PC to MAC How to/best way to transfer lightroom settings/develop

[TREI 1]

I just installed CS6 and LR4 on my new Macbook Retina. I had been using a PC with LR3 and CS5, and I'm wondering how I can keep all the Develop settings, etc in the transfer of my photos.

Initially, all I did was a straight copy and paste of the original photos files to an external drive and transferred, but now I'm wondering how to get the LR settings applied to those photos. Can someone give me a step by step to copy my pics or just settings from the old PC to the new Mac and keep all my ratings, settings, etc? I have 300GB of photos, so it took a while to copy them, but I'd do it again correctly to keep my presets if someone can tell me how.

[Mylenium]

You may ask in the LR forums. The develop settings are stored either in the LR catalog or as sidecar XMP data and depending on what camera you use and where you stored your stuff, there may be special procedures involved.

Mylenium

[Jeffrey_A_Wright]

Moving this discussion to the Photoshop Lightroom forum.

[Rikk Flohr: Inactive]

PC:

Select all files.

Export as Catalog to a transfer device (EHD)

Mac

Import from Catalog from transfer device.

[innovative_society0D44]

Thanks a lot to all contributors for this thread - I was trying to do the same thing, but the other way around and via LAN (photos on a macbook pro --> Windows DEsktop PC).

I'm happy to report I have my HDRs and such all developed propperly and star-ranked (....although  the color labels didn't make it through).

Thanks to all.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

If you use Publish Services (i.e. Facebook, Flickr, etc) then don't do Export as Catalog as those settings don't carry over to the exported catalog.

Instead, use these instructions: http://members.lightroomqueen.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1165/187/how-do-i-move-my-ca...

(And you shouldn't need to copy all of the photos again, just the catalog and presets etc.)

[TREI 1]

Victoria, I only have about 50 photos out of all them that I have ratings on, and have Developed, etc.  I have no clue what Publish Service is so I assume I don't use it.  The link seems really intense. It says that some settings are cross platform and some aren't,  My hierarchy is pretty simple I guess.  I have 24,000 photos in my "Photo" folder and then a folder for each country I've been to inside of that listed below.. In the preferences, it talks about "store presets with catalog" etc... do I want that or not? etc  & parent folder, etc..  I only have the parent option on the main Photo folder

I see all my lightroom files and folders, .lrdata, backups etc, but I've no clue which one to take with me over to the Mac to avoid deleting all of them and reloading 24,000

WHICH brings me to Rikk,

Just right click on my Photos folder, with the 24,000 pics in it and Export as Catalog, send it to my WDBook and then bring them all in on my new Mac with Lightroom 4, and all my Develop/Settings  is/are there?

That sounds a TON easier than the above, and even though more time consuming, the route I'd happily take at this point for simplicity.

Thank you both.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Yes, those instructions do cover a lot of different variables.  Export as Catalog's a good plan, and if you've only edited 50 pictures, then I guess you don't have presets to worry about yet.  Go for it!

[TREI 1]

Well, the export to catalog and import doesn't work either.  I see the .lrcat file there but opening the photos in LR nothing has been applied.

I guess for as few as I have, I'll just start over. Seems like it would be easier.  Maybe its just crossing the OS line that makes it not happy..

[Rikk Flohr: Inactive]

Did you "Import Photos" or "Import from Catalog" They are two very different things. What you are describing has happened (and what you are saying in post 7 is that you

TREI 1 wrote:

export to catalog and import doesn't work either.

If you strictly did an Import as you say then I expect what you are seeing. If you did an Import from Catalog... then you should see what you are wanting.

[TREI 1]

An since I'm starting over, How do I best configure LR to keep the settings close to the hip of the photo I'm working so its easy to export if I need to in the future?

[TREI 1]

I looked all over for Import from Catalog. I think it was because I was on the import screen that I didn't see it..  I see it now while sitting at the main menu under"File, Import from Another Catalog...."

Is that what I want?  Thank you for the followup.. I'll try that. 

As I surf around my collection, I have a lot more rated and edited that I thought, so making this work would be great.

[Rikk Flohr: Inactive]

Yes, File>Import from Catalog…

[TREI 1]

First few times I tried all this, nothing worked.  FINALLY! I restarted both computers, and that did it. The export file looked totally different than before, and the import as well.. lots more options to choose from with copying etc.

Thank you all.! It works