to merge

 

[KirstyM]

I do exactly what Steve shows in his video (just watched it to check!). Works seamlessly for me (although on my last trip, my elderly MBP was definitely struggling to handle the size of the Z9 files). I normally use 2 SSD drives and my laptop drive, but may exclude the laptop drive next time and add a third SSD….

 

[DRwyoming]

So I guess the only thing that I’m misunderstanding is if I leave the original images on the internal drive and edit them in the new catalog and also have a copy on the external drive, once I copy or import that catalog when I get home, do I just import those images from the external drive just as I would any other image? Sorry for all the questions.

FWIW, I do the latter. IOW, I work from my laptop when on the road and have a LR Catalog unique to the laptop along with an external USB drive (and a backup drive on longer trips) where I keep the images. But when I get home to my primary image editing and library storage computer with its own image storage drives I just re-import the images into that home system rather than trying to synch up multiple Catalogs.

Basically the laptop based system and Catalog just has date based folders that the images import into. I don't bother with extensive Collections on the laptop system the way I do for the home system. When I get home I connect the portable USB drive and just import images stored in those date specific folders back into my main library and Catalog on the home system. The second import back at home tends to be a lot quicker than the initial LR import in the field as I cull obvious misses and choose the Delete From Disk option so I've already culled those images when I get back home.

I'm sure there are many other ways, but what's listed above has worked well for me during and after longer trips.

 

[BarkingBeans Coffee]

So I guess the only thing that I’m misunderstanding is if I leave the original images on the internal drive and edit them in the new catalog and also have a copy on the external drive, once I copy or import that catalog when I get home, do I just import those images from the external drive just as I would any other image? Sorry for all the questions.

On the same network, the Macs will see each other. You can copy it over in finder once you navigate to it. Super easy with Macs; do file transfers like this all the time.

 

[sh1209]

FWIW, I do the latter. IOW, I work from my laptop when on the road and have a LR Catalog unique to the laptop along with an external USB drive (and a backup drive on longer trips) where I keep the images. But when I get home to my primary image editing and library storage computer with its own image storage drives I just re-import the images into that home system rather than trying to synch up multiple Catalogs.

Basically the laptop based system and Catalog just has date based folders that the images import into. I don't bother with extensive Collections on the laptop system the way I do for the home system. When I get home I connect the portable USB drive and just import images stored in those date specific folders back into my main library and Catalog on the home system. The second import back at home tends to be a lot quicker than the initial LR import in the field as I cull obvious misses and choose the Delete From Disk option so I've already culled those images when I get back home.

I'm sure there are many other ways, but what's listed above has worked well for me during and after longer trips.

So where are you incorporating your catalog edits into this or are you not bothering to transfer them over to your home based editing machine?

 

[Anjin San]

There are essentially 2 ways to do this…Steve's video describes the 'on the road catalog' that gets exported and imported into the master catalog. That works fine.

The other option is what I do. I've got a Mac Studio at home and it has a 2 TB OWC SSD TB drive attached that has the catalog, previews, and current year's master images. That gets disconnected and goes with me on the road so I'm putting things in the master catalog on the road…I keyword as I import so that make it much easier to not have different sets of keywords on the laptop and the Studio. All other master images are on an OWC TB RAID attached to the Studio, and the 2 TB SSD has Smart Previews for everything just in case I need access to an older year image while on the road. Every January 1…the old current year masters get moved in LR to the RAID and a new current year folder gets created on the SSD.

The current year master folder and catalog folder get backed up to an assortment of other drives both locally, to the RAID, and to BackBlaze, and on the road the catalog and current year masters get backed up to the laptop internal drive and a pair of Samsung T7s.

I thought about this choice for a couple of months before deciding to do it the way I do…but Steve's method also works perfectly fine. I'm still toying with the best way to back up everything on the road…but I think I'm going to setup a CarbonCopyCloner job to copy the catalog folder and current year master folder to the laptop internal and just use my existing pair of 'run on mount' CCC jobs that clone the internal to the T7s when they're plugged in.

 

[sh1209]

There are essentially 2 ways to do this…Steve's video describes the 'on the road catalog' that gets exported and imported into the master catalog. That works fine.

The other option is what I do. I've got a Mac Studio at home and it has a 2 TB OWC SSD TB drive attached that has the catalog, previews, and current year's master images. That gets disconnected and goes with me on the road so I'm putting things in the master catalog on the road…I keyword as I import so that make it much easier to not have different sets of keywords on the laptop and the Studio. All other master images are on an OWC TB RAID attached to the Studio, and the 2 TB SSD has Smart Previews for everything just in case I need access to an older year image while on the road. Every January 1…the old current year masters get moved in LR to the RAID and a new current year folder gets created on the SSD.

