Any possibility to find out in which catalog a photo is imported already?

[dieterl94623937]

I (need to) use many LR catalogs.

Sometimes it would be helpful to see which photo has already been imported into which catalog.

Is there a way to find this (more quickly) without having to open and search each catalog in turn?

[Ian Lyons]

No!

There is no link between catalogs. So, no way for one catalog to indicate or even be aware that a photo has or has not be imported into another catalog.

[dj_paige]

This is a good reason to use one catalog. But since you say you need to use many catalogs (I'm skeptical), there is no way to know which catalog(s) a photo is in without doing the searching you describe.

[dieterl94623937]

Jepp, thats what I thought already...

But, what if I would import all catalogs into one mastercatalog. Would IN THIS CASE be any possibility to get the information in which of the single-catalog this picture is?

Of course this would not be practical, because I could always use a "master catalog" instead of my many "project catalogs" - about 30 pieces at the moment.

Only one of the reasons why I use several catalogs is the much faster backup, because with well over 1 million photos in total, a single catalog in this sense would also be somewhat unwieldy.

I guess, I simply need more concentration, not to import photos into wrong catalogs... to avoid the problem that I have at the moment (not really a problem, but a uncomfortable situation)  😉

Thanks to all!

[JohanElzenga]

Jepp, thats what I thought already...

But, what if I would import all catalogs into one mastercatalog. Would IN THIS CASE be any possibility to get the information in which of the single-catalog this picture is?

By @dieterl94623937

Again: no. The image would be in this master catalog and that is all Lightroom Classic would know.

[dj_paige]

Only one of the reasons why I use several catalogs is the much faster backup, because with well over 1 million photos in total, a single catalog in this sense would also be somewhat unwieldy.

And yet, people do have catalogs with > 1 million photos, without complaints. Yes, the backups probably have to happen overnight, but that's the only real drawback. And your present problem is eliminated.

[C.Cella · Accepted solution]

@dieterl94623937 

You can tag the photos with the name of the Catalog in which they are.

If you import/add the photo(s) into another catalog then you will also tag with that other catalog's name.

A photo that is in multiple catalogs will show multiple catalog tags: Catalog Project X, Catalog Project Y, etc...

You could form now on add the tag with the name of each Catalog on import with a simple preset or manually.

Try see if it works for you.

.Edit

I did a quick test and imported a photo into another catalog (I copied it not added it) and created a catalog category tag for the other catalog.

Now I see this.

It's a simple but effective solution.

You must be scrupulous and add the Catalog Tag to all photos in each catalog (also in each Catalog create the tag Group) and from now on do it on import...that is if you intend to continue working like this and don't want to use the "One catalog to rule them all" solution.

.

[dj_paige]

It's a simple but effective solution.

Perhaps effective, but not, in my mind simple.

I consider it a tedious work-around, compared to the much simpler solution of using one catalog. And you can't make a mistake in assigning a catalog name tag or forget to assign a catalog name tag, if you do the whole thing fails, and then this plan is not effective.

[C.Cella · Accepted solution]

@dj_paige 

Mergin all into a Master Catlaog is a simple solution ONLY if you don't care about History.

If he adds all the photos to a new catalog all the History in the other catalogs will be lost.

You have not considered the possibility that to him that might be precious and vital.

What if he has not finished editing and needs history for thousands of images!?

Adding them to a Master Catlog gives him only trouble.

Before adding them to a new Master Catalog he should finish editing in each Catalog.

[johnrellis]

Two more solutions:

1. Save the following lines to the file "findfile.bat" in your home folder:

@echo off
set root=c:\users\john\pictures\lightroom
for /d %%d in ("%root%\*") do (
    for %%c in ("%%d\*.lrcat") do (
        find /c /i "%1" "%%c"
        )
    )

Change the second line to refer to the folder that contains all your catalog folders.  Then to search for a particular file, run this at the command prompt:

findfile "test-pics\aa.raf"

substituting between the double quotes the file or path of the file you're searching for.

Every catalog will be searched for occurrences of that path, and the count of the number of matches will be output after the catalog's path.

This isn't very fast, since the Windows "find" command is pretty slow. But it doesn't require you to do anything special (like build a master catalog).

