Starting over - what is the best way to proceed?

[richardw83314676]

I have Lightroom CC.  I don't know how it happened, but basically I have duplicates of most of my pictures.  

For example - there is one in an album that I created "xmas 2012" and the same photo not in that album, but just in the By Date albums created by LR.  Together, I end up with 2 photos - both in the "December 2012" by Date folder and one in the album i created.   The albums that I created are all from when I imported from apple photos. 

Some photos are duplicates but they have different extensions i..e jpg and jpeg .  I have no idea how this happened. 

I think I just need to start over.  Delete them all and re-import.  

All my originals photos currently live on my hard drive in folders that I created - i.e. xmas 2012 etc   What is the best way to import them and preserve the folder names?

Any suggestions would be appreciated but manually going through 30,000 photos and looking for dupes isn't an option.

[richardw83314676]

After more searching I've found that I am basically stuck unless I want to go through 10,000 + photos by hand and try to find the dupes, or delete everything and start again.

Basically, I am not paying a monthly fee for this.  It's too much work.

[selondon]

Did you use the Apple Photos Migration Tool?

I used it on a small group of Photos and likewise there seemed to be Photos all over the place, creating Albums that I didn’t want created (I can’t remember if there were duplicate photos or just the same photo assigned to multiple Albums).

The Apple Migration Tool should really have a check box of Albums that you want created.

If you were to start again then I’d create Albums and Import manually, it’s cleaner (delete all of your Cloud Photos first obviously - as long as you have them elsewhere)

Or you could you use Lightroom Classic, creating Catalog in there with all the Folders you want. Create   Collections from these Folders (read documentation thoroughly) and Migrate a Classic Catalog into Lightroom Cloud.

I have migrated a small Classic Catalog as well and results are better than Apple Migration.

[richardw83314676]

Thanks for the suggestions.

What I am trying to figure out is how this happened.   I think the dupes showed up recently, and I am wondering if it had anything to do with me creating a folder of originals on my dropbox folder.

None of it makes sense.   For example a lot of the dupes are like this:

DSC0044.jpg and DSC0044.JPG.   Literally just the extension is in upper case letters.

My concern is that I will just end up with it happening again.

[melissapiccone]

I pulled my photos out of iPhoto years ago. It took me ages. I use dAdobe Bridge to help me and organized everything manually by decade, year and month. Once you have everything organized, start over in Lightroom Classic which will honor your folder structure. Its a long process but it's worth it.

Trying to find and delete duplicates in LR sucks. I've been doing it for literally years and still haven't eliminated all of my duplicates.

[richardw83314676]

Thanks for the comments/suggestions.  I think I am going to go back to apple photos.   The main selling point on LR CC fo me was some of the editing tools - particularly gradient effects.   But beyond its not worth the aggravation and the cost. 

I  check back in year or two when the whole package is more ready from prime time.  Right now though the LRCC desktop app is only marginally better than photos app.  It’s a pale shadow of the old LR classic.

[selondon]

Lightroom Classic is still available alongside Lightroom (Cloud). You could test the Cloud Based version whilst using Classic as they can come in the same Plan (although Adobe advise not to use both syncing together).

When Adobe Revel (forerunner to Lightroom Cloud) closed I tried Apple Photos for a while, but just couldn’t get on with it. Too much going on, especially on Mobile Devices.... albums it creates for you etc, if a facebooky kind of way. I much prefer Lightroom Cloud.

If you do decide to try Lightroom (Cloud) again, migration from Classic is the better experience.

[richardw83314676]

Can I get a legacy version of LR classic to just use for this purpose?   I had an old license a few years ago.   My current LR Cc subcription doesn’t include classic. 

[selondon]

You have to have Classic (not 6 or before) which has only been on subscription.

Your best bet may be to use the trial, but I think it only gives you seven days, and you don’t want to be under pressure with a job like this.

[richardw83314676 · Accepted solution]

OK Here's what I did.

1. All my pictures are in folders on my hard drive.

2. Downloaded from my adobe account LR 6 (from 2015) for which I have a license

3. Imported all my photos to LR 6.  

4. Downloaded and paid for the duplicate finder plugin.  Searched a nuked dupes.   Took several iterations.

5. Cleaned up folder structure so all folders are just 1 folder deep.

6. Created collections (by dragging) folders in LR 6.   So now I have folders and collections - it's redundant duplication in LR 6, but only the folder structure from collections are retained when importing to LR CC.

7. Went to LR CC web and deleted the entire current catalog.

8. In LR CC I imported an existing LR classic catalog (the LR 6 catalog from above).  

9. Wait...

10.  And presto - everything is good.  I have the full folder structure in LR CC and no dupes.

It was a bit of a production, but worth the effort to get everything sorted.

[selondon]

Excellent, glad you methodically managed to get what you wanted in Lightroom Cloud.

One question, was the Classic a trial? If so, make sure you don’t end up paying extra. (If you are new to Adobe they take your card details and some get caught by their trial becoming live. You‘re a paying customer anyway so I’m not quite sure how it works).

[richardw83314676]

I had an existing license to an older version of LR Classic - that I bought back in 2015.   I just downloaded that and installed it and did the clean up there.   I didn't need to use the LR Classic that is bundled in Creative Cloud.

Everything is now synced up nicely and I've got all 30,000 photos and 20 years of albums all in the new LR.