relative paths to images

[georg fiedler]

i can't find clear documentation about this, which baffles me, as i think this is important to anyone who has backups to big number of images, and maybe later wants to access them - e.g. every wedding photographer. if anyone knows where to read about it, please share!

lightroom catalogs can use relative paths to the images. so far the only way i found is having the image files in a directory under the one where the catalog resides. so 2025/kathy-and-john would be the folder where the catalog file is, and 2025/kathy-and-john/images would be where the image files are. and then import the images into the catalog. 

this works. now you can move the folder kathy-and-john to any other place, also to another drive, open the catalog there and it immediately knows that the images are in the subfolder. 

big question there: is there anyway to change this in an existing catalog? especially if i make a new catalog from a selection, can i place that new catalog into a directory that contains the directory with the images, and make that catalog use relative paths?

big thanks for any input!
also i think it would be great if there is better documentation about this in the first place - most people don't know how to use relative paths at all, and i think many would really benefit from them.

[JohanElzenga]

"big question there: is there anyway to change this in an existing catalog? especially if i make a new catalog from a selection, can i place that new catalog into a directory that contains the directory with the images, and make that catalog use relative paths?"

Export the selection as a new catalog and include the 'negatives' in the export dialog. That will place the images in a folder inside the catalog folder and will link them with relative paths.

[johnrellis]

"is there anyway to change this in an existing catalog?"

No, you have to make a subfolder in the catalog folder of a new catalog, using the method described by Johan. Once you have such a subfolder, you can place more pics in there and import them, and they tool will have relative paths.

[richardplondon]

Yes people might as well know about this feature - still I suspect that many, even knowing about it, would not have that as an aim. The location of a Catalog and the location of image files (whether in one volume or spread across many) involve differing practical requirements and I can see many ways how it could be restrictive to in effect require metadata (the Catalog's info about where the source images are) and the data (the images referred to) to both live in one storage location together.

Unless one was constantly moving things around - but that raises the question: why not, instead, find a way not to need to?

[georg fiedler]

totally agree with you, that many, actually most users won't need that. actually it only makes sense when you use one catalog per image set, which is something quite common for bigger shoots, like weddings.

there's two usecases: one is shifting between internal and external SDD.  wedding shoots can easily have 100GB, so working on several projects at the same time can quickly run into the limits of the internal drive. thus having the possibility to easily shift one datatset to an external SDD, and later simply work on it by opening the catalog on that drive without any further ado is a great asset. 

the same appliles for archived shoots, that have to leave the internal drive. clients ask for a specific photo later on, maybe edited or cropped differently as a present to their grandparents. so again, when the path is relative you just open the respective catalog on that drive, and you can instantly edit those photos. 

so thanks for better making me aware, that probably most users don't need that feature, and that it could pose other issues for them (one catalog per dataset and having them backuped on different drives poses the risk to work on the wrong one, and/or backuping the wrong one). still, or even more, i miss a dedicated section of documentation/tutorial directly by adobe about how this works, what exactly this requires, and what the possible risks/problems are, in what scenario to use it, and when ( = all other cases) to avoid it. 

[richardplondon]

AFAIK Catalogs don't literally implement relative pathing vs absolute pathing: using absolute paths always, so with no separate "feature" to document. One could test this by moving a Catalog away from the physically associated photos that it references (the photos staying put). If their pathing within the Catalog had really been relative before, affected photos would then become "not found". I don't think that is what happens - the paths for wherever they absolutely were before, and where they continue to be, would still work fine. I expect! (careful disclaimer)

Assuming so we can think of this association of files with Catalog as a special-case situation: and what makes it special is that LrC has a fallback "what-if" tactic. Whenever LrC cannot locate its sunglasses where it thought they last were left, it prompts itself: did I also check the top of my own head? (grin)

[georg fiedler]

hahaha, my mum used to ask me where her glasses are - and after some weeks she would enter the room, stop, tap on her head and leave the room without saying a word 🙂 

when importing images that lie in a subfolder of where the catalog is the paths to those images are relative: when you rename the folder containing the catalog (and the subfolder with the images), or move all that to another drive, lighroom will immediately know where the images of that catalog are. 

and thats very much not where they are before, since the whole pathname, including drive name, has changed. so the only way to know (or guess), is to use a path relative to where the catalog is. 

