Lightroom :: How To Put Catalog On A Separate Drive From Previews
Dec 3, 2012I know the two normally go together, but is it posssible to put the Lightroom catalog on a separate drive from the previews?
View 1 RepliesI know the two normally go together, but is it posssible to put the Lightroom catalog on a separate drive from the previews?
View 1 RepliesHow do I move the catalog and previews in the default location to another drive?
View 2 Replies View RelatedUsing LR4 (not 4.1) and Win7 Home Premium. Catalog had been upgraded from LR3 and LR4 catalog was working fine until now. I've been using LR since the beginning.Two problems, probably related. 106K photos over two drives, almost 3Tb.
At the catalog level, there are no previews. Normally previews of all 106K photos would be displayed. Message is "Click the "import" button to begin." Filter function does not work Message: "No photos match the filter".At the drive level, there are no previews. Message is "No photos in selected folder" Filter function does not work Message: "No photos match the filter". At the folder level, everything is fine, except two folders give the same message "No photos in selected folder" Filter function does not work in these two folders: Message: "No photos match the filter" 14K photos between the two bad folders. Dozens, hundreds, of other folders and subfolders are fine. Filter function works fine at folder and subfolder level. Collections are fine, including photos in the two folders giving the mesage "No photos in selected folder"
Tried to import the missing folders. Won't import because they're already in the catalog. Won't import even if I uncheck "Don't import suspected duplicates". Exported as a catalog one of the "No photos in selected folder" folders. It appeared to create a viable catalog with previews, search filters, etc. I edited a few photos with no problems. Although it did give a message saying several hundred previews were missing. But they seem to be there anyway.Deleted the folder from the catalog and imported from catalog the working folder catalog that I just created. Exported as a catalog the other "No photos in selected folder" folder. Same result as the first bad folder. I.e. It appeared to create a viable catalog with previews, search filters, etc. Although it did give a message saying several hundred previews were missing. But they seem to be there anyway. Haven't done anything with this second folder catalog. Intriguing, the same message about missing previews. The actual files and *.xmp files are in the bad folders.
I have about 900 raw files on an external drive. I edited those files using my master catalog using a laptop while still travelling. When I got home, I copied the master catalog from the external drive to the desk top, then opened the master catalog on my desktop. I can see the edited images on the external drive. So far so good.
I want to copy (add) the edited images to my desk top. I tried to export the images as a new catalog and then import it into the desire location on my desktop drive. However, LR5 does not allow that. I get this message: "There is nothing new in the catalog you have selected. All of the catalog's photos are up to date in this catalog." Yes, but the edited images are not on my desktop.....
I also tried to Import from the external drive and then Copy the files to the desktop, but then I lose all of the work done in the develop module and the keywords.
I watched Kost's LR 3 video on merging catalogs, but she dodges the question of how to deal with this issue since the "merge" is within the same catalog.I'm using LR5 with Windows 7.
How can I move my Lightroom 4 catalog (data, not photos) from my local drive to an external drive? My local drive is running out of space.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI will be managing a small portion of a client's overall image workflow by updating their web prescence on a regular basis with new work and retagging/uploading old work. I believe this requires the catalog and the image library to be housed on an external hard drive that can travel between the two of us. We are both working on PC's with LR 5.3.
The workflow would look something like this:
Client downloads new images onto external hard drive and imports into LR "ClientCatalog" is created Flags Picks and Creates a Collection from those Picks.Hard drive is handed off to me where I open "ClientCatalog".Make suggested edits to images add detailed tags and metadata upload to various social media sites and websites return hard drive to client
Is there potential problem with this workflow? My assumption is that if everything is housed on the external hard drive then there are no worries about the catalog containing all the latest updates. Are there any "safety protocols" you would add in to this workflow (besides mirroring everythign on another hard drive)?
I get it. I know I need to tell Lightroom that it's "this" specific catalog that I want to be working on while being away from my external hard drive. But, just so I understand the logic: I have to opne Lightroom with the external hard drive connected and then, ejected it so I could smart previews that I've previsoulsy build. There's no way for me just to turn on my computer, away from my external hard drive, and work on smart previews? So, I guess that this my real questions: If I make a copy of the catalog from my external hard drive onto my desktop, and I tell my computer to work with this catalog while away from external hard drive, will this clash everything up?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI had some trouble with my hard drive and needed to restore about 35000 photos. Sorting through them I imported all the recovered files into a new "Recovered" catalog. That works fine.
When I tried to import this catalog into my previous catalog it imports the photos fine but doesn't render any previews. Not in small batches, nothing. The progress bar just stays put at 1 of .... If I take the photo to the Develop module it will load and render a preview after a few seconds. But this can only be done one at a time and is very laggy.
