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A
Andras Ikladi
Participant
October 1, 2022
Question

Explicitly create duplicates when/before merging catalogs

  • October 1, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 360 views

Hi,

 

I have two catalogs that I would like to merge with some common images. Ideally, I could just "Import from catalog" and tell LR to ignore duplicates (import them as an independent image, not adjusting metadata and/or virtual copies) but unfortunately, that's not an option. To work around, I already renamed (prefixed) the images I would like to merge but they still get detected as duplicates. Other than the file name, what else do I need to make unique for this to not happen?

 

Thanks,
Andras

 

ps: I know this is not the best possible workflow but I have a good reason (external dependency) to do this

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
October 1, 2022

There are many options available when you Import From Another Catalog, see the list of options at item 5 under (scroll down) "Import photos from a different Lightroom Classic catalog" here in the documentation. Do any of them work for you?

A
Andras IkladiAuthor
Participant
October 2, 2022

There is no option that I can see that both maintains metadata and physical copies. I can get all the internal LR data merged (I think) but the external dependencies I need to maintain don't allow for VC. So how?

 

Or to rephrase the question: how does LR identify duplicates? What exact EXIF data is used?

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
October 2, 2022

According to the documentation, Lightroom Classic uses this rule:

 

Lightroom Classic determines a photo is a duplicate of another file in the catalog if it has the same, original filename; the same Exif capture date and time; and the same file size. You can instruct Lightroom Classic to disregard duplicate files when importing.

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