Lightroom HELP-copying everything to a new machine

[ambidawn]

I am in the process of transfering everything over to a new computer (My husband and I are upgrading to a faster machine). Does anyone know how to transfer all the photos/collections, with their edits, to another computer or harddrive? I have the photos copied, however loading a backup of the catalog is not working because the path is different.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by ambidawn

I am in the process of transfering everything over to a new computer (My husband and I are upgrading to a faster machine). Does anyone know how to transfer all the photos/collections, with their edits, to another computer or harddrive? I have the photos copied, however loading a backup of the catalog is not working because the path is different.

Do these this help?
http://lightroom-news.com/lightroom-...general-menus/
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1151023
http://blogs.oreilly.com/lightroom/2...g-a-light.html


I know zilch about Lightroom but I did load a few days ago. It has a very easy to create Simple Viewer gallery option.

[LWimages]

You can basically copy everything onto the same directory if you imported all your photos into your library.
If not, then you will need to copy the files and the library to the new system and make sure the images are on the same location where the library can locate them.

[billbunton]

There's a menu entry somewhere (sorry, it's been a long time!) that will let you specify the new path for a photo or folder. I think it's possibly only available when LR actually can't find the image at the specified path. It's easiest if you copy everything to basically the same directory structure, since then you can specify the path for the top-level folder and LR will find it all. But you can even do it at the individual file level if necessary.

I've done this copying between laptop and desktop, desktop and desktop, and even between Mac and PC. Just copy all the photos (and sidecars, if you have them) and the LR catalog, and fix the paths.

[Dobick]

If you have the two computers networked together, you could share a drive on the new machine, and then export your catalogue to the new computer, and include the negatives when you do. That will put all of your stuff on the new machine, then on the new machine, just open up lightroom, and open up the catalogue.

If you have an external drive, you can do the same, just export (as a catalogue, just make sure you have everything selected) to the external drive, and then plug the external drive into the new computer.

[picman]

In the library mode the missing folder name should be showing up in red, double click on it, you will then be presented with the "locate missing folder" dialog box.

[bfphoto]

Amber, you may want to consider using a backup program such as Acronis True Image 11. Go here and either download a copy or purchase the CD. Down load is 29.00 and CD is 33.00.

This is the discounted price for computer clubs and since you are in Houston, you can use the 1960 PCUG club as your reference. You can find the software here: http://www.ugr.com/.
All you do is back up your entire driver to an external drive and you are then set to restore a crashed drive or, in your case, put all your old files onto a new computer.

Side note: if you are not backing up all your files on an external drive, you are waiting for a disaster to happen. There are two kinds of drives...those that have failed and those that are about to fail. Be safe.

Anyway, Acronis True Image is the best backup software our club has found to date, and I would recommend it to anyone.

[ambidawn]

Thank you, everyone, for the help. I'll try out some of the tips that were suggested. Much appreciated! You guys are life savers.