Is there anything to watch out for when upgrading Lightroom 3 to 4?

Question

If I decided to take the plunge and upgrade from LR3 to LR4, does LR4 manage the migration of my catalogs for me automatically, when opening it for first time? Are there any things that break or that you wish you'd been aware of before upgrading? Obviously the safest thing to do is to take a backup of my catalogs before upgrading, but it'd be good to know if there are any "gotchas".

Asked by ninesided

Answer

There is a bug in Lightroom 4 that can cause you to lose your point tone curve settings in existing images, as detailed here. This is a serious bug, if you use point curves. There are other relatively minor issues detailed at that link as well.

The behavior of Pick/Reject flags changes in Lightroom 4. Now when you flag an image, the flag is global, instead of per-collection. This can be surprising if you depend on per-collection flags.

Otherwise, I don't think there are serious issues. As you say, make backups. Your images that you've already processed will still be PV2010 (the Lightroom 3 process version) in Lightroom 4. You have to specifically upgrade them to PV2012 if you want to try the new process, because there's usually some degree of fine-tuning required. If you don't upgrade the process, they should remain identical to they way they were in Lightroom 3.

Answered by coneslayer

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Best way to Re-Organize my photos in Lightroom

Question

I started using Lightroom years ago on Version 1 or 2, and back then, I told it to import my photos into a folder, and put the photos into a folder for each day (for example 2006-01-07, etc.).

It has now gotten to a stage where I have a LOT of folders with photos set out this way and I have begun thinking about converting them to a folder structure by month and year (above would now be in a folder called 2006/01/07).

Since all my photos are in one major directory, and since all my RAW Files have a XMP file associated with them, I am wondering if

• creating a new Lightroom Library,
• importing my photos to that new library,
• moving the photos to a new directory and
• working on the new structure that way

would be a good approach.

Is there a better way of moving photos and folders around in Lightroom? By the way, I am currently on Version 4.

Asked by TiernanO

Answer

You can reorganize folders quite easily within Lightroom -- just drag and drop. The trick is simply to do all of the work in Lightroom so that it understands where you're moving photos to and can keep the database updated. (That is, do not go to Finder or Explorer and start dragging folders around.)

In the Folders panel in the Library module, I'd go about this by creating the folder structure 2006/01 then dragging 2006-01-07 into it -- creating 2006/01/2006-01-07. A little redundant, but very fast and easy!

Answered by Dan Wolfgang

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Can Lightroom and Photoshop Elements share catalog info?

Question

I like Photoshop Elements 10 cataloguing abilities to find people and objects in photos. I own Lightroom but managing a 30k plus catalog is hard and would appreciate the consumer friendly version in PSE.

Is it possible to link them? How?

Answer

I tried this with Adobe Photoshop Elements 10(Elements). I created a simple catalog in Elements then tried to open it in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.4.1(Lightroom). I was unable to see the option to "Upgrade Photoshop Elements Catalog" as is suggested by Adobes help file here. I did not see that option under the File menu as it suggested.

I actually found a thread on the Adobe forums where people describe how sometimes the option shows up and sometimes it doesn't. No one appeared to have a solution to the issue, and I don't at this time either.

So next I compared the two folders of catalogs, and obviously they are completely different from that standpoint.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Catalog Folder:

Adobe Lightroom 3.4.1 Catalog Folder:

Furthermore your main goal is really to share the catalog both ways not just as an upgrade option from Elements to Lightroom. This is not possible at this time. First of all Elements is a destructive editor(with the exception of image rotation). When you make a change to the contrast for example, you have to either write over the existing file or create a new one. You do not just save the changes to the XMP metadata, sidecar file, or catalog such as in Lightroom.

For example, when I make an edit in Elements such as red eye correction, the software automatically creates and saves a new JPG file.

A potential workaround would be to make the changes, or tags that it sounds like you want in Elements. Then select File>Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info to Photo. Then just import the new files into Lightroom. So you could tag peoples faces using the face and landmark detection tool of Elements, Elements would save these tags to the original files, and you could then use those tags in Lightroom. If you are going to do this, just be careful of the edits you make because of the destructive nature of Elements.

I think the workaround is what you are looking for. While not giving you full control both ways, it will allow you to do the tagging that Elements features and still work with the power of Lightroom.

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