Lightroom Question : Archiving edited folders

[twistedinsight]

I know the basics of lightroom, and pretty much enough to do what I need it to do at the moment. I know as time goes by and i have more time to research the many possibilities Lightroom has to offer, I'll find out i'm waisting a lot of time and there's better ways to do everything i'm doing

my question is, let's say I have shoots 1 - 10 that I've delivered prints to the families, and there's no more need for them to be on my computer...but I don't want to lose all the color correcting and post processing to the raws that I have done, but i also want to get them off my drive for space purposes.

What's the best way to "export" this where I can keep the Raws, and also keep the editing done to the raws for archiving purposes?

Thank you!

[Victoria Bampton]

You can save the settings to xmp files, as Bridge would - but be aware that doesn't keep collections, virtual copies, flags, and a few other minor bits. If you don't use those, it's a convenient option (and a good backup even if you keep catalogs too).

You can export to single-job catalogs, to store with the raw files.

You can transfer to a large searchable 'archive' catalog, again using Import from Catalog.

Those are the main options.

[René Damkot]

I convert the CR2 files to DNG. Then back up both on a different DvD for redundancy .
The DNG contains the edit, the CR2 can be edited with DPP if needed.
Not a huge drama if I loose one.

[twistedinsight]

Thanks you two! I do appreciate the ideas. That really helps a lot.