The current year master folder and catalog folder get backed up to an assortment of other drives both locally, to the RAID, and to BackBlaze, and on the road the catalog and current year masters get backed up to the laptop internal drive and a pair of Samsung T7s.

I thought about this choice for a couple of months before deciding to do it the way I do…but Steve's method also works perfectly fine.

I’m in a unique situation because I had a Followup at the Mayo Clinic in MN and found out I have to get surgery Monday. I had only anticipated being here until today so just trying to figure out something with what I have with me which is a M1 MacBook Air and a T5 ssd. There’s a close by park I’ve been able to get some good bird photos at between appointments and wanted to do some editing while I’m here to pass the time between appointments. I also have Lightroom mobile but would rather use classic so I can use my plugins without having to send each image to photoshop. I have watched and purchased Steve’s video in the past but that’s been a while. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Anjin San]

I’m in a unique situation because I had a Followup at the Mayo Clinic in MN and found out I have to get surgery Monday. I had only anticipated being here until today so just trying to figure out something with what I have with me which is a M1 MacBook Air and a T5 ssd. There’s a close by park I’ve been able to get some good bird photos at between appointments and wanted to do some editing while I’m here to pass the time between appointments. I also have Lightroom mobile but would rather use classic so I can use my plugins without having to send each image to photoshop. I have watched and purchased Steve’s video in the past but that’s been a while. Hope that makes sense.

If this is going to be a more or less one time thing then just doing Steve's method of a road catalog and export/import on return home is easier to setup…and given you're already there with the Air and T5 I would suggest doing it that way. My setup is more of a 'we travel so I was looking for an ongoing solution. Then OTOH with the pandemic we haven't done much traveling lately…only a couple of week or so trips so for those I just copied the images from the card to the laptop and didn't do anything with them until we returned home. Whenever we actually do get to travel for longer periods…I may decide that my system isn't working as well as I hoped and shift to Steve's system…the biggest issue would be keyword list differences but I could always add them on the road, export the list, and import that into the master before importing the whole catalog. OTOH as well…it might be that adding keywords on the road and doing the export/import would add the keywords back to the master catalog…anybody know the answer to that?

 

[Viathelens]

I wanted to ask and see what others do when they’re out of town for an extended period of time while using Lightroom classic. I have all my images stored at home on a large external drive, and have my laptop with me. I was thinking of possibly opening a new catalog and trying to merge that once I get back home because I don’t have my external drive. I was wanting to get some pointers on the best way to do that. I do have Lightroom mobile on the laptop but obviously I can’t use my plug-ins or anything like that so I was going to just install Lightroom classic while I’m out of town and use it. Any help appreciated

Here is what I do. I take the laptop and open a temporary catalog, you can name it whatever you want, I download to it each night as a backup. If I don't do any processing I'll simply download from the cards or small 5T external drive I carry on trips. If I do any processing, the system is a bit different. I'll still download all the images as I normally would. I go into the travel catalog and, using the filter bard, find only the images I've processed. I export only those images as a catalog and I do not export the images with it as the images are already in the desktop catalog. I then import only those images to the desktop catalog and the metadata synchs up with the already existing images. I've been doing it this way for years. When I am sure that all images are in the desktop I'll simply delete everything from the travel hard drive and it's ready for next time.

...addition...there is no reason to merge the entire temporary catalog to the desktop catalog unless you have processed every single image. The merge function is about metadata, although you can copy images from one catalog to the other catalog. Knowing what the function does and understanding it is important. Merging an entire catalog from one computer catalog to the next may be fairly slow and is just not needed as you can simply import as you normally would and any temporary catalog data will link up with the existing image in the desktop file as long as you don't change any file names, LrC links by file name. I've taught LrC at a community college and used it for over 10 years. I still teach it to others. Understanding how the program operates is the key to success. But I am not, of course, telling you how to do this just how I've done it for years.

 

[arbitrage]

I’m in a unique situation because I had a Followup at the Mayo Clinic in MN and found out I have to get surgery Monday. I had only anticipated being here until today so just trying to figure out something with what I have with me which is a M1 MacBook Air and a T5 ssd. There’s a close by park I’ve been able to get some good bird photos at between appointments and wanted to do some editing while I’m here to pass the time between appointments. I also have Lightroom mobile but would rather use classic so I can use my plugins without having to send each image to photoshop. I have watched and purchased Steve’s video in the past but that’s been a while. Hope that makes sense.

Do Steve's method. Load LR classic on your MBA and make a new catalog. Merge that when you get home.

