LR questions - moving files/catalog; more than 1 catalog?

eoren1

I'm in the midst of moving (finally) from a PC to Mac for all of my computer work. Currently, all of my photos are stored on an internal 500gig drive in a PC that will soon become a media center. I just purchased a great external enclosure (with FW 400/800 and eSATA) and a WD 640gig drive. I would now like to move the photos, sidecars and Lighroom catalog from the F drive to the external. I would love to avoid having to point the catalog to the new location once everything is moved.
Is the best way to do this by running an export within LR (leaving file type as Original)?
Should I just use Windows Explorer to move the entire 'Photo' directory from the F drive to the external via eSATA (which should be much faster)?
What about the catalog file?
Just import it on the Mac?
Is there a trick to tell the catalog that the files are now on an external (as there is no 'F:Data' designation on the Mac)?
Also, this seems like a good time to make multiple catalogs (if that is a useful thing). I currently have 32400 photos in LR all in one catalog.
Is there a benefit to multiple catalogs?
I prefer having all of my photos accessible in one catalog but am open to the idea of different catalogs if there is some benefit to it. I have heard that LR can bog down as the catalog size grows (I've run the optimization a few times already). I'm not sure if this will remain an issue in LR 2.
Alright, lots of questions and am looking forward to your thoughts/advice. Greatly appreciate the help!
Eyal

arodney

eoren1 wrote:

Is the best way to do this by running an export within LR (leaving file type as Original)?
Eyal

Yes. The Mac doesn't care, that version of LR will import the export exactly.

I'd seriously debate multiple catalogs. 32K is pretty small, a single catalog will handle it just fine AND you'll always have everything in one place.

You can always export part of a catalog in the future (delete that export) to divide up the images.

eoren1

Thanks for the reply Andrew,
Just to clarify - I export as 'catalog' not each photo...correct?
Any reason to then physically move over my current LR folder with its growing cache? I'm guessing it would be better to let the 'new' LR rebuild as much as it needs.
I will definitely stay with the one catalog as that is my preferred method.
Thanks again,
Eyal

cmason

I did this recently. Here is what I did:

I moved my photo library to an external drive. I actually formatted in Apple format, since the drive was in NTFS, which does not play well with Mac. I then simply copied my image folder on the PC to the external HD (over the network, since the PC would not read Apple format).

I had already installed LR on my Mac, and it had created a Lightroom folder within the "Pictures" folder, as well as a "Lighroom Catalog.lrcat". Next, I connected to my PC from the Mac, navigated to my Lightroom catalog folder on the PC, and copied the file called "Lightroom Database.lrcat" to the "Pictures" folder on my Mac.

I started LR on the Mac, which of course defaulted to the installed catalog. I simply opened the transfered "Lightroom Database.lrcat". All my catalog was there, but of course all the images were 'red' and not found. I went to the top level folder in the folder view, right clicked to tell Lightroom where to find the missing images. It found them, and I was back in business.

All my edits and metadata transferred perfectly.

arodney

eoren1 wrote:

Thanks for the reply Andrew,
Just to clarify - I export as 'catalog' not each photo...correct?
Eyal

Yes, the entire catalog or a folder.

Pittspilot

eoren1 wrote:

I'm in the midst of moving (finally) from a PC to Mac for all of my computer work. Currently, all of my photos are stored on an internal 500gig drive in a PC that will soon become a media center. I just purchased a great external enclosure (with FW 400/800 and eSATA) and a WD 640gig drive. I would now like to move the photos, sidecars and Lighroom catalog from the F drive to the external. I would love to avoid having to point the catalog to the new location once everything is moved.
Is the best way to do this by running an export within LR (leaving file type as Original)?
Should I just use Windows Explorer to move the entire 'Photo' directory from the F drive to the external via eSATA (which should be much faster)?
What about the catalog file?
Just import it on the Mac?
Is there a trick to tell the catalog that the files are now on an external (as there is no 'F:Data' designation on the Mac)?
Also, this seems like a good time to make multiple catalogs (if that is a useful thing). I currently have 32400 photos in LR all in one catalog.
Is there a benefit to multiple catalogs?
I prefer having all of my photos accessible in one catalog but am open to the idea of different catalogs if there is some benefit to it. I have heard that LR can bog down as the catalog size grows (I've run the optimization a few times already). I'm not sure if this will remain an issue in LR 2.
Alright, lots of questions and am looking forward to your thoughts/advice. Greatly appreciate the help!
Eyal

You don't need to go through the hassle of exporting catalogues, simple copy the catalogs and files onto the new machine, point LR at the catalog and viola!

