Lightroom performance: export to catalog

<p>I shoot a fair number of frames, and they all go into Lightroom. The catalog I've been using is getting a bit bloated, it's got about 200k pictures in it, and moving around is taking too long - anything up to 60 seconds to change folders, disks churning all that while.</p>

<p>So I thought I'd export the 2009 pictures to a new catalogue, and load that as my default. So here I am exporting all 40k pictures taken this year. After 60 minutes, we're at about 35%, exporting previews. Going up at about 1% every 5-6 minutes. So it might even be finished by tomorrow morning!</p>

<p>I'll post back when it's done...</p>

<p>i would have just started a new catalog and imported the 2009 folders.</p>

<p>Alec, under Edit->Catalog Settings->General, there is a "Relaunch and Optimize" button. It might be worth a try.</p>

<p>Why would you want to export previews? That's a whole lot of exporting for no real benefit, as they can be easily regenerated at any time.</p>

<p>Ellis: If you just import the pictures from a blank catalog you will loose all the adjustments made. Those non-destructive adjustments are kept in the database and are preserved with an import/export.</p>

<p>I agree, I think Alec is doing it the right way, though I too would probably have chosen not to export the previews (and would also not have included the negatives). Then in the 2009 catalog I'd have selected everything that I'd marked as a pick (or more than 3 stars, or whatever mechanism you use) and generated standard previews just for those.</p>

<p>Relaunch and Optimize on the original catalog is also a good idea, but no matter what, 200K photos is a big catalog; you need a lot of computer and very fast storage for that. I'd suggest keeping that around, and importing the 2009 stuff into it periodically, just so it's all in one for easier searching when you need it.</p>

<p>My bad. I forgot to untick the box about "including negatives". So I had a message saying that 41k pictures couldnt be copied (disc was full.)</p>

<p>I'm trying again, with that option unticked.</p>

<p>I do want the previews though, they take ages to rebuild.</p>

<p>EDIT: ok, bored with that already, plus I have work to do. I'm going to try without the previews, see if it gets done in a sensible time.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Took about 10 minutes. Shame about the previews though.</p>

<p>You can generate the previews anytime. If not, the next time you look at the pic.</p>

<p>Just to wrap things up, the export was fine, then I went back and backed up the original catalog before removing the 2009 pictures. Otherwise I'd find myself editing them in the wrong catalog and causing confusion.<br>

<br />Lighroom actually runs at a reasonable speed with "only" 40k pictures in the db!</p>