 

[bleirer]

I took a peek at the instructions from Adobe. Looks simple enough.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html

 

[sh1209]

I took a peek at the instructions from Adobe. Looks simple enough.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html

Thank you

 

[sh1209]

Do Steve's method. Load LR classic on your MBA and make a new catalog. Merge that when you get home.

Thank you. So I’ll put the catalog and images on the T5 and make a folder on the drive for the raw files. This sounds pretty simple all in all. One last question. Whenever I import the catalog/edits do I do a separate import for the raw files or can it be done in one import step?

 

[sh1209]

Here is what I do. I take the laptop and open a temporary catalog, you can name it whatever you want, I download to it each night as a backup. If I don't do any processing I'll simply download from the cards or small 5T external drive I carry on trips. If I do any processing, the system is a bit different. I'll still download all the images as I normally would. I go into the travel catalog and, using the filter bard, find only the images I've processed. I export only those images as a catalog and I do not export the images with it as the images are already in the desktop catalog. I then import only those images to the desktop catalog and the metadata synchs up with the already existing images. I've been doing it this way for years. When I am sure that all images are in the desktop I'll simply delete everything from the travel hard drive and it's ready for next time.

...addition...there is no reason to merge the entire temporary catalog to the desktop catalog unless you have processed every single image. The merge function is about metadata, although you can copy images from one catalog to the other catalog. Knowing what the function does and understanding it is important. Merging an entire catalog from one computer catalog to the next may be fairly slow and is just not needed as you can simply import as you normally would and any temporary catalog data will link up with the existing image in the desktop file as long as you don't change any file names, LrC links by file name. I've taught LrC at a community college and used it for over 10 years. I still teach it to others. Understanding how the program operates is the key to success. But I am not, of course, telling you how to do this just how I've done it for years.

Thank you

 

[Chris K]

Arbitrage's suggestion to just make a new catalog and import it later is what I suggest, too. It's really easy to do--you copy the smaller catalog and all its photos to a folder on your main LR computer, then open your main LR library and choose "Import from another catalog".

The gotchas if you're not a frequent multi-catalog shooter are to make sure you specify and understand where your new smaller catalog is saving its files (you can set this on the Import dialog), and then when you're importing the smaller catalog, make sure you're telling LR to pull the files from your temp directory into the same place you normally store your files. (This might result in duplicating the files, but that's no worry cause you'll later delete the temp version of the smaller library.)

I highly recommend that after you re-integrate your smaller catalog into your main catalog that you spot check a few files and make sure that the actual image files are living in the location you expect. Lightroom can be set to re-use the original file paths, which creates a big organizational mess!

Be well, Steven, and I hope your park is stuffed with birds!

 

[sh1209]

Arbitrage's suggestion to just make a new catalog and import it later is what I suggest, too. It's really easy to do--you copy the smaller catalog and all its photos to a folder on your main LR computer, then open your main LR library and choose "Import from another catalog".

The gotchas if you're not a frequent multi-catalog shooter are to make sure you specify and understand where your new smaller catalog is saving its files (you can set this on the Import dialog), and then when you're importing the smaller catalog, make sure you're telling LR to pull the files from your temp directory into the same place you normally store your files. (This might result in duplicating the files, but that's no worry cause you'll later delete the temp version of the smaller library.)

I highly recommend that after you re-integrate your smaller catalog into your main catalog that you spot check a few files and make sure that the actual image files are living in the location you expect. Lightroom can be set to re-use the original file paths, which creates a big organizational mess!

Be well, Steven, and I hope your park is stuffed with birds!

Thank you. I think I’m good and I even went back and watched that video of Steve’s but the only thing that I’m not certain of is, whenever I make my new catalog on my external drive. Do I also need to make a separate folder on that external drive for the raw files? Other than that I think of got a really good grasp on it at this point.

 

[bleirer]

Import photos from a different Lightroom Classic catalog​

When you import photos from a different Lightroom Classic catalog into the current catalog, you can specify options to handle new photos and photos that already appear in the current catalog.
Note:

Catalogs from earlier versions of Lightroom Classic, including public beta releases, must be opened and updated before they can be imported into another catalog. See Upgrade a catalog from an earlier version of Lightroom Classic.

1. • Choose File > Import From Another Catalog.
   • Navigate to the catalog you want to import and click Open (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS).
   • Specify the photos to import:
     • Under Catalog Contents, make sure the folders containing the photos to import are selected.
     • To select or deselect individual photos, click Show Preview, and click the box in the upper-left corner of any preview image. You can also choose Check All or Uncheck All.
   • In the New Photos area, choose an option from the File Handling menu:
     
     Add New Photos To Catalog Without Moving
     Imports photos at their current location.
     
