
Lightroom Basic is designed for use on a single pc. Nevertheless, many photographers have a number of computer systems (for instance a desktop pc at house, and a laptop computer for journey).
XMP information can facilitate syncing edits between a number of machines, making it straightforward to work in your pictures in Lightroom Basic in your journey pc, after which transfer these edits into your main Lightroom Basic Catalog on your house desktop pc.
XMP information sit subsequent to your unique photos and maintain metadata and edit info — the identical info that’s stored in your Lightroom catalog. Which means by penning this info to XMP information, you possibly can merely import or add your unique photos to your primary Lightroom catalog together with their XMP’s, inform Lightroom to Learn Metadata From File, and all your edits will seem in your main catalog, routinely syncing edits. No tedious catalog merge wanted.
1. Allow XMP Recordsdata on all pc operating Lightroom Basic
From the highest menu bar, open the Catalog Settings.
- On macOS, go to the Lightroom Basic menu and choose Catalog Settings.
- On Home windows, go to the Edit menu and choose Catalog Settings.
Select the Metadata tab, and examine the field subsequent to Robotically Write Modifications to XMP.
2. Import and edit utilizing the journey laptop computer
Go someplace (hopefully enjoyable), take just a few magnificent pictures after which import them into Lightroom Basic in your journey laptop computer. The imported information can stay in your inner exhausting drive when you have house, or on an exterior drive. Make any desired edits. These edits can be routinely written to XMP information subsequent to your unique pictures.
3. Copy your photos out of your journey laptop computer to your house pc
As soon as you might be house, you’ll want to repeat your unique photos and XMP information out of your journey laptop computer (or journey exterior drive) to your house pc. For most individuals, the vacation spot can be an exterior drive related to your house pc that shops your main photographic archive. I exploit Mylio Images to sync my media throughout all my computer systems/units, however you can too manually copy your originals and XMP information from the laptop computer or exterior drive to your primary photograph archive.
4. Import your pictures into your main Lightroom Catalog
In Lightroom, click on the Import button, and find the folder of photos you added to your photograph archive drive. Use Lightroom’s Add possibility so as to add pictures to your main catalog with out transferring them.
5. Syncing edits

As soon as your pictures have been added to your main Lightroom Basic catalog, choose all of the imported pictures (Ctrl/Cmd + A). Open the Metadata menu within the high menu bar, and select Learn Metadata from Recordsdata. It will import all your edits out of your journey laptop computer into your main catalog.
That’s it! The entire work you probably did whilst you have been on the highway has been simply built-in into your main Lightroom Basic Catalog, with out the trouble of copying and merging your complete catalog. Utilizing XMP information for syncing edits is a good way to facilitate working with Lightroom Basic on a number of computer systems.