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Hi guys! I am a pro photographer. Still using Lightroom 5.7 but since updating to MacOS Catalina, LR has started playing up when I try to export things. I know I need to update but have been afraid as I am always in the middle of a few jobs. And I have loaaads of our travel photos stored on there too. How do I not lose everything, including presets etc??? What will happen next if I click 'install' Lightroom Classic 9.0? Do I need to do some groundwork to back up things beforehand or does it does it do it automatically? Thanks for taking the time to help me!
As far as I know the new installation should sit independent of the current Lightroom 5.7, so that either one can be used at will.
Your present presets and your present Catalog will not be affected by the install of LR Classic 9, and nor (of course) will the photos.
It will be necessary for LR Classic 9 to convert your old Catalog into its newer format. This happens as a COPY which is saved in your choice of location and under your choice of name, but by default will be saved in the same place,
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As far as I know the new installation should sit independent of the current Lightroom 5.7, so that either one can be used at will.
Your present presets and your present Catalog will not be affected by the install of LR Classic 9, and nor (of course) will the photos.
It will be necessary for LR Classic 9 to convert your old Catalog into its newer format. This happens as a COPY which is saved in your choice of location and under your choice of name, but by default will be saved in the same place, with a dash and a number added as a suffix to the name. All that your old Catalog contains and consists of (edits, virtual copies, collections, smart collections, publish setups...) will be transferred in. The imports of the photos themselves are included in that, hence each source file on disk is now referenced by two Catalogs (IOW, is potentially shared). Be aware of this if carrying out any file operation or writing any metadata while continuing to use both LR versions and hence both Catalogs in parallel. The other Catalog will notice and bring up a lot of metadata warnings etc. IMO the best course is a clean break once you've confirmed the successful transfer and to stop using the old version. In due course that Catalog can be taken off the computer (to archive, ideally). The new Lightroom will need to convert all your Presets from the old format into the new XMP format and this is also done as a Copy.
If the new LR does not detect and automatically convert and then open the old Catalog it will suggest making a new empty one by default. That can be ignored; tell new LR to open the old Catalog and it will start a conversion of that.
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Ah okay thank you so much for the detailed info! That's exactly what I was after. And was also worried about doubling up on memory space as there is soo much in my LR catalogue. I will let you know how it all goes, once I get game and update!
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Here you'll find a good article with a lot of infos:
https://laurashoe.com/2019/11/04/how-to-update-to-lightroom-classic-9-from-any-prior-version/
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Thank you very much, that's helpful! 🙂