> I know that several people on PDML have extensive expertise with LR. > So, I would like to ask a few questions about the information I cannot find. > > In the context of LR: > 1. Is there any difference of how the editing information (and not just the > end result, but also the editing steps) and metadata are > handled between the following two scenrios of moving photo files: > a) within LR > b) within the OS, and then "reattaching" in LR via "locate photos"? > > I've seen recommendations for both scenarios, but more for (b), especially in > case of large quantities of files/folder. Those people argue that > the moving using OS means is more efficient, while moving within LR is prone > to problems/interruptions (e.g. if LR encounters a problem alone the way). > I haven't seen any authoritative information if there is any difference > between the two with respect to handling editing and metadata information, > especially if the information is not written back into the file (or .xmp), > but kept within the LR database. > > I assume there shouldn't be any problem, but I am not 100% sure. > > I am also curious if there is a difference in this behavior between > LR-3 and LR-5.
Lightroom knows about the original image file locations by storing their pathname in the catalog database (the .LRCAT file). With earlier versions of Lightroom (v 2 and 3), I found that moving very large numbers of files (thousands) from one volume to another at one time from within the LR app was prone to having problems and the OS was more adept at it. So what I used to do is organize all the files using the Folders panel so that they were all in a single rooted file hierarchy on a per-volume basis. That is, you could find a single root directory that was the ultimate parent of all the imported files. Then I'd quit Lightroom and use the operating system (or a file synchronization utility like ChronoSync) to move all the files from one volume to another, preserving the directory tree. Re-open Lightroom when that finishes, control-click on the root folder and use the command "Find Missing Folder" (or some such), navigate to the new location, and click OK. Lightroom then updates all the file entries for images it knows about to use the files on the new volume. All of the editing metadata is stored on a per-file basis in the catalog; it's unnecessary to write it to disk independently as .xmp files (or embed it into .dng files) unless you want to share it to other programs in the Adobe suite. There is no difference whatever in the end result of moving files from entirely within the app to working as I describe above as long as you organize the files into a single-rooted directory tree. I haven't moved volumes of files like that en masse from place to place in quite a long time now. I notice that LR5.6 is much more efficient at it and I haven't seen a single issue doing it yet. So perhaps moving files the external way is a thing of the past and unwarranted nowadays. > 2. If I am merging catalogs and importing one into another, I understand that > I can check-mark the option to preserve duplicates as virtual copies. > My question is what happens in that case if I have Collections with the same > names? How is the clash resolved by LR? > Again, if there is a difference between LR3 and LR5, I'd like to know. I don't have LR3 installed any longer to do a test with, but if you have collections that are named identically in both the host catalog (the one you are importing into) and the source catalog (the one you are importing from), LR5 puts all the image files in identically named catalogs into the one catalog of the same name in the host catalog. Hope that helps! Godfrey -- 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.