     Copy New Photos To A New Location And Import
     Imports photos to a new location. Click Choose and specify the folder.
     
     Don’t Import New Photos
     Only photos that exist in the current catalog are imported. Lightroom Classic determines a photo is a duplicate (already in the catalog) if it has the same, original filename; the same Exif capture date and time; and the same file size.
   • In the Changed Existing Photos area, do any of the following:
     • Replace metadata, Develop settings, and negative files to override all the settings in the current catalog. If you choose this option, you can select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup. You can also select the Replace Non-Raw Files Only option to avoid replacing raw negatives. If changes to raw negative files affect only metadata, selecting this option helps save time.
     • Replace metadata and Develop settings only to leave the negative files (the source photos) unchanged. If you choose this option, you can select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup.
     • Replace nothing to import only new photos.
     • If photos in the current catalog are missing and can be found in the imported catalog, indicate whether you want to update the metadata and Develop settings for these files. Select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup. If the photos missing in the current catalog appear in the imported catalog, specify whether the missing files are copied and where they copied to.
   • Click Import.

 

[sh1209]

Import photos from a different Lightroom Classic catalog​

When you import photos from a different Lightroom Classic catalog into the current catalog, you can specify options to handle new photos and photos that already appear in the current catalog.
Note:

Catalogs from earlier versions of Lightroom Classic, including public beta releases, must be opened and updated before they can be imported into another catalog. See Upgrade a catalog from an earlier version of Lightroom Classic.

1. • Choose File > Import From Another Catalog.
   • Navigate to the catalog you want to import and click Open (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS).
   • Specify the photos to import:
     • Under Catalog Contents, make sure the folders containing the photos to import are selected.
     • To select or deselect individual photos, click Show Preview, and click the box in the upper-left corner of any preview image. You can also choose Check All or Uncheck All.
   • In the New Photos area, choose an option from the File Handling menu:
     
     Add New Photos To Catalog Without Moving
     Imports photos at their current location.
     
     Copy New Photos To A New Location And Import
     Imports photos to a new location. Click Choose and specify the folder.
     
     Don’t Import New Photos
     Only photos that exist in the current catalog are imported. Lightroom Classic determines a photo is a duplicate (already in the catalog) if it has the same, original filename; the same Exif capture date and time; and the same file size.
   • In the Changed Existing Photos area, do any of the following:
     • Replace metadata, Develop settings, and negative files to override all the settings in the current catalog. If you choose this option, you can select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup. You can also select the Replace Non-Raw Files Only option to avoid replacing raw negatives. If changes to raw negative files affect only metadata, selecting this option helps save time.
     • Replace metadata and Develop settings only to leave the negative files (the source photos) unchanged. If you choose this option, you can select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup.
     • Replace nothing to import only new photos.
     • If photos in the current catalog are missing and can be found in the imported catalog, indicate whether you want to update the metadata and Develop settings for these files. Select the Preserve Old Settings As A Virtual Copy option to keep a backup. If the photos missing in the current catalog appear in the imported catalog, specify whether the missing files are copied and where they copied to.
   • Click Import.

Thank you Bill I think I have it all sorted out now. The only thing I’m still not sure of is if I need to create another folder on that external drive for the images or just import them onto it

 

[Chris K]

Thank you. I think I’m good and I even went back and watched that video of Steve’s but the only thing that I’m not certain of is, whenever I make my new catalog on my external drive. Do I also need to make a separate folder on that external drive for the raw files? Other than that I think of got a really good grasp on it at this point.

You can if you want to, and I suggest you do so, because it removes much potential confusion.

Lightroom is happy to put files anywhere you want... in other words, it's happy to let you make really bad organization decisions, and doesn't really give you any best practices. Powerful, but easy to hurt yourself!

I recommend making a folder on the root level of your external drive, and call it something like "My Lil Library". Create a folder inside that, called "photos". With your folders now in place, make a new LR Catalog inside the "My Lil Library" folder. Finally, when you import photos to that catalog, make sure you select the file path /volumes/myExternal/My Lil Library/photos" to import the actual photo files from your memory card.

This way, everything is inside the "My Lil Library" folder. This makes it really easy to move the whole darn thing around later without losing track of photo files that might have gotten stuff in weird places, like /users/me/photos/LightroomIsWeird.

And like I said earlier, just make sure when you import the smaller Catalog into your main LR library, that you tell it to COPY the files. If you don't, your main LR catalog will point to the external drive. Everything will look great, until you remove that drive... then your files all disappear!