Greetings, Hogs. In the next month or so, I plan to buy a new computer and upgrade from Lightroom 5 to Lightroom Classic. I want to make sure my LR migration goes as smoothly as possible. I think I have a good handle on the process from reviewing this Julieanne Kost video. But I’m anxious and want to make sure I can execute this correctly. I would appreciate feedback on my questions, and please feel free to mention things I may not have thought of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwNrOU0gvhoI currently have a SSD as my C drive, and a SATA drive as D. All my photos are in a folder called “My Lightroom Photos” on my D drive. I plan to have the same configuration on my new PC.
QUESTIONS
1. Will I need my LR serial number or anything else like to upgrade from 5 to Classic?
2. I believe I should copy these files/folders onto a thumb drive as a backup. But with the exception of the presets, I don’t expect to have to copy them from the thumb drive to the new PC because I will copy D/Pictures/Lightroom from my old PC to my new PC. Right? Am I missing any files or folders?
• Lightroom 5 Catalog
• Backups folder
• Lightroom 5 Catalog Prevews.lrdata folder
• Presets
3. To keep the presets I created in LR5, I believe I must copy them and paste them into the same location on the new PC after I install LR Classic, right? Edit/Preferences and clicking the Show Lightroom Presets button on my old PC gives me this: C:\Users\claug\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom. So I would need to copy the Lightroom folder from the thumb drive to the corresponding Adobe folder on the C drive (SSD) my new PC after I install Classic?
4. I assume there is no need to reinstall LR5 on the new PC. Just download trial version of LR Classic, right? Download from here?
Download a free trial or buy Adobe products | Adobe Free Trials and Downloads
5. Summary:
a. Copy the catalog, backups folder, previews folder, and presets onto a thumb drive.
b. Ensure that when my data is copied from my old PC to my new PC, D/Pictures/Lightroom is copied to the corresponding location on my new PC.
c. Download and install LR Classic.
d. Copy the presets from the thumb drive Adobe/Lightroom folder on the new C drive (SSD).
e. Launch LR Classic and see if my photos load correctly, i.e. if Classic knows where they are.
6. Is there anything else I’m not thinking of, or advice you’d like to offer?
Thank you!