Lightroom file management - move subset of files to laptop?

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I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this.

I have all my files on my NAS in a YYYY/MM/DD file structure.
I'm going to be away from home for a few weeks so I'd like to copy the originals onto my laptop so I can edit some while away. Some days of folders contain a LOT of photos so I don't want to move them all

Within Lightroom, everything is in Collections and I want to move certain collections to my laptop.

Is it possible to do this whilst leaving a copy on the NAS? How would I go about doing it?
 
Ah is it as simple as "Export Negative file" when exporting a catalog?
 
I do this all the time to transfer files between work and home PCs. Here's how I go about it:

1.Right-click on the Collection you want to transfer and "Export This Collection As A Catalog..." in the dialogue be sure to click "Export Negative Files"
Save and transfer the resulting folder to your laptop/usb/dropbox etc.

2. On your laptop copy the folder from #1 to a local drive and then, in Lightroom, File>Open Catalog... adn navigate to the *.lrcat file saved in #1
Open that catalog and edit as normal.

3. When you're done and back at base repeat #1 on your laptop. This time do not include the negative files (they're already on your NAS)

4. File>Import from Another Catalog
Lightroom will tell you which photos have been changed and ask you what you want to do with the Changed Existing Photos.
You probably want to "Replace: Metadata and develop settings only" ("Preserve old settings as a virtual copy" is handy "just-in-case")
This will then apply the updates to the files in you master collection.
 
It's the build as smart previews options you want.

Try it on a small sample set and then re-import to check for expected results, good luck!

.edit.
Ah if you need the actual files then go with Lee's method :)
 
Last edited:
Excellent cheers guys.

For some reason I assumed the tickbox for using negative files was related to DNGs and I leave everything as the CR2 files.
 
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