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Archive 2015 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?

  
 
alvit
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


I have now a SSD on C, but its only 512 MB , so I would like to use LR in C but all my pics in D, should be wise?



Jun 29, 2015 at 08:22 PM
veroman
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


alvit wrote:
I have now a SSD on C, but its only 512 MB , so I would like to use LR in C but all my pics in D, should be wise?


What do you mean by "C" and "D"? What are you referring to?



Jun 29, 2015 at 08:25 PM
Sunny Sra
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


Ya, so you want to move the catalog AND the pics that are on your drives?

https://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2012/04/is-your-hard-drive-full-heres-how-to-move-images-to-another-drive-in-lightroom.html



Jun 29, 2015 at 08:29 PM
alvit
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


No, only the Pics Catalog will stay on C:
Veroman, C: is the primary disk on computers and D: the secondary....
C: because A: and B WERE the old way computers worked...



Jun 29, 2015 at 09:07 PM
Paulthelefty
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


The catalog can go anywhere, and the photos can go anywhere else. I have my catalog on an external SSD and my photos on a RAID 1 external with spin drives. This works very well if you use smart previews, because you can do most of your editing without actually having the photos (as in I don't even turn on the spin drives).

If you move the physical files to D ( or wherever), LR will give you a question mark on the files the next time you open it. If you right click the question mark, it will give you a menu which will include "locate files" (or something like that). You simply show LR where the files are now and you are all good. I think you can move them in LR also, but I never tried it.

Paul



Jun 30, 2015 at 12:46 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


as Paul above says you don't need any IMAGE files on the C: drive .

how LR works:

Lightroom creates 2 (or 3) files for each catalogue :

LRCAT : this is the catalogue file . its the database of everything that LR has done to any edits as well as the locations of your image files (not the actual images)

Previews.lrdata: these are the preview files . when a preview is created this is where its written to. if you let LR generate 1:1 previews and/or don't have LR delete previews after a certain amount of time this file can grow very big .

Smartpreviews.lrdata: this is your smart preview file (LR5 or later) . this is only used if the actual image file is not present (i.e. the drive that contains the image file is not connected to the PC) . having these previews will allow you to do edits in the develop module without the image file . they are actually a low res DNG raw file . they are a much low res than most cameras produce nowadays but are plenty big enough to fill your screen .

(there are a couple of extra files but these are only present when LR is open and LR manages them itself)

these files can exist anywhere on your PC (can be on an external drive , but not on a network drive) but all files HAVE to be in the same folder . and the names have to match . (tried renaming a smart file once and even after I named it back to its original name LR still couldn't see it )


So its usually best practice to have the above files on your fastest drive (usually and internal;l drive ) so in your case the SSD C: drive would be best .
in library mode LR will not look to your image files other than if the file DOES NOT have a preview.
In Develop mode LR looks to the image file and redraws its preview . so having the image on a fast enough connection helps speed things along . but unless your drive is connected to a very slow (usb1) drive you won't really notice . I've had image files on a pretty fast SSD connected to USB3 and others on a slow USB2 drive and there really isn't any impact in normal use .

so in your case its probably best (for space and performance) to have the LRCAT and its previews on your C: (sad) drive and all your image files on your D: drive .
make sure LR backs up its LRCAT file and make sure its putting those backups on a different drive to the C: drive . you select in preferences when you want LR to backup . usually having it ask on exit is a good way . if you've done any edits then BACKUP . if not then don't bother . if your using LR6/CC it now compresses the backup to save you some space . (quite a bit actually as my 1.5gb LRCAT file zips down to about 150mb) .

of course it goes without saying but make sure your PC is backing up your IMAGE files as well . LR will not back these up for you. backup strategies can get quite complex but the minimum you want to consider is 1 current 'live' backup on an external drive and 1 archived backup not connected to the machine . rotate these 2 drives often (to keep the archive as upto date as possible) and put the archive in a safe place away from your machine . (I swap mine out weekly and the archive goes into a locker at work)



Jun 30, 2015 at 01:57 AM
OntheRez
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


I'm assuming by labeling your drives C: and D: you are working with Windows. (Has windows never developed the ability to name drives?). You can have your pix files on any drive. If you want to move them from one to the other, then you can generally do a drag copy. (There are some limitations on number of files that can be copied this way via both win and OS X interfaces - but the number is large. If you hit the wall, copy in sections.)

As others have noted, you will then need to open Lr where you'll get ? on your folders. (This assumes you deleted them from their original location. Please, don't delete until you've verified the files on the new drive by randomly opening and examining several using the Finder [Ah someone help me with the Win name for the equivalent interface. Stopped using DOS a very long time ago ] Just click on the folder and direct it to the new location. I believe you can start at the top level - all files - and do it once.

