Exporting/Importing Collections

[desertmangolf]

I'm running PSE 5.0 on a a desktop and a laptop. On a recent trip to South America, I took about 3,000 pictures and transferrd them from memory cards to my laptop for backup. I then used my laptop and PSE to do some editing, tagging and arranging numerous collections which I then used to make slide shows during my travels. Now I'm back home and would like to transfer all that to my desktop which holds my "permanent" photo files. So I clicked file/write tag and properties info to photos, then copied the photo files from my laptop to the desktop and finally imported the photos into my catalogue. The photos and tags are fine but the collections information doesn't make it.

Does anyone know a method for transferring the collections information from computer to computer or am I going to have to do the collections all over by hand on my desktop (ugh!)

Thanks for your help and suggestions

[wormmeshi]

desertmangolf,

I've been playing around with some of these functions, here's what I know maybe it will help.
When you write click "write tage and properties info to photos":
On jpg, tiff, etc, the caption and tags/keywords are written to the IPTC metadata of the file but the collection information is not.
On DNG files the caption is written but not the tags/keywords.:confused:
On camera Raw files nothing is written.:confused::confused:

The collections information is saved when you backup the catalog. So if your catalogs were the same on your laptop and desktop except for the new pictures maybe a catalog backup on the laptop and then a restore on the desktop might work. You would want to select "no to all" when prompted to overwrite files. I would probably try this with a test catalog first before doing it on your actual working catalog and of course make sure you have a backup of your working catalog in case things go wrong.