# Export with history?



## Gronlund I (Sep 6, 2018)

Is it possible to make and export duplicates of original pictures with whole edit history so, that the history states would be usable with that "duplicate" in its new place?


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## johnbeardy (Sep 6, 2018)

You can use File > Export as Catalog.


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## Gronlund I (Sep 6, 2018)

Of course! I'll try that. Thank you!


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## Gronlund I (Sep 7, 2018)

Seems not to be solution in this case.  I have made a Collection of photos that I think are good enough to process further and would like to make a new
catalog with copies  of those photos with their edit history to experiment different possibilities, but seems that LR "Import from another catalog" function does not allow to choose from collections.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 7, 2018)

Why "Import from another catalog"? Why not simply *export* the collection as a catalog (which is what John suggested), thus creating your new catalog which will contain only the contents of that collection.


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## Gronlund I (Sep 7, 2018)

Sorry, a little confusion, but when I have that new Catalog, I'd like later import new pictures from that same (and maybe other) collection, which still is in that
old Catalog.


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

Gronlund I said:


> Sorry, a little confusion, but when I have that new Catalog, I'd like later import new pictures from that same (and maybe other) collection, which still is in that
> old Catalog.


Yes, you are indeed confusing now. When you export a collection as catalog, then the exported catalog contains that collection. It also contains a copy of the images, providing that you checked the option to include the negatives. So what is it that you still want to do?


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## Gronlund I (Sep 7, 2018)

My main Catalog is huge (over 200000 pictures, LR-Cat -file about 2,6 Gb) and I thought I could make a smaller one that contains just the pictures wich I think are good enough to deserve more handling. That's why  I want that I can later copy more pictures to that new catalog from  that "original" catalog so that the edit history is copied too.  In that new small catalog I could freely play an experiment different possibilities wit LR-adjustments without touching the originals.  And edit history is needed because many of the originals  have been manipulated in the way that I want to retain as a starting point.


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## clee01l (Sep 7, 2018)

Gronlund I said:


> That's why I want that I can later copy more pictures to that new catalog from that "original" catalog so that the edit history is copied too.


When you use the "Export as a Catalog" function, the result is a catalog file which can be opened by LR.  To do the process that you wish, Select the subset of inmate in your current catalog and then use the "Export as a Catalog" function to create a catalog  containing this subset.  Open this new catalog in LR.  

However I don't think this will get you everything that you need.   What I would recommend is that you make a copy of the master catalog and name it something like "200kLR"and set it aside.  Next you will make the Master catalog contain only the subset images.   You can do this by selecting all of the images that you do NOT want in the subset and REMOVE (not delete) them from this catalog.  This will retain all of your collections all of your presets and all of your plugins .   All 200k of the master files will be in the same folders as before.   The Master catalog will sync to the Adobe cloud as before but only see the subset of the 200k images.  If you want to work on the images not in the sub set, you can open the catalog named "200kLR.lrcat"  OR better, simply sync the folder(s) that contain the additional images that you removed from the master Catalog.


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## Roelof Moorlag (Sep 7, 2018)

Check out the Multi Catalog Workflow with Lightroom book from Peter krogh:
Multi-Catalog Workflow with Lightroom 5 - The DAM Book


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 7, 2018)

Gronlund I said:


> My main Catalog is huge (over 200000 pictures, LR-Cat -file about 2,6 Gb) and I thought I could make a smaller one that contains just the pictures wich I think are good enough to deserve more handling. That's why  I want that I can later copy more pictures to that new catalog from  that "original" catalog so that the edit history is copied too.  In that new small catalog I could freely play an experiment different possibilities wit LR-adjustments without touching the originals.  And edit history is needed because many of the originals  have been manipulated in the way that I want to retain as a starting point.


You can easily do that as follows. When you want to add new images to the exported catalog (let's call this catalog 'Best Images'), then open your main catalog, select those images and export them as a new catalog too (let's call that one 'Export 2'). Now open the 'Best Images' catalog, select 'Import from Another Catalog' and import the 'Export 2' catalog.


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## Gronlund I (Sep 7, 2018)

Ok! That last reply from JohanElzenga apparently solves the thing (I think). However seems not very handy.
Thank you.


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## PhilBurton (Sep 8, 2018)

Gronlund I said:


> My main Catalog is huge (over 200000 pictures, LR-Cat -file about 2,6 Gb) and I thought I could make a smaller one that contains just the pictures wich I think are good enough to deserve more handling. That's why  I want that I can later copy more pictures to that new catalog from  that "original" catalog so that the edit history is copied too.  In that new small catalog I could freely play an experiment different possibilities wit LR-adjustments without touching the originals.  And edit history is needed because many of the originals  have been manipulated in the way that I want to retain as a starting point.


Why not use Star ratings for those pictures which need more handling?  And in the process of applying Star ratings, you might also identify pictures which  you can safely delete.

Various people in this forum, much more experienced with Lightroom than I am, have encouraged everyone to use one catalog only, with few exceptions.  I agree with their reasoning.

Phil Burton


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## Gronlund I (Sep 9, 2018)

I know that "onecatalogideology", but at least in my case the huge main catalog with those >200000 dng files and a lot of edit history and so on, is quite
sluggish and I thought I could make a new small and fast catalog to "play" with some assorted pictures which are located around my 3 hard discs.  And I also
want to make new copies with edit history to new location and I would also like to easily add new photos to that catalog if I sometimes find/get new good ones.


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## PhilBurton (Sep 9, 2018)

Gronlund I said:


> I know that "onecatalogideology", but at least in my case the huge main catalog with those >200000 dng files and a lot of edit history and so on, is quite
> sluggish and I thought I could make a new small and fast catalog to "play" with some assorted pictures which are located around my 3 hard discs.  And I also
> want to make new copies with edit history to new location and I would also like to easily add new photos to that catalog if I sometimes find/get new good ones.


Do you store your catalog on an SSD?  Big difference from an HDD, especially with a larger catalog.  Adobe has reportedly tested catalogs of 500 thousand images.


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## johnbeardy (Sep 9, 2018)

I routinely work with a catalogue that is close to 800k, multiple HDs and NAS, not bleeding edge hardware. Backup is certainly slower, but that's not done in working time. The catalogue is routinely optimised. Last slowdown we had... was a graphics driver problem.

It's not ideology for the sake of it, but pragmatism.


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## Gronlund I (Sep 10, 2018)

The catalog is on SSD, the pictures on HDs and for example selecting pictures, local adjusments work annoyigly slow. I don't know what really is reason, but
so it is.


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