It sounds like you are running out of room. You will see a degradation in performance if you move from an SSD to a platter. Given the reasonable prices on SSDs, it would be wise to make sure you are going to one. I keep my pix all on a striped pair of SSDs in a Thunderbolt enclosure. Performance is indistinguishable from having them on my internal SSD. I back up twice to platters as this isn't really time important.

Do move carefully as you do this. Think twice, move once. Verify the new drive with whatever system tools are available prior to copying. I've done this several times, but I do it very thoughtfully.

Robert



Jun 30, 2015 at 09:18 AM
alvit
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


Thanks, I went in LR, om the left side, clic on + and choose D
After that its just a question of moving from C to D IN LR, bifore copied outside LR and was a disaster, now look working good



Jun 30, 2015 at 11:40 AM
veroman
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


alvit wrote:
No, only the Pics Catalog will stay on C:
Veroman, C: is the primary disk on computers and D: the secondary....
C: because A: and B WERE the old way computers worked...


I'm on a Mac and have always been on a Mac. "C" and "D" mean nothing to me.

Therefore .... all of my pics are on appropriately named external drives. My LR 6 software and catalogs are on my boot-up disk, which is also external. I simply import any new or modified images from any external drive to the catalog on the boot-up drive.

My catalog has about 160,00 embedded previews. The 160,000 original images are spread across 8 external drives, roughly 10TB worth of images. In addition, I have a back-up of the boot-up drive as well as a Mac Time Machine drive for all non-archived, current work.

I don't see why a windows machine couldn't operate the same way ... unless there's something about windows that prevents that. On that note, someone else will have to chime in. I have no knowledge of windows PCs.

- Steve



Jun 30, 2015 at 04:07 PM
mmai
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


Simple:
It all happens in the Library Module's Folder Panel. Just drag the individual photos or folders to your desired locations. You will be prompted to confirm your action.

Edited on Jul 01, 2015 at 09:41 AM · View previous versions



Jun 30, 2015 at 04:20 PM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


veroman wrote:
I'm on a Mac and have always been on a Mac. "C" and "D" mean nothing to me.

Therefore .... all of my pics are on appropriately named external drives. My LR 6 software and catalogs are on my boot-up disk, which is also external. I simply import any new or modified images from any external drive to the catalog on the boot-up drive.

My catalog has about 160,00 embedded previews. The 160,000 original images are spread across 8 external drives, roughly 10TB worth of images. In addition, I have a back-up of the boot-up drive as well as a Mac Time
...Show more


Steve , windows machines can act the same as that (at least as far as alar is concerned )
Windows assigns each drive a letter (where we Mac users use drive names ) . But you can have a name as well (done at time of format)
As far as drive letters at concerned you can't have A OR B (I think they were old floppy drive letters) and C: is usually your primary hard drive (where you would normally have the OS)
Windows can mix letters up if you keep swapping drives out . It's been a while since I used windows like that but I used to get windows to assign my image drives the last letters of the alphabet so LR never mixes drives up .

Also as a side note I find it hard to think that you have 160K of images that are 10TB . Ive just culled a load of stuff but my images are around 100k and I'm not close to filling my 3Tb hard drive (most of my stuff is RAW )





Jun 30, 2015 at 05:00 PM
veroman
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


Ian.Dobinson wrote:
... as a side note I find it hard to think that you have 160K of images that are 10TB . Ive just culled a load of stuff but my images are around 100k and I'm not close to filling my 3Tb hard drive (most of my stuff is RAW )


Well ... to be more accurate, it's about 9.5TB. The main reason is that I have one disk 100% dedicated to archiving all of my RAW, JPEG and TIFFs from actual assignments. In essence, it's a duplicate of those files, and it's a Seagate Drive best used for archiving rather than actual workflow. Way too slow to do work on

It's not so much the number of images either. It's the size of the files shot with cameras like the Canon 1Ds II, 1Dx, etc. With each architecture/interior assignment I usually generate about 300-500 pics. And I throw NOTHING away. I've learned my lesson the hard way to save everything. For one thing, my sensibility about what makes a good shot and what doesn't changes gradually with each passing year. I often look back on files that are in a Reject Folder and say, "Hey ... that's really pretty good."

So I keep everything until I know for sure that I'll never use it for anything. The cost of doing that is negligible. Date storage is so cheap now!

- Steve



Jun 30, 2015 at 06:04 PM
hugowolf
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


Ian.Dobinson wrote:
As far as drive letters at concerned you can't have A OR B (I think they were old floppy drive letters) and C: is usually your primary hard drive (where you would normally have the OS)


My RAID 0 drive is A. I just figured it wasn't going to used for anything else. I have nothing on B, but C is a SSD.

Brian A




Jun 30, 2015 at 06:20 PM
aubsxc
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


alvit wrote:
I have now a SSD on C, but its only 512 MB , so I would like to use LR in C but all my pics in D, should be wise?


