migrating to Lightroom CC

[lernst2945]

I just subscribed to Creative Cloud.

I have two tasks to accomplish:

1 - Import about 30000 images from Photoshop Elements V13.  I've been following the directions in the "Import photos from Photoshop Elements" into Lightroom Classic and "Migrate photos and videos from Lightroom Classic CC to Lightroom CC" articles.  I've successfully imported the photos into LR Classic and am ready to move them into Lightroom CC. The photos and LR Classic catalog are on an external disk (Call it From_Disk, a 3 TB disk with about 1.4TB free).

2 - Add about another 500 GB of new photos.  These have not been imported to anything and are just a bunch of files on an external disk (Call it Raw_Disk).

I want to end up with all the photos, thumbnails etc on another external drive (Call it To_Disk, a 6TB disk, with all 6TB free)

I haven't attempted the second half of task 1 yet, the migration from LR Classic to LR CC.  I've set the LR CC Local Storage Preference to"Store a copy of all originals at the specified location" which is To_Disk and restarted LR CC.  In spite of this, when I re-open Preferences, it still talks about required storage and a photo cache on my system disk.  I haven't done   "Migrate Lightroom catalog" yet.  I'm put off by the  "You can migrate a catalog only once" message.  Does this mean that if i mess up this step, i'm completely out of luck?

I also have experimented with task 2 by attempting to add a few, maybe 8 or 10, photos.  It takes about 6 minutes by my watch for the thumbnails to appear. This does not bode well for trying to mass import 500 GB of photos.

Consequently I'm sort of paralyzed.  Can someone get me off dead center?

My questions are:

• Will my photos end up where I want them (outlined above).
• What happens if the LR Classic import is messed up? Am I stuck? (“You can migrate a catalog only once”)
• Is it normal to take maybe a minute per thumbnail when attempting to add new photos”

I'm running a desktop Mac, High Sierra, 4GB memory, 1TB internal disk with about 300MB free.

-- Greg

[99jon]

Hi Greg

When you start migration from LR Classic to LRCC an integrity check is carried out for compatibility or catalog errors; so you have an opportunity to cancel and investigate any issues before continuing. However it seems your catalog transfer from Elements to Classic went smoothly; so there should be no problem provided you have sufficient disk space for the temporary file duplication.

I would concentrate on the migration first and when all originals have synced to the cloud and your local storage you can then think about adding new images directly into LRCC.

I assume you can connect the drive with 6TB of space and specify that in preferences as your local storage location. You will also need to connect the disk with the LR Classic catalog and photos.

The initial migration will take time because your files are copied, uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded to your local storage. Those operations will depend on your network connection speed. You may be best to arrange to do it at night or at a time when you don’t need the internet for other purposes.