I have two computers – a beautiful 5K iMac at my studio, and a MacBook Pro that I travel with. My schedule can get crazy, especially when I’m traveling 2-3 weeks in a given month. It’s not practical to take my entire photo library with me when I travel, so I often find myself creating a temporary catalog on my laptop and merging it with my main catalog back at the studio.
While the task sounds daunting, it really isn’t that complicated. Let’s get started.
I’m assuming you already created your temporary catalog and you’re about to merge it with your main catalog.
Step 1: Prep the Temporary Catalog
When merging catalogs, let’s take a quick look through our Folders and Collections. Look for missing items, empty Collections and things you don’t necessarily want to add to your main catalog.
Step 2: Open the Main Catalog
Now we need to open up our main catalog. This might be on another computer or could be on the same computer. If it’s not the last-opened catalog, you’ll need to choose File > Open Catalog.
Shortcut: By holding the Option key on Mac / Alt key on Windows when clicking the Lightroom icon, a dialog box will pop up allowing you to choose a catalog or create a new catalog before Lightroom launches.
Step 3: Import
From your main catalog, choose File > Import from a Catalog. Locate where your temporary catalog file is and choose it.
Lightroom will inspect it and a dialog box will pop up.
Step 4: Choose What to Import
From the dialog box, we have the option to import both the Folders and Catalogs of our choosing into the main catalog. By default, Lightroom will put a checkmark next to everything.
Near the bottom of the window you have the option to select File Handling. Lightroom by default will opt to add the new photos to the catalog without moving them to a new location. You can also select the option to copy new photos to a new location and then import them into the main catalog.
My preferred method is to let Lightroom copy the new photos to a new location (on my main photo hard drive, where I store all my other images) and then import them into the main catalog. The reasoning for this is bringing a portable drive with my catalog and photos from my laptop to my main desktop. If I just choose “add new photos”, Lightroom will see the photos on the portable drive and it would be up to me to copy and re-link the photos back in Lightroom.
If you have multiple catalogs on the same computer, and your photos are already set up on your main photo drive, then it makes sense to just “add new photos” because they’re already in place.
Step 5: Click Import
Now that we’ve gone through the dialog box, we can go ahead and click Import. Lightroom will start to merge the temporary catalog with the main one.
After the import, the temporary catalog is still in tact. You can open it back up if you need to refer to something or you can just delete it knowing your images are already in your main catalog.
Why do it this way?
You could be wondering…Why create a temporary catalog when you could just take your main catalog with you and it will just show missing images?
Creating a temp catalog doesn’t take much time at all. I don’t have to plan ahead and copy my main catalog into an external hard drive. I don’t have to move it from machine to machine and worry about which version is the most current. The temp catalog is small in size and it makes using the program much smoother.
As a final note, make sure to treat this temporary catalog as safely as your main catalog. That means having a sound backup plan, with multiple copies of your data.
Have questions or concerns? Let us know in the comments below.
Nick Minore is a video professional and avid photographer based in Florida. Be sure to follow Nick for more photo and video updates by clicking on the links below!
www.facebook.com/nickminore
www.twitter.com/nickminore
This Post Sponsored by:
Perfectly Clear for Photoshop or Lightroom is all about saving you time so you can focus on doing what you love best. Get a free trial of the award winning plug-in here.
Polarr photo editor made for everyone – yes everyone deserves high quality photo editing tools, regardless of the type of camera you use and level of skills, regardless the platform, no matter the place. Polarr makes it easy to edit photos any place online or offline. Get it free at https://www.polarr.co/
The HDR Learning Center. Check out new ways to use High Dynamic Range photography to make compelling images. Free tutorials and posts to get results. Produced in partnership with HDRsoft
Arizona Highways Photo Workshops. For more than 30 years, Arizona Highway Photo Workshops has been committed to helping photographers find inspiring destinations, quality education and spectacular images. Get more information (and enter our contest) at http://www.ahpw.org/FindIt/
Platypod Pro™– the world’s most compact camera support. Use it with your ballhead in place of a tripod. Click here for more info — http://bit.ly/platypodpro
Creative Cloud Photography plan. Take your best shot and make it even better with the Creative Cloud Photography plan. Get all the essential tools, including Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop, to craft incredible images every day, everywhere — whether you’re a beginner or a pro. It’s all your photography. All in one place.
lynda.com Learn photography anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace—from bite-sized tutorials to comprehensive courses. Try lynda.com free for 10 days by visiting lynda.com/Photofocus
Filed under: Adobe, Photography, Software, Technique & Tutorials Tagged: Adobe, catalog, import, Lightroom, LightroomLR, merge, merging catalogs, nickminore 
