Operation Manual

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Managing catalogs and folders
Last updated 11/30/2015
How do I combine catalogs or move photos from one catalog to another?
To combine or merge catalogs — or to move photos from one catalog to another — you import one catalog into the
other.
1 Choose File > Open Catalog and select the catalog that you want to be the master, or primary, catalog (the one you
want to add to).
2 Choose File > Import From Another Catalog and navigate to the catalog that contains the photos you want to add
from. Then, click Open (Windows) or Choose (Mac OS).
3 In the Import From Catalog dialog box, do the following:
a Under Catalog Contents, select the folders that contain the photos you want to import.
b Specify how you want to handle new and existing photos. For more information on these options, see Import
photos from a different Lightroom catalog .
4 Click Import.
5 Repeat steps 1 – 4 for additional catalogs or photos that you want to add to the open one.
For a video on combining catalogs, see Julieanne Kost's Merging individual catalogs into a master catalog on Adobe TV.
How do I use my catalog on multiple computers, such as a laptop and a
desktop?
The easiest way to use Lightroom on more than one computer is to keep your catalog and photos together on an
external drive. Then, in preferences, tell Lightroom to open that catalog by default.
How many photos can I have in a catalog?
There is no specific maximum number of photos you can store in a Lightroom catalog. If your catalog grows large and
you notice Lightroom slowing, see
Optimize Performance for suggestions on how to speed it up.
What is the largest size photo I can have in a catalog?
Lightroom 2-5 supports photos up to 65,000 pixels long or wide or up to 512 megapixels, whichever is smaller.
Lightroom 1 imports photos up to 10,000 x 10,000 pixels.
Lightroom can't find my catalog. How do I find it?
If you move or rename your catalog, you could encounter a "Lightroom catalog was not found" error the next time you
open Lightroom.
1 In the “Lightroom catalog was not found” error window, click Choose A Different Catalog.
2 If the catalog you want to open isn’t listed, click Choose A Different Catalog again to open the \Pictures\Lightroom
(Windows) or /Pictures/Lightroom (Mac OS) folder.