Splitting a lightroom classic catalog

[mcexplorer]

Hi all, 

Looking for suggestions on the best way to go about doing this: 

I have a friend that is a working artist that has amassed a 100k image catalog that has both his personal and professional images combined, over a period of 10 years. 

He is going to separate the personal and professional images and turn it into a single catalog. Since this job won't be automated and will be lots of sorting individual images, I'd like to refresh myself on best practices. Any suggestions on the best way to approach this operation? Thanks. 

[mcexplorer]

@ANd turn it into two catalogs, personal and professional. 

[Rob_Cullen]

The work involved will depend a lot on the location of the images- especially if they are mixed in the system.**

But in summary terms to: "Split" the 'Current' catalog:

1) Select all 'Personal' photos in the current catalog.

2) Main Menu > [Export as a Catalog]  to a 'Personal' Catalog.

3) [Remove]  (Do NOT Delete!!) the selected 'Personal' photos from the current catalog.

4) Rename the 'Current' catalog to "Professional" catalog.

Your friend should be aware that only ONE catalog can be synced with the Lightroom Cloud for mobile devices with the Lightroom App, and to Share photos with clients.  In my summary above it will be the current catalog (renamed to "Professional") that will remain synced to the Cloud. This is one big disadvantage of splitting a catalog. And having photos references in both catalogs is a recipe for total confusion.

**A 100k image catalog is definitely NOT large ('Large' would be in the millions!) - Your friend should really consider NOT splitting the catalog, but rather use the one catalog to separate personal from professional by using- Drive location, Folders, Collections, keywords, etc.

[mcexplorer]

Thanks for the detailed response; what would be the disadvantage of DELETING the personal photos from the current catalog? Particularly if they want to have a hard drive with only their professional images. Thanks again. 

[Rob_Cullen]

There is no disadvantage as long as the photos were successfully COPIED to another hard-drive. I would not be deleting anything until I was sure they were on another hard-drive.  Once convinced they copied over to another physical location, then the personal photos could be [deleted] from the 'current' catalog. 

Using [Remove] simply takes them out of the 'current' catalog and leaves the original files in their current location.

Care needs to be taken in the options for [Export to another catalog] for the copies to be 'exported' with the new catalog.

[mcexplorer]

Gotcha; if the personal files are intermixed with professional in certain folders, should he continually use the 'export to catalog' function multiple times, or should he use another export function? He wants to maintain all of his metadata, although I guess he will have to render another preview file in his new catalog that he names personal, is that right? Thank you. 

[drtonyb]

If your friend does want two catalogs, I would create two Collections, then add the Personal photos to one and Professional to the other. Once done, use "Export this Collection to a Catalog" (right-click Collection) on each, so two new catalogs are created. Always keep the original catalog until certain that everything has worked correctly.

Having said that, separating Personal and professional photos into folders/drives is an alternative and possibly a better way to go.

When @Rob_Cullen siad Remove, don't Delete, I think he might have meant remove from catalog, but don't Delete from disc.

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

"if the personal files are intermixed with professional in certain folders,"

Advice from @drtonyb  is good and easy to understand- "create two Collections, then add the Personal photos to one and Professional to the other......"  But consider that these two 'new' separate Catalogs will have lost any syncing data that the friend may have used- if SYNC is important to them.

"use another export function?"

No, NO Exporting of photos. Only the function [Export as another Catalog] is the method to use.

"He wants to maintain all of his metadata,"

That will all be in the new catalog that was exported.

"although I guess he will have to render another preview file in his new catalog that he names personal, is that right?"

No, [Export as another Catalog] automatically creates the new catalog with everything! - Previews, metadata, Collections, Keywords, etc.

[mcexplorer]

Thanks for the thorough answer.. Last question, when you export to catalog from the collection folder you created, does it preserve the folder structure of the original catalog (for example dated folders you had in your original catalog) or does it pump all of the files out to one folder? thanks. 

[richardplondon]

When you "Export as Catalog" you choose a location and name for this new Catalog. Whether relevant files are to be copied here too, or not, is controlled by a checkmark option "Export negative files".

IF checked, a set of subfolders is created alongside the new Catalog, corresponding to the relative arrangement of subfolders seen in the current catalog - and populated with copies of the image files concerned. The new Catalog references these copy files and copy folders. The current Catalog continues to reference all the originals as before. 

So the files have been duplicated - with the copies separated out systematically, but the originals still intermixed. Thus, cleaning these images out from the current Catalog - using the same highlighted set that you used for the Export - can include a deletion from disk as well as a removal from the Catalog, and then there is no more duplication.

OR if not checked, the new catalog references (the same) files in the same current folders where the current catalog continues to see them - in other words, both the catalogs share these same files and folders. So in this case one's deletion of the relevant images from the current catalog needs to use the Remove from Catalog option only. For, I hope, obvious reasons. 

[FYI: when exporting (say) contents of a single Collection, all of which have been highlighted, the first checkbox may not appear. But when it does, if this is left unchecked, all of the images in the catalog will get included regardless of highlighting or not. So these options are important to verify.]

Also - whenever considering removing images from any Catalog, I would advise ensuring an up to date Catalog backup first. The Export as Catalog process is itself non-destructive so far as the current Catalog and the current locations of all the image files - whether copying files or not - but the cleanup of the current Catalog afterwards does need to involve a lot more care.

[davidminehart]

Did you mean to say that he’s trying to split the single catalog into two,
one each for personal and for professional?

David