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

LR is weird in how it handles those relative paths.

1. Configure the Metadata panel Default tagset to include Path (the full absolute path of the selected photo). Hover the mouse over Path to see where LR thinks the currently selected photo is located.

2. Make a new catalog named "relative". In the catalog folder, make a folder "pics" and put two images in it, a.jpg and b.jpg.  Import "pics" with the Add option.

3. Exit LR and make a copy of the "relative" catalog folder named "copy1". Open "copy1". Use the Metadata panel's Path to observe that a.jpg and b.jpg are in copy1/pics.

4. Exit LR and make a copy of "relative" called "copy2". Before opening it, delete copy2/pics. Open "copy2" and observe that a.pg and b.jpg are in relative/pics.

5. Exit LR and make a copy of "relative"  called "copy3". Before opening it, delete copy3/pics/a.jpg but leave copy3/pics/b.jpg.   Open "copy3" and observe that a.jpg is marked as missing and b.jpg is in copy3/pics.

6. Exit LR and make a copy of "relative" colled "copy4". Before opening it, delete copy4/pics.  Open "copy4", and observe that a.jpg and b.jpg are located in relative/pics. Exit LR. Copy relative/pics to copy4/pics.  Restart LR, and observe that a.jpg and b.jpg are still located in relative/pics.

So LR is definitely not using simple absolute paths everywhere. Paths to photos inside the catalog folder are mostly treated as relative, except when you first open the catalog in a new location, when folder paths can be in a quantum state, either pointing to the old location or the new location, depending on whether the folders exist in the new location. But after opening the catalog in the new location, folder paths are fixed and won't change again.

No user could possibly figure out this behavior without doing experiments, and it can't be inferred from the existing documentation.

[richardplondon]

Thanks for taking the trouble John. Difficult to form a simple idea of what's going on but I think that even if images might report an abbreviated path that looks relative, and even if they might in effect 'travel' successfully with the Catalog, somewhere there must be absolute path info remembered. Reason I say this is:

Make folders parent..path \ A and parent..path \ B alongside each other, and create a new catalog in A. Put image-containing folder X within A and import those images with Add. Move this catalog bodily into folder B instead, and open that. The images are still found. They must therefore have 'remembered' in some way the absolute location of folder "parent..path \ A \ X", because if they only knew about having a local subfolder "X", that would now have failed.

I wonder if this apparent 'relative path' behaviour function may be just automatic substitution - re-pathing when necessary, and perhaps suppressing the display of upper parts of actual path whenever that repeats the location of the active Catalog. The latter presentation would in effect preview what 'as if relative' path updating behaviour would ensue, if something changed in future about the locations of both Catalog and images together. So the outcome would be a different absolute path, but one which nonetheless would look the same as it does now once 'trimmed' in this manner. But without suffering the downside I describe above (orphaning imported images which have not themselves moved).

Another way of saying this: your sunglasses possess an absolute position in the world at each moment. Sometimes - when they are on top of your head, say - their absolute position in the world is continually updating to follow your own position changing. When travelling in a car (say) the "On top of your head" description is more convenient than "currently at these GPS coordinates" even though both may be correct. But were they to get knocked out of the car window, the "on top of your head" style description now becomes invalid - but the sunglasses' GPS coordinates having now ceased tracking that of the moving car, still remain accurate for their continuing location.

[georg fiedler]

really big thanks to you too! at first i thought you don't really understand what info i whish for, but now i realised you tried to tell me how LR thinks about those things. that sunglasses reference really make things more clear and approachable, really helped in understanding what LR tries to acomplish!

[georg fiedler]

hey really big thanks for your elaborate answer!! this is exactly what i wanted to know!
pretty weird behaviour, and quite some unexpected twists. at least in parts i can see how this works well in a big variety of cases, especially for users who don't really know what they are doing, and where the respective catalog and images files actually are located. 

still i really would whish for a clear documentation by adobe for this, at least once users start to dig into the thematic. 

now you gave me that overview, again big thanks! now i know how to work with those cataloges, what to expect from them, including being prepared for some weird unexpected twists is image files exist in both relative and (prior) absolute paths .