On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > Let's say that I want to create an ubercatalog, as suggested. > And lets assume that I don't want to lose the work that I've already > done on my 20 or so catalogs of about 570 directories with about > 62,000 photos. > > Godfrey said that I should merge catalogs. But, when I look in the > indexes of my lightroom books, neither said anything about merging > catalogs. > When I look at the menu there is > new catalog > open catalog > and open recent (which seems to be recent catalog)
File menu, "Import from catalog..." - Create a new catalog - Use "Import from catalog" on each catalog you want to bring into the merge - For import options, unless you want to use Lightroom to reorganize your file system for you, it makes the most sense to import files in place and create virtual copies for files that might be replicated across several catalogs. Consider a Lightroom catalog as an entity completely independent of the 'Original Image File Repository' (OFR), but linked to its location. You can structure the OFR any way you want, design it any way that makes sense to you. Some people prefer a date based directory tree, others prefer a category/event based directory tree. Lightroom has facilities that can automate moving the files into a date based directory tree, based on image metadata, but using them is completely optional. The most important things to be aware of when creating an OFR is to ensure that a) you can add new files to it in a rational way as time goes on, and b) it is easy to back up. Rooting your OFR with a single root (and a single root on each volume it spans if you have to use multiple drives) allows for very easy backup and replication of the OFR. It also allows you to move the OFR and reconnect with a Lightroom catalog very easily, when it becomes necessary to do so. If you structure things right and use Lightroom's keywording, filters, search, collection and metadata tools and capabilities correctly, the long long list in the Folders panel is irrelevant: you only rarely have to navigate using that. My OFR is structured by date, I also maintain Collection sets which organize image files by category/month/year. I keyword liberally and find things very very quickly in a data space of 230,000 files, with hundreds of subfolders. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
