ADVANCED TECHNIQUES - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process - page 374

Just like a regular import, you have options for which i les will be imported, how the
i les will be handled, and what to do about any existing i les in the current catalog.

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If necessary, choose from the folder list at the top let to check or uncheck folders for
the import. With image thumbnails showing (click “Show Preview” at bottom let )
you can also check or uncheck individual photos.

Below, under File Handling, choose whether to have Lightroom copy the i les to a
new location (if it's on another hard drive), or Add new photos to catalog without
moving. If you're using the import from catalog process to merge i les into your
main catalog from another drive, you'll likely want to have Lightroom do the i le
copies for you, too.

In the last section, Changed Existing Photos, Lightroom will indicate photos
that exist in both catalogs but have dif erent settings applied. If none are found,
this option is disabled. If Lightroom detects photos with the same names in both
catalogs, but dif erent versions, you have the choice of keeping the version in your
open catalog or using the one that's coming in from the imported catalog. In the
latter case, there's a check box to Preserve Old Settings as a Virtual Copy, which is a
good idea if you're not certain which is the correct version.

When you're ready, click the Import button and the process begins. You'll be taken
to the Library module and see the new photos as they are added to the catalog, just
as with a regular import.

Merging multiple catalogs into one
If you've been working in multiple catalogs and want to combine them, you can use
Import from Catalog to merge them all into one.

Duplicate collection names
One thing to watch out for when you're importing photos from one catalog into
another: if collections with the same name exist in both catalog, the photos being
imported will be merged into the collection with the same name in your main
catalog. Depending on how you've set up collection and sets, this could produce an
unintended outcome. If you have collections with the same name in both catalogs,
and you don't want the photos to be merged in that collection, you'll need to change
the name of the collection in one or the other catalog before doing the import. See
Chapter 3 for more about collections.

Workl ow: On the Road
When I am shooting on the road, I always start a new (temporary) Lightroom
catalog on my laptop for each trip. During the trip, each shooting day I download/