I've had similar issue with this catalog before: no previews rendered on import. Except now it's a giant batch and it can't be processed manually.I'm on Lightroom 4.0
When I last opened LR 3, I got a dialog box saying it needed to quit because of a problem reading the previews cache . Then when quitting it is stalling with optimizing previews catalog.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI would like to take my existing photo's on an internal drive and move them to an external drive. I would like to leave my catalogue where it is on my internal drive. I would then like to use smart previews to allow me to edit my photo's with or without the external drive connected and have the photo's automatically sync'd when the external drive is re-connected.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm wondering if it's possible to create smart previews for images that were imported into the catalog in a prior version of LR. As my catalog continues to increase in size, I'm considering relocating my images to an external drive (currently on the hard drive). I'm obviously concerned about doing any unintended damage to the catalog and workflow.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI primarily use LR on a win7 desktop. Several 100 gigs of images. I have a win7 notebook. I can't store the images because of disk space. But is it possible to have the catalog and previews synced to the notebook, so I could say show someone full screen previews? I know you can't go to the develop module. And until LR smart previews works with my existing catalog, I'd like to know how, and if I would be able to view full screen from the catalog not connected to a harddrive with the original files?
View 3 Replies View RelatedSince starting to use LR in 2009, I've been making separate catalogues for every 6 months worth of photos. I've now decided to consolidate all my photos in a single catalog, but the process is taking forever, even though I'm not moving the photos, just importing edits/previews/ratings/collection etc.. How to speed things up.BTW, all of my catalogs have been converted to LR4 format.
View 2 Replies View RelatedMy intent is to use LR 90% of the time strictly as a cataloging application.
I am a freelance photographer (12 years) and cinematographer (5 years) so I have an extensive library of images and video clips.
My photo collection is about 55k images and my video collection about 10k.
Right now I am trying to get everything into one catalog - but I am seeing performance issue quickly rise to the top.
Would it be better to have multiple catalogs?Can I search across catalogs?
Should I be looking somewhere else for better performance?
Windows 7 - Quad CPU's - 8gb ram - 7200rpm drives.
I have one catalog that contains about 300 000 pictures that are located in about 14 different hard drives. Some hard drives contains modifications that were done in Lightroom 2 but most of my recent work is with Lightroom 3. It is getting way too big now. Doing my backups takes forever.I want to separate my catalog into 14 catalogs, one for each hard drive. I don't lose my metadata, selections, collections, and histories.
I have tried to do copies of this catalog (one for each hard drive). Go in one copy and then delete all the pictures and folders from the 13 other hard drives but it is was taking forever and it ended up that my catalog was corrupted. I was also thinking of "exporting this folder as a catalog" but this mean exporting the pictures as well which is not what I want since it will be relocated and it will also take forever to do.
I have been very reluctant to bring edited PSD master files back into Lightroom, to the point where I regularly purge from the catalog those that accidentally find their way in there.
I'm a relative newcomer to Lightroom, having relied on a Bridge/ACR/Photoshop workflow for many years. So partly for historical reasons, raw files and PSDs serve separate and very different purposes in my workflow. Previously, everything went through Photoshop to produce a master file, from which I then batch processed for different output. I still have about a terabyte's worth of old PSDs containing layers, smart objects and whatnot; some of them very complex files. And I still occasionally need to build complex PSDs for special purposes.
Anyway, that's the background. What I want is to use keywords and all of the other wonderful Lightroom tools to organize them.
But I just have to be able to separate DNG/NEF from PSD at a glance. Or instantly filter one or the other. There's just no way I can spend time looking at individual file extensions in the filmstrip to try to figure out which is which. It has to be obvious and instantaneous, deadlines are always tight, and I'm always in a rush. Color labeling could work, but I already use that for picks vs rejects, so that's not an option. Flagging or rating seems not quite obvious enough.
So what's the best way to deal with this? At the moment I have them in separate directories, but this is getting increasingly complicated and confusing. I soon need to clean up and bring everything into a single Lightroom catalog.
I want to move my Lightroom 4 catalog to my new iMac and keep the RAW files on a separate server, what is the best way to do this
View 11 Replies View RelatedI moved my photos to a new hard drive on my computer and now LR4 can't find them. Is there a way to re-index the catalog to the new drive?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have imported photos from a catalog into a new catalog. Some of the photos in the catalog are located on a remote drive. The drive is not listed when I select the photos to be imported. Is it possible to import catalog photos from a usb drive?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI am trying to open a Lightroom catalog that I have on a back up hard drive (I have the original files on the back up too). However, when I try to open I get the message "The Lightoom catalog cannot be used because the parent folder 'name' does not allow files to be created within it."
How I can get access to the images without going back to the machine I used to create the catalog?
All my images are currently stored on a 3 Tb hard drive and recently I purchased a DROBO with 15tb of memory. At the momeent I am using the Drobo as back up until the 3tb becomes full. That time has come and I want to use the Drobo as the main drive for my images which contains exactly the same files as the 3tb. I also copied the catalog file onto the Drobo so I thought that all I needed to do is open the catalog in the Drobo and it will automatically access the files in the drobo drive but this is not the case as it still accesses the 3tb files. I tried diconnecting the 3tb thinking that it will try to access the files on the Drobo but then I get ?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI have my complete catalog of Lightroom 3.5 currently on my harddisc of my PC (windows 7). I want to move this catalog to a network based RAID disc and work from there. I've exported my catalog to the networkdisc but how do I tell Lightroom to use that catalog instead of the one on my local drive?
