Documentation

Migrating a Lightroom Catalog Without Starting Over

How to preserve ratings, keywords, collections, virtual copies, and develop history.

Migration

Changing tools should not mean losing years of organization. A Lightroom Classic catalog contains more than file references: it carries selections, ratings, keywords, collections, and editing history.

Import read-only

Obscura Flow opens the .lrcat file in read-only mode. The original catalog is not modified, which makes the migration safer and easier to test.

Preserve curation

Ratings, color labels, picks, rejects, keywords, nested collections, virtual copies, and stacks are converted into durable Obscura Flow structures.

Keep development history

Develop settings and history are archived verbatim for reference. Obscura Flow does not try to reinterpret every Lightroom adjustment as a new edit.

Validate after import

After migration, check representative projects: collections, virtual copies, RAW+JPEG pairs, captions, and keywords. A good migration is verified, not assumed.