Upgrading LR and Catalog files

madeinengland

madeinengland

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I am doing a major upgrade from a 12 year old iMac with LR4 to a new iMac. I want to install the new LR Classic and photoshop versions on the new iMac and obviously want to import all my old pictures etc into the new version. These pictures are stored on an Airport device.

Does anyone know if I can copy the old LR catalog files and the new LR version will be able to read / convert them. I don't want to lose the edits that I have previously done obviously as there are hundreds of pictures involved.

One way I thought is to install the old LR4 version etc and get that working, then try and do an upgrade to the new version. Does this work? I'd rather not do this as I want to keep all the new installs clean in the OS but if it's the only way then I'll do this.
 
You could save your edits. Select all the images and CTRL+S will save the LR (raw) edits back to the original file so that when you import, do a "read" of the metadata and it will re-apply the edits. Things like collections, flags and colour ratings will remain with the catalogue and thus be lost, but things like develop settings and keywords get saved. This will create a fresh new catalogue.

Having said that, the lrcat file should be fine to upgrade. Just open your new version of LR, "open a catalogue" and point it to where your LR4 catalogue is. Obviously make a backup first just in case. Previews you can discard or keep. LR will just make new ones as & when it needs them. You'll be told it needs to upgrade the db.

One last thing though is that the existing catalogue will have the (old) disk location of all the images. If that's changed (pics were on a D: drive and now they're on E: for example) you may find that the cat can't find the original files. Usually, you get a dialogue box asking you to locate one image, then it will go off and find the others once it's got a new starting point. (I know nothing about iThings, so I don't know if your Airport (storage?) device gets the same "name" when it plugs into a computer, but hopefully you get my gist)
 
You should just be able to import your Lightroom catalog into the new version of LR, and it will do the rest. As always with this kind of thing, make sure you have a backup of your old catalog before you start, just in case something goes wrong.
 
You could simply use Apples Migration assistant. That uses your lates Time machine backup, to copy all yoru old Mac HD files to your new iMac. Saves you the bother of re downloading all your apps etc. It will probably ask you to update to the latest OS before transferring
 
I want a clean install so a Time Machine restore isn’t the answer. I’ll ditch most of the old Apps anyway apart from Office 2016 and a new copy of the subscribed Lightroom. The new iMac is brand new so it’s already the latest release, however my old Mac is stuck on El Capitan and won’t go any higher hence the reason I’m upgrading it.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
Totaly understand. I'd simply copy the LR data files to the new mach and away you go. You may need to deregister the old Mac with Adobe and re register the new one. Check with the Lightroom FAQ's for the exact procedure. Cant remember what I did when I moved to my new Mac but it was certainly painless.
 
To Conclude, I installed the new version of Lightroom on the new Mac and then copied the old LR4 catalog file to the same location as the newly installed version. Then put my pictures in the same file structure as the old Mac. Opened the new Lightroom, and told it which catalog file to use. Hey Presto all working fine after Lightroom upgraded the catalog file to the new version.

A big thanks to all who contributed.
 
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