View 25 Replies View RelatedI currently have my main catalog 'gwcat-2-2.lrcat' in what I think is the default directory of ":..D:UsersGeorgePicturesLightroom". I would like to move it to a faster drive. Should I move JUST the lrcat file, or is moving the gwcat-2-2 Previews.lrdata required?
There is a LOT of stuff in lrdata! and would take a long time to move. I've always been a bit confused by the difference between "Previews.lrdatafa" and the cache directory (I already have the cache directory on SSD). --If you go by just the definition of terms, it seems like a distinction without a difference.
I have run out of space on my main hard drive ( C) and cannot resize it.I have another vacant disk drive in the same computer (300 gigs) that I would like to move the en tire catalogue to .
How I would redirect Lightroom to find and use it in the new location.
how to set up LR on new computer.Have my photos on external drive and want them to go to the D: drive.Moved the LR Cat folder to my C: SSD drive with LR off.
Opened LR and relocated LR to new lr.cat file location on C: drive.Lr shows all my Picture folders from year 2000 to year 2014 with the expected ? marks.I don't want the picture folders on C: drive but on D: drive.
I am working on a group of about 20,000 pictures. It is the stored photos of multiple users on a network drive. My job is to organize the pictures in LR. When I am done, several users will be sharing the catalog. The workflow the group wants to use involves downloading the catalog from a shared site on the network to their desktop. The users would then upload the latest catalog back to the network when they are finished. They are used to the communication this involves and share other work this way.
I am working from my home computer. (The VPN was too slow) I have the pictures at home on a portable external drive. The catalog is on my internal drive. When I have a section done, I export it as a catalog onto the external drive. I import it to the latest version of the master catalog on a desktop at work. The work computer security does not allow me to directly work from my portable external drive so I have to copy and past the import catalog on to the desktop before I import it. When I import it to the master catalog, I move the pictures to the network drive.
My main question is can the users back-up the catalog on the network drive? As part of their workflow, they would automatically back-up the catalog to the network. The next users would then download the back-up to their desktop to use. Once a week, we would clear old back-ups.
Also, are we losing information from the catalog when we copy it back and forth?
I am losing print presets (and import presets) as I test this. When I test the process on two computers at home, this does not happen. I wonder if it is the work computer security? Part of my workflow is to create a pdf contact sheet to send to the user. I use the form pdf wizard to make it interactive so the user can fill in whether to discard the picture and identify people/add text. I e-mail them the contact sheet. They e-mail it back completed. The preset can be recreated but it is tempermental. I want something I can leave for the users.
Just bought a new PC. All files (same folder structure) moved from D: to E:. How do I update LR5 catalog to "point" to different hard drive?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm struggling to recover status quo after an external hard drive failure. My setup is an iMac and two external drives. I keep LR on the iMac harddrive but all photos on the external drive with the second external drive for copies of the photos. My primary external drive died. I have copied the photos from the second external drive over to a new primary external drive, but I can't figure out how to restore the catalog and use this new drive in my regular workflow. When I go to the catalog file and open up the catalog, it first tries to get me to import all the photos from the new primary drive. Is that what I want to do? If my secondary drive had failed I could have figured this out easier but the primary external failure has really thrown me for a loop.
View 20 Replies View RelatedMy hard drive is failing and my catalog is running really slow. I moved all my files onto a new Hard Drive ( mix of Jpegs and Raw). But what do I do now? I need to recover all my actions.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI just upgraded my external hard drive and named the new drive with the exact same name as the original, lets call this HD-1. My entire LR gallery is on this drive. After doing a complete backup to the new drive I opened LR and all Folders and Collects were in their place as they should be.
The Problem -
When I imputed new photos, a new duplicate hard drive appeared with the exact same name HD-1 and holding the newly imported images (which were placed in a subfolder at time of import)
- So now my Catalog shows two hard drives called HD-1. For sake of this discussion I will label them HD-1a and HD-1b. HD-1a has the original photos and HD-1b has the newly imported photos.
- I tried draging the new subfolder of photos for HD-1b to HD-1a but I get a message that the folder already exists, even though it doesn't show in the HD-1a folder structure.
- I created a new sub-folder in HD-1a and was able to drag the photos into it. I then deleted the empty folder on HD-1b. As soon as this was done the duplicate hard drive, HD-1b disapeared.
- I thought this solved the problem but as I was working on images by opening them from LR into Photoshop, the HD-1b drive reappered in my catalog with the PS created files in them.
- So it looks like LR will put any newly created or improted photo file into HD-1b. I can't seem to find a way around this. For some reason LR doesn't want to write new files into HD-1a even though it recognizes it and has no problem reading the existing files.
I am trying to restore my lightroom catalog on an external hard drive to my new computer that has lightroom 4 installed and all my original photos loaded. Whenever I click on the lrcat file I get a message that reads"Lightroom cannot use the catalog named "Lightroom 3 Catalog" because it is not writable and cannot be opened." Below that it says "This could be caused by incorrect permissions or because another Lightroom application is using the catalog. You may try to correct the problem or you may select a different catalog". I don't know what to do.
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