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Exporting and Importing Catalogs in Lightroom, Part I

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Here’s how to export your entire catalog. First, go to the Library module, and highlight “All Photographs” on the Catalog panel. Then select all of your images (Ctrl-A for PC users, Command-A for Mac users.)

The nitty-gritty details of exporting and importing catalogs in Lightroom can seem a little geeky compared to the sexy world of techniques such as layer masking and HDR processing (Okay, calling layer masking and HDR processing "sexy" is probably a little geeky itself, but I digress). Learning how to use the import/export catalog feature in Lightroom can definitely increase efficiency when working with your images in some instances. A catalog in Lightroom basically refers to the file that stores the information about all of your images that you have imported into the catalog: where the images are, the develop settings you've made, metadata you've added, etc.

You can only have one catalog open at a time, and most photographers really only need one catalog, since the search and organizational ability of Lightroom makes it incredibly simple to keep track of and find images from various parts of a photographer’s career (you do keyword your images don’t you?) no matter where those images are stored, as the catalog keeps track of that for you.

However, I'm finding that there are times when it makes a lot of sense to create a separate catalog. Most outdoor photographers can probably relate to the desire to have access to their image collection while traveling. For me, that means making a copy of the catalog on my main image processing PC in my studio, and then running that copy on a laptop while I’m on the road.

The beauty of doing this is that it isn't necessary to bring all of the original image files with me (although I could do this too if I wanted), which saves me the hassle of bringing multiple hard drives. Even without the original files, I can caption and keyword these images while traveling and then easily import the changes back to the original catalog in my studio.

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