----------------------------------------------------

2. A variant of C.Cella's suggestion: Build a master catalog of all your pics once, and then incrementally update it whenever you need to search for a file.

a. In each catalog, add a unique keyword with the catalog's name to all of its photos.

b. In each catalog, enable the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP.

c. Build a master catalog containing all your pics, being sure to Add rather than Copy or Move the imported photos.

d. In the master catalog, disable the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP.

e. In the master catalog, make sure the root folder containing all the catalogs' pics is visible in the Folder panels -- if it isn't, repeatedly right-click a top-level folder and do Show Parent Folder.

f. To incrementally update the master catalog to contain the latest contents of your catalogs:

i. Right-click the root folder and do Synchronize Folder and enable the options Remove Missing Photos From Catalog and Show Import Dialog Before Importing. Make sure to select Add in the Import window.

ii. In the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser, use the column Metadata Status. Select Changed On Disk and Conflict Detected. (You can define a filter preset with these settings.) Select all the displayed files and do the menu command Metadata > Read Metadata From File.

[dj_paige]

Or use one catalog, and then you have all the database functionality that was built into LrC, without having to create workarounds.

[JohanElzenga]

Or use one catalog, and then you have all the database functionality that was built into LrC, without having to create workarounds.

By @dj_paige

I agree. Any work around solution ignores the fact that Lightroom Classic was built for huge catalogs and while a catalog of over 1 million images is indeed big, it is not excessive and nothing Lightroom can't handle.

[Ian Lyons]

> while a catalog of over 1 million images is indeed big

True, but not all 1 million image catalogs are equal. For example, a user who retains all history for each edited image will have a much larger catalog (in GB) than a user who retains very little or no history. I mention history because historically (forgive the pun) it's one of the most common reasons for poorly performing catalogs.

[C.Cella]

@johnrellis

The metadata filters and Smart Collections are bugged/broken 

They do not detect automatically photos that are: "not up to date" or have metadata conflicts.

Conditions for detection are:

- display the photos you want the smart collection or filter to pick up.

-Wait till LrC finds them out...could take days.

Your Any Filter is the only reliable and fast way to find conflicts.

P.S.

Why you suggest I the variant of my method to turn off "Write into XMP"?

Pausing it would suffice no!?

.

[johnrellis]

"Why you suggest I the variant of my method to turn off "Write into XMP"? Pausing it would suffice no!?"

Either would accomplish the purpose, which is to prevent the master catalog, used only for searching, from overwriting the pics' .xmp files.  Setting the option in Catalog Settings would perhaps make it a little harder to accidentally turn it back on.

[C.Cella]

@johnrellis 

I realized I keep "Write Into XMP" active all the times.

When I open in my main Catalog a photo I edited in ACR for instance I am always asked to solve the conflict,  the auto save into XMP doesn't overwrite anything.

Also strikes me as odd that we cannot chose to "Read Metadata Form Disk on Import"

That would spare users that need to do it the trouble of having to read metadata as a second step.

[JohanElzenga]

@johnrellis 

Also strikes me as odd that we cannot chose to "Read Metadata Form Disk on Import"

That would spare users that need to do it the trouble of having to read metadata as a second step.

By @C.Cella

That is because you do not have to. Lightroom already does that. If it does not seem to do that in your case, then check that you do not have a preset that is applied on import (or applied as camera defaults), which overrides the reading of metadata from disk.

[C.Cella]

@JohanElzenga 

I was thinking about different camera defaults.

 In that case at import the users could chose to "Ignore Camera Default" and always read from the file.

.

[C.Cella]

@dieterl94623937 

Do you need history in your catalogs?

Do you have custom metadata fields in one or all those catalogs?

[dieterl94623937]

Yes, I use both,(history and some custom metadata), in most of my catalogs.

To be clear: Using only one large catalog is no option in my case.

Thanks so much to all, for giving good ideas, in that short time, I really appreciate!

[GoldingD]

You could consider a plug-in that provides a listing of a catalogs content. I have never tried this  so I cannot vouch for any of these.

for example, see:

http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/lightroom/list-view/

https://alloyphoto.com/plugins/export-list/