Moving files from laptop to desktop.

Over the bank holiday weekend I was in Kerry. The weather was quite variable and made for interesting shots, so I shot loads! Because I was traveling reasonably light and need to buy larger memory cards (2 Gb is really too small for a 40D), I had my laptop with me. So now I’m at home with a laptop, full of edited and selected photos. So what do I do?

1. First off I select the new folders from the Folders panel. I’m saved in 2008/06/01 order so I can pick the correct ones by selecting the right dates!
2. Then I select all, to make sure each image is selected. On the road it’s better to make snapshots, rather than virtual copies as these transport more easily.
3. From the Metadata menu I use Save Metadata to Files. Control/Command S is the shortcut.
4. Next I restart my laptop in Target Disk mode by holding down T as it boots up. PC users with a firewire port can create a firewire network, or use an external drive to do the transfer.
5. I then choose Import Photos from Disk.. from the File menu. When the dialog comes up I navigate to the laptop drive icon and then choose my folders.
6. Because I’ve already done stuff on the laptop, I choose none from Develop and Metadata settings and Filename from the renaming menu.
7. Finally I go get a cup of tea, because there’s a lot of files to copy over!

Alternatively I could choose the files and use the File>Export as catalog command. The restarting in Target mode, I could use File>Import from catalog from my desktop catalog. Because I’ve not made any collections, I didn’t see the need for the extra time involved. Of course if I’d made previews of all the files, then it would make more sense, because I’ll need to generate these on the desktop.