LR Classic & CC with Multiple Catalogs

[RecalcitrantRon]

I have only used LR Classic. I do so with about 8 catalogs. For example, I have a catalog for Landscape and a separate ones for Wildlife, Family, Sports ect. All of my photos are kept on an external drive connected to my iMac. My catalogs are on the iMac internal drive. I want to be able to do culling and flagging for deletion on my laptop. I know I can put the catalogs on the external drive with the photos and just connect to whichever computer I am using, but I would prefer to to use the sync functions. I won't doing heavy editing on the laptop so smart previews are fine. The problem I am finding is that I want to sync different collections from different catalogs. I set up a collection of a photo shoot from the Landscape catalog and let it sync. When I finished, I unchecked the sync collection. The CC photos now say the originals are no longer synced. Then I went to sync a collection from the Wildlife catalog and get the following:

"If you choose to sync this catalog, photos that you've already synced will be added to this catalog"

I do not want to add the Landscape photos to the Willdlife catalog. Is there a workaround?

Thanks in advance.

-Ron

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

No, there is no work around. Lightroom Classic can only sync one single catalog to the cloud. As soon as you enable sync for a second catalog, you break the sync of the first one (and you create a mess because the already synced smart previews will download into that second catalog as new images).

[RecalcitrantRon]

Thank you. I understand the catalog issue. But I’m so deep into that I’m not sure I could or want to get out. That said, my problem is the mess created when smart previews are auto synced to the other catalog. Since I won’t need them anymore, is there a way to delete them after I stop syncing to prevent that from happening. What if I un-sync the collection in Landscape, delete it in Classic, delete the previews from CC and then set up a new sync with the different catalog? Does that solve the issue?

Nice image, thanks for sharing.

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, you can do that. Simply un-sync the collection in catalog one (you don't have to delete the collection, just un-sync it), wait till the images have been deleted from the cloud, then sync catalog two.

[RecalcitrantRon]

So I unchecked the sync box, and while the raw files are deleted, the previews are not. Is there a setting for that or do I need to do it manually?

[JohanElzenga]

Which previews are you talking about? The ones online or the ones in Lightroom Classic? BTW, Lightroom Classic does not sync original raw files, it syncs smart previews.

If the previews online are not deleted, then remove them from 'All Synced Photographs' in Lightroom Classic. That should delete them online.

[RecalcitrantRon]

The smart previews are still in CC. Note that this is old sync before the Classic and CC split when it was LR Mobile.

-Ron

[JohanElzenga]

As they must have downloaded to Lightroom Classic, you should remove them from ‘All Synced Photographs’ In Lightroom Classic, or delete them from the catalog completely.

[Tony_See]

Reduce the number of catalogs and use collections more judiciously perhaps.

I would aim to have one master catalog and import everything into that and let LR do the 'heavy lifting' through tagging, keywords etc and work towards that goal.

[JohanElzenga]

I agree. Having different catalogs for different types of photography may sound like a good idea, but in practise you'll often find it's not. Take this image for example. Is this a landscape image or a wildlife image? To me it's both, so it would have to be in two catalogs if you have separate landscape and wildlife catalogs. It's much better to use a single catalog and use collections, smart collection and keywords to separate the subjects.

[colrehogan]

I really would like to reduce the number of catalogs I have.  I have gone through several PC's and now am on a Mac Book.  I have been using LR since about version 2.  My catalogs and pictures are on external hard drives.  When I loaded LR onto the Mac, I think I created another catalog.  I have a mess that I would like to clean up but have no idea where to start.

[dj_paige]

@colrehoganstart a new thread ... explain your problem in detail.

[Mr Michael_D_Harding]

Late to this thread, but to add to JohanElzenga's comments: there is no longer any point to running multiple Catalogs as you currently are. It will only end in tears. Far better to create one main Catalog – a "container" for all your work, if you like. Within this, you can create indvidual subject folders if that's how you like to work. 

But I suspect you are overlooking the amzing power of Collections, which will allow you far more control over your images and makes retreiving work much more efficient. There are excellent Adobe tutorials online on Catalog Collections, so check those out.

But remember that using Collections allows you to change the order of your images for editing/outputting purposes, especially. if you are using something like Book. And it also allows you fanastic power using keywords, flags and ratings. Oh, what, there's more! It allows you to have the same picture appear in two (or whatever) places, so you can have new associations between (say) an image which is both a landscape and wildlife shot at the same time. Just make a Collection for each subject/topic/location/whatever and leave the original (say) "DSC.1234.nef" where it lives and refer to the appropriate Collection.