Make sure you copy everything! And if you don't put the folders in the same location on the new machine (for example they are now on drive D; they were on B: (or Mac equiv :-)), you may have to 'tell' LR wheer the files are now. You SHOULD be able to just tell it the root folder, but I've had mixed results with that. The worst case is that you will have to locate EACH folder individually...

Cheers

arodney

Pittspilot wrote:

You don't need to go through the hassle of exporting catalogues, simple copy the catalogs and files onto the new machine, point LR at the catalog and viola!

Make sure you copy everything! And if you don't put the folders in the same location on the new machine (for example they are now on drive D; they were on B: (or Mac equiv :-)), you may have to 'tell' LR wheer the files are now. You SHOULD be able to just tell it the root folder, but I've had mixed results with that. The worst case is that you will have to locate EACH folder individually...

Cheers

Its not a hassle AND, its a lot safer, and absolutely necessary if you're going to export only some of the catalog contents. And, depending on your preset preferences, they may NOT be in the local directly with the images, database etc. Export should ensure they all travel correctly.

Pittspilot

arodney wrote:

Its not a hassle AND, its a lot safer, and absolutely necessary if you're going to export only some of the catalog contents.

Agree if some images only are moved. Hassle may not have been the best word, but it is a slow and tedious process :-))

And, depending on your preset preferences, they may NOT be in the local directly with the images, database etc. Export should ensure they all travel correctly.

I routinely move the whole lrcat between my pc in the studio, the pc at home and my mac notebook and have found that it works well. As always, backups and secure copies are essential. But having said that, it works well for me. I guess I should say YMMV.

Cheers

arodney

Pittspilot wrote:

I routinely move the whole lrcat between my pc in the studio, the pc at home and my mac notebook and have found that it works well. As always, backups and secure copies are essential. But having said that, it works well for me. I guess I should say YMMV.

Cheers

I do the same (clone the Raid on the desktop with all the data to an external FireWire drive). It absolute can and does work! But I also have all my presets IN that location, instead of in Application support. And every now and then, I might get a ? for some reason, meaning I need to simply show LR the location of one image, it then updates the rest. But the Export/Import feature (or the Sync Folders), is ideal when you have to handle only some folders of images.

Pittspilot

arodney wrote:

I do the same (clone the Raid on the desktop with all the data to an external FireWire drive). It absolute can and does work! But I also have all my presets IN that location, instead of in Application support. And every now and then, I might get a ? for some reason, meaning I need to simply show LR the location of one image, it then updates the rest. But the Export/Import feature (or the Sync Folders), is ideal when you have to handle only some folders of images.

We are in agreement :-))

eoren1

Thanks again!
Eyal

eoren1

Another question
Now that the files are on the external, I have another question...

Since I'm running on a macbook, I'm limited to FW400 right now. I just did a quick run through the catalog on the external and, if anything, it feels faster than it did on the PC. I'm wondering if I need to keep active photos on the Macbook's internal drive so that I don't introduce unnecessary lag.

I was thinking of the following scenario/setup:

Photo library and lrcat resides on external drive connected via FW400
New photos loaded via CF reader to Macbook's drive to 'Unfiled' directory then by date.
I keyword, rate and process those photos while they reside on the Macbook.
When I'm happy with that process, I would then move the photos to an appropriate folder (such as [child's name]/2008 07) on the external.

Does that seem doable/prudent? When those photos are processed in LR, can I move them (from within LR) to the directories that reside on the external?

Also, does it make more sense for the lrcat file to reside on the Macbook's hard drive? If so, how would I go about moving it from the external to that drive without losing links? Or would I just go to the parent directory and fix it there?
Thanks again,
Eyal

Pittspilot

eoren1 wrote:

Now that the files are on the external, I have another question...

Since I'm running on a macbook, I'm limited to FW400 right now. I just did a quick run through the catalog on the external and, if anything, it feels faster than it did on the PC. I'm wondering if I need to keep active photos on the Macbook's internal drive so that I don't introduce unnecessary lag.

I was thinking of the following scenario/setup:

Photo library and lrcat resides on external drive connected via FW400
New photos loaded via CF reader to Macbook's drive to 'Unfiled' directory then by date.
I keyword, rate and process those photos while they reside on the Macbook.
When I'm happy with that process, I would then move the photos to an appropriate folder (such as [child's name]/2008 07) on the external.

Does that seem doable/prudent? When those photos are processed in LR, can I move them (from within LR) to the directories that reside on the external?

Also, does it make more sense for the lrcat file to reside on the Macbook's hard drive? If so, how would I go about moving it from the external to that drive without losing links? Or would I just go to the parent directory and fix it there?
Thanks again,
Eyal

Either option will work well. If you decide to move the catalog, it's much the same as moving it OFF the PC to the external drive. You will have to renew the folder links but that is all (see previous posts for how)