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JaviJ
Participant
March 2, 2026
Open for Voting

P: Import from another Catalog. Option to import duplicates as Virtual Copies instead of replacing Masters

  • March 2, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 14 views

I have a main catalog to which I occasionally add photos using the Import from another catalog option. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes those photos are already in the main catalog with edits and other metadata. When faced with duplicates, Lightroom offers the option to Keep old settings as virtual copies, but it seems more logical to me that when faced with duplicates, the opposite option should be available, i.e., to add the photos from the imported secondary catalog as virtual copies while keeping the existing ones as Masters. This would allow users to compare both versions side-by-side and delete the unnecessary one without risking the integrity of their primary edits.
In my case, there are usually no edits in the imported catalog, but to be on the safe side, I would like to import it (as a virtual copy) so that I can compare, check, and delete them if necessary.

    1 reply

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 2, 2026

    I guess that the philosophy behind this is that the newer edit is probably want you want to keep. You can switch this manually if you want to. With the virtual copy selected, choose ‘Photo - Set Copy as original’.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    JaviJ
    JaviJAuthor
    Participant
    March 2, 2026

    Yes, I've thought about it. But I have to go through them one by one; I can't change all the selected ones at once. Also, if an image has more than one virtual copy (because it already had it before), I have to know which one is the correct one (I guess by the edit date...and luck).

     

    Furthermore, in “my philoshopy”, the newer edition is usually in the main catalog and not in the imported one (the imported image usually only has keywords ...or nothing).