Cannot import metadata and settings when importing from another catalog

[vwinklaar]

Hello everyone,

I have encountered a problem when trying to import from another catalog.

My workflow is like this. I work on my copy of lightroom cc, and my friend works on his own. 

I save a shoot on my computer and catalog and then I give my friend the sd card to copy the shoot on his own computer and catalog. He edits the shoot and then exports the shoot to a catalog with non of the options selected. ( I am only interested in the metadata and the develop settings since I already have the images in my own catalog).

This used to work fine but now everything is greyed out.

I recently updated my version of lightroom cc but hew still is working on an older version since his macbook is old and will not allow him to upgrade his lightroom.

Could this be the cause ? eventhough lightroom tells me it will upgrade the older catalog? I used to have this before to and I upgraded the calaog and it worked fine but now it doesnt.

Thank you for the help or any advice

[JohanElzenga]

What do you mean with "everything is greyed out"? Can you post a screenshot of how the catalog import window looks?

[DdeGannes]

@vwinklaar , you stated "I work on my copy of lightroom cc, and my friend works on his own. ".

If you are referring to Lightroom Classic please say so or use LrC to indicate. There is no Application known as Lightroom cc.

[Rob_Cullen]

And Lightroom-classic catalogs are not 'backwards' compatible.

A v13 catalog does not work in v12.

A v12 catalog does ot work in v11,  etc.

[vwinklaar]

Hi Sorry for the confusion.

We both work in Lightroom Classic. I work in V13, he is working on a much older version.

I am including a screenshot.

[Rob_Cullen]

Whose [Import from a Catalog] dialog is shown in your screen-clip?

"-v13-2" suggests it is your catalog, and the second time (-2) you have upgraded a previous version catalog (which could be a mistake!).

Your friend will not be able to open a v13 catalog in their "much older version."

You both need to be on a par with Version Numbers to share a Catalog by the Catalog Export/Import method.

[JohanElzenga]

@Rob_Cullen If the OP tries to import a V12 catalog in his V13 catalog, then Lightroom will say it needs to upgrade that V12 catalog first before importing it. So I think what we see here is the import dialog after that conversion was done (and we see -2 because it's the second time the OP tries it).

@vwinklaar  said about what his friend does "He edits the shoot and then exports the shoot to a catalog with non of the options selected", so the imported catalog only contains the catalog file and no thumbnails or photos. In that case this dialog seems correct and logical to me. There are no previews because those were not included and there are no original photos either, so the option for 'File Handling' is not available. The 'Import' button is enabled, so quite frankly I do not see anything wrong with this. 

@vwinklaar  Did you actually try to import the catalog or did you stop at this point?

[vwinklaar]

@JohanElzenga , I did try and import, I do not get any of the edits that my friend did, I get a "problem importing from Catalog".

I only want to get the edits that my friend has done to the images, not the files ( I already have the files in my catalog). Because of this when he is going to export, he unticks all the options. Are we doing something wrong here?

[JohanElzenga]

Your screenshot shows that the images are imported as new images and that Lightroom should copy them to a certain location. It means that Lightroom does not recognise them as the same images that are already in your catalog. This could be related to the fact that your friend used a lower version of Lightroom, I just don't know. Copying them will obviously not work, because they aren't with the exported catalog, so Lightroom can't copy them. That is what the error shows.

It should be possible to solve this in the following way:

1: You must remove the images that you already had in your catalog from the catalog (but not from disk!). Next time do not import them at all, but wait until you received the catalog from your friend. 

2: The imported images from your friends catalog should be in your catalog, but shown as 'missing'.

3: Reconnect these imported missing images to the images on your disk. You can probably use the 'missing folder' method: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/

[vwinklaar]

Thank you for your possible solution. I will try it.

I find it strange thou, because my version sees his catalog as an older version and converts his cagtalgo version to my version. Will also try and import a catalog from a newer version of lightroom to see if that is the problem.

I appreciate your and everyones help with this problem.

THANK YOU!

[vwinklaar · Accepted solution]

This is what I am seeing now:

What I did is ask my friend to include the negative files in the export.

I imported the new catalog into my catalog. So now I have 2 folders (different names) but with the same images in them.

I deleted the edited images from my folder and moved those same images from the other folder into my folder.

I deleted the remaining images from the 2 folder and removed the 2 folder from the catalog.

I am left with my original folder with the edited images and the rest of the original non edited images.

If I go now and tyr to import the original catalog of my friend, now the system show me New Photos (458 photos) and change existing photos (34 photos), so it still doesnt see the original photos in my catalog, but recognizes the 34 edited photos that I moved  earlier.

[vwinklaar]

Here the option for metadata is not greyed out.

[JohanElzenga]

All I can say is that I gave you a solution that I believed would have worked.

[vwinklaar]

Yes thank you I will try it out.

Just found it curious that it regonizes the copied files but not the originals

[vwinklaar]

Hi Johan,

I just wanted to update you.

Your solution to my problem worked.

Thank you and everyone else for taking time in responding to my post.

I appreciated it!

[JohanElzenga]

You're welcome!

[vwinklaar]

Hi Rob,

The screenshot is from my computer, so I am importing his exported catalog (from an older version) to my catalog (version 13).

We used to do this all the time, when I import his catalog, my Lightroom classic first upgrades his catalog to the new version and then I import it.