Lightroom Backup

OK guys,

I've searched for the question but can't seem to find the answer I need. It's to do with backing up my RAW files to an external drive.

In my work flow I download images from my CF cards on to my PC's HD. When I open LR, I have it set to auto import these images. I process them and export the processed images to a seperate folder as Jpegs for printing etc...

I have experimented by transfering one Post Processed RAW file to my external HD via Window's explorer. When I open Lightroom again I get a preview of the image with a "Cannot find Image" warning across the image. It then prompts me to go find it by browsing manually.

Here's the question; How I transfer the RAW images to an External HD does LR lose all my Post Processing work??

Or am I going about this all the wrong way?

Thanks in advance

30Der wrote in post #3160502
=30D'er;3160502]OK guys,

I've searched for the question but can't seem to find the answer I need. It's to do with backing up my RAW files to an external drive.

In my work flow I download images from my CF cards on to my PC's HD. When I open LR, I have it set to auto import these images. I process them and export the processed images to a seperate folder as Jpegs for printing etc...

I have experimented by transfering one Post Processed RAW file to my external HD via Window's explorer. When I open Lightroom again I get a preview of the image with a "Cannot find Image" warning across the image. It then prompts me to go find it by browsing manually.

Here's the question; How I transfer the RAW images to an External HD does LR lose all my Post Processing work??

Or am I going about this all the wrong way?

Thanks in advance

I'm a little confused. Are you backing up your RAW files or transfering them?

If I understand, you download your RAW files to your internal HD. Then you import them to LR, do whatever needs to be done then
you want to move them to an external HD.

If you move them then you need to let LR know where they are. LR keeps all the info on any changes you made in its database so after they are moved and you re direct LR to the new location your edits to these files wil be visable in LR. But thats not backing up thats transfering your files.

LR does not make any changes to the actual RAW files it just stores the changes in its DB so it needs to know where the files are (if moved)

Why not just download them to your external HD right off the bat? And then make Backups to CD's, DVD's or whatever.

If you move an image Lightroom will still have the thumbnail in it's cache but will prompt you to locate the original.

To back up you don't want to move the original, you copy it to your external hard drive etc.
I simply copy all of my original RAW files to a backup server and external drive which is stored off-site (in case of fire or the PC / server gets stolen)

As Grizz says, the adjustments you make in LR are stored in a database, this should be regularly backed up as well, although this simply stored the adjustments and catalogue info so is not the end of the world, but would still cause me a lot of inconvenience having to import all the images again and do any PP work on them.

My mistake, I'm actually moving the files, not backing up.

Thanks for the tips. I'll try relocating the files, then letting Lightroom know where they are and see if my changes have been saved too.

Thanks

Anybody know where I can alter the path to my images? I have moved the location of images so I need to tell LR to sync the DB with this new path. The database/catalog is easy to move but how do I move the files?

I take it I shouldn't re-import the images (as they will be at the same location as where I import them from)?

I hope this made any sense...

Why not just move the images from within LR?

1. Open Lightroom... go to the Library module (L); Grid view (G)
2. Click the right pointing arrow in the Folders panel to expand it; the moved folders will be shown highlighted in Red.
3. Also, in the grid view, your thumbnails will all have a Question Mark in the upper right corner indicating that Lightroom cannot locate the image files
5. Right-click on each of the red colored folders and select "Locate Missing Folder" and follow the prompts...Lightroom will update its database to reflect the new location of the folder.

Or...you can also do the same by pressing CTRL+A to select all your thumbnails. Then click once on the outer grey border of any of the thumbnails and Lightroom will inform you the images are missing and prompt you to locate them on your drive.

lowcrust wrote in post #4386284
Anybody know where I can alter the path to my images? I have moved the location of images so I need to tell LR to sync the DB with this new path. The database/catalog is easy to move but how do I move the files?

I take it I shouldn't re-import the images (as they will be at the same location as where I import them from)?

I hope this made any sense...

Thanks Fedka! Exactly what i wanted.

Hi guys,

I'm having the same problem as the original poster and it doesn't seem like it's been adequately answered. I have my RAW images saved on the laptop which Lightroom accesses, I then convert to Jpegs when I export and use them. What I want to do is keep the images on my laptop but also backup the RAW images on an external hard drive, when I do this I lose all the PP work I've done if I restore these copied images on the external HD to Lightroom. There must be a way around this, does anyone know what it is?

Thanks muchly.

Billo78 wrote in post #4842248
Hi guys,

I'm having the same problem as the original poster and it doesn't seem like it's been adequately answered. I have my RAW images saved on the laptop which Lightroom accesses, I then convert to Jpegs when I export and use them. What I want to do is keep the images on my laptop but also backup the RAW images on an external hard drive, when I do this I lose all the PP work I've done if I restore these copied images on the external HD to Lightroom. There must be a way around this, does anyone know what it is?

Thanks muchly.

You've got several things going on here.

First, I think when most people think of "Backup" they are thinking of saving the UNALTERED files in a seperate location for safekeeping. Apparently that's not what you want to do but the prevailing opinion is that your backups should not contain changes.

However, you can backup your Lightroom edited RAW files by first writing the metadata (the editing instructions) to the files, then saving those files to a new location. The "write metadata to file" option in Lightroom is not turned on by default because it degrades performance. You can either enable it by going to File > Catalog Setting > Metadata and checking the "Automatically write changes into XMP" option.

For your existing files, select them and click Metadata > Save Metadata to File from the menu or use the CTRL + S keystroke command. This will save your edits directly to the files rather than the internal Lightroom database and you can then backup the files to a new location.

Thanks Fedka, I've tried that and it half works. My intention is the save the original unaltered file but have the history of my PP in tact, by following your instructions I lost the original and the history and ended up with the final product (which you knew was going to happen).

If I save the files without the metadata attached is there a way to later attach that metadata? Is this what the "catalogue" backup does? I'm basically thinking that if my laptop craps itself I don't want to have to reprocess 10,000+ images saved in an unaltered format.

Any other Lightroom aficionados out there able to help?

Billo78 wrote in post #4842904
Thanks Fedka, I've tried that and it half works. My intention is the save the original unaltered file but have the history of my PP in tact, by following your instructions I lost the original and the history and ended up with the final product (which you knew was going to happen).

You can't have both in the way you want because they are saved differently. The catalog stores a preview of every image that was imported into Lightroom and the editing instructions (metadata) for said images (unless you deliberately choose to write the metadata directly to your files).

Lightroom does not actually save any of your images so all you needed to do was use your operating system to copy your files. Of course those files would not have the editing instructions attached unless they were all RAW files and you saved the associated XMP sidecar files.

If I save the files without the metadata attached is there a way to later attach that metadata? Is this what the "catalogue" backup does? I'm basically thinking that if my laptop craps itself I don't want to have to reprocess 10,000+ images saved in an unaltered format.

Not to my knowledge, unless you create an entirely new catalog consisting only of your backup files.

Thanks again Fedka.

So what happens if you're a professional with 100,000 images saved and someone breaks into your studio and steals your computer. You have all your 100,000 unaltered images saved off site on an external harddrive but you now have to go through and PP all the images again which would take months? This surely isn't how it's done, how do these guys back up their stuff?

You can back up the LR-catalog too, at an external drive as well