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Hi guys,

I want to download my photos to the laptop, edit and cull them in LR and then later transfer to my desktop. How do I do this while retaining all my edits in LR? [Is there a way of doing this]
The catalog in the laptop and desktop are vastly different...

Ta..

There's a work around for getting LR to work on a network.

Would that help?

Or if you work on the RAW files without converting to DNG then you could select the option to 'write changes to XMP' so the edits you make are written onto the sidecar file rather than kept in the catalog.

Thanks Adam, I don't have a network.

I don't convert to DNG. I will check out this xmp business..

Never done this but there is an Export to Catalog option as well as an Import from Catalog option. Perhaps that may be able to achieve what you want to do. ie export the images of interest on the laptop to a catalog and them import that catalog on the desktop. Not sure how the reference to the actual image files will work out though. As the image edits are kept in the database (as well as in the XMP sidecars if enabled) then I think they should carry across the export/import process. Possibly.......

Yes, that's the way to do it.

Thanks Hark and Murray.

How do I transport the image file then? Just copy the whole directory and append to my desktop?? How does it know when the location changes?

Not having shifted images, so treat the following with caution!!!! Provided the same directory structure is maintained, you can somehow repoint the folder structure in the library module to the new location and LR will pick it up from there.

I export the catalogue to my extrernal hard drive, and when i need to work, i open it from there but save it on what ever i am using, eg. Mac or macbook pro. I find it works for me, i haven't lost images as of yet! but always back up before you try any of the suggestions!!

bigsarg7 wrote:I export the catalogue to my extrernal hard drive, and when i need to work, i open it from there

I understand this about the catalog but wasn't sure about the actual RAW files themselves. Do you have to get LR to 'find' the relevant RAW files (which I assume are on your external drive as well as an internal drive)

I have just come back from the Bateman's Bay Blues Festival and just undertaken this exercise.

I took about 2,500 images. Each night I downloaded them to my laptop and the first two nights also backed them up to a small external drive.

Then when I got back to Canberra I plugged an external drive (different one) into the laptop and Exported as a Catalogue the images from the weekend to that drive. That created a catalogue in the specified external drive directory as well as copying all the NEFs across as well as the one virtual copy I had made and any other ratings and other changes.

Finally I plugged the external drive into my PC and imported the catalogue from the external disk. I specified to copy the files across rather than leave them on the external disk so they are now all in the RAID array on my PC and also in my main Lightroom catalogue.

It is also possible to leave the images on the external disk but include them in the main catalogue so you can see the previews but only edit the images when you attach the external drive.

Thanks for raising this Suren and Murray et al for the detailed replies. I'll need to do this when I get back from Antarctica so I now have the answer