In the Lightroom Navigator pane, Left Mouse Click to select the folder you want to move, hold down the Left Mouse Key and drag the folder to its new destination on the D: drive. It is as simple as that. Do NOT do the move outside LR as you will then have to synchronize the contents and point LR to the new folder location.

And yes, it is completely OK to keep your raw and processed files stored in different drives on the computer or even on a network or external drive. Obviously, the SSD will provide the fastest access to your files, and putting it on a network share might increase the latency slightly depending on the hardware and network, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong wrong with the concept.

Another good practice is to save your edits to XMP files in the folder where the raw images are stored. This way you can easily import the pictures and edits in case you lose your catalog file, and the edits stay with your raw files. When you are done with your edits, right mouse click on the folder and select "Save Metadata" and this will write the XMP files.



Jun 30, 2015 at 06:30 PM
alvit
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


aubsxc wrote:
Another good practice is to save your edits to XMP files in the folder where the raw images are stored. This way you can easily import the pictures and edits in case you lose your catalog file, and the edits stay with your raw files. When you are done with your edits, right mouse click on the folder and select "Save Metadata" and this will write the XMP files.


Please, tell me why and how...



Jun 30, 2015 at 08:16 PM
schlotz
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


alvit wrote:
Please, tell me why and how...


Both answers you requested (why & how) are already in his post.



Jun 30, 2015 at 08:51 PM
hugowolf
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


alvit wrote:
Please, tell me why and how...


Edit > Catalog Settings... > Metadata > Automatically write changes into XMP.

The problem with right clicking on the folder and doing a Save Metadata is that it can only be done from the Library Module.

Brian A



Jun 30, 2015 at 09:18 PM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


hugowolf wrote:
My RAID 0 drive is A. I just figured it wasn't going to used for anything else. I have nothing on B, but C is a SSD.

Brian A




ok , its been a while since I used windows (thankfully ) but I thought windows wouldn't let you assign the letters A & B to drives .

oh well I've learnt something now



Jul 01, 2015 at 12:56 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


RE XMP files :

Be aware that not ALL stuff done in Lightroom is contained in the XMP file .
there is NO EDIT HISTORY. and LR specific stuff like flags and colours are left out as well .

I saw a video a while back that said if you used XMP files you could be better off converting your RAW files to DNG (LR will do this for you at import if you want) as the metadata and edits are contained in the DNG file so they can't be lost (which is easy to do with sidecar files ) .

I decided against XMP (or DNG) a while ago . I keep regular backups of my LRCAT . if I'm exporting raw files to use on another machine that doesn't have LR I will export with the sidecar file though .



Jul 01, 2015 at 01:04 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · How to move my Pictures from C: to D: in LR?


The Lr catalogue should be backed up often, and to different media in different locations. The photo files can afford to backed up less often because they don't change so much.

I specifically avoid .xmp files because - especially on a HDD - they slow things down. Each edit is stored in the Lr catalogue and then also written to an existing .xmp file. This moves the drive heads away from the image files that you are working on and slows the file access in the develop module.

The more scattered your files are, or the more random your selection of files is compared with the way they are stored on the HDD, the more you'll see the delay. In fact this applies even if you do not use .xmp files because just accessing the image files is affected in the same way. Apart from looking for the files at different locations, the drive cache is more likely to be dumped and recreated when the files are not together. This effect probably explains why some people (correctly) report little or no benefit with SSDs when they are using small test Lr catalogues and libraries and they're looking at images in much the same order that they stored on their HDD.

Also, it is my practise to never edit with my raw files outside Lr/Ps and so I do not need compatibility of .xmp data between different applications. I use programs such as DPP and View NX 2 mainly to reveal info that is unavailable within Lr (active focus point, extended exif data, etc.), and I don't want Bridge or whatever messing with what I do and see in Lr.

As far as I know it is impossible to prevent Lr writing xmp data into jpg and tif and dng files but you can stop it writing into raw files. This also reduces head thrashing on HDDs.

To get the best from an SSD, it pays to have the ACR cache, Lr previews and Lr Smart Previews on the SSD. The image files can go there too if there is sufficient space. The faster the HDD is the less benefit there is to have the image files on the SSD.

Image raw files are read every time you display an image in the Lr develop module, so the faster you whiz through them in that module the more you'll benefit from an SSD.

Preview files are updated every time the photo is edited, and are read every time the photo is viewed in the Library module or Develop module, and so again the faster you whiz through them the more you'll benefit from using an SSD.

And of course, the slower your HDD the more you'll benefit with an SSD. Laptop HDDs are generally a lot slower than 3.5" HDDs, and smaller capacity HDDs are slower than larger capacity HDDs.

- Alan



Jul 01, 2015 at 09:47 PM





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