About to format, lightroom catalog?

[ThyJones]

I there, will soon be formatting one of my pcs, ive got all photos and lightroom catalog backed up, but are there any special steps involved before doing this (in terms of lightroom issues)? Does my photo structure have to be exactly the same when i reload my os back on?

Thanks for the help

 

[Ploddles]

The catalogue contains pointers to the actual photos so it will be easier if they are in the same location. Otherwise you will need to go through the catalogue and find the relevant images on your hard disc, lots of work especially if you have loads of images.

 

[ThyJones]

Thanks for the info mate, is it pretty much if i have photos in p:\photography\whatever it has to stay the same, even drive letter or just folders?

 

[Ploddles]

Just folders really. If you select a Folder (on the right hand side in LR) and right click, there is an option to 'Update Folder Location'

You can then just choose the new location, e.g D:\Lightroom\Birds or whatever system you have used.

 

[Andy_S]

You can also export the whole catalogue including photos/raws and edits to an external disk. You can then re-import them all from the backup when needed. I'd recomend doing this type of backup anyway just incase.
In Lightroom:
File - Export as Catalogue. Tick 'Export Negative Files' and chose your backup destination. The whole of your catalogue, Raws, Jpegs etc should be copied over.

 

[rex008]

I've done this recently with LR3. Photos on old machine on C drive, new machine on D drive (C was an SSD on new machine). Raw files directories and catalog directory resided under same parent directory. Copied the whole lot over (just normal windows file copy over network from old machine to new), opened the catalog, and that was it; didn't even have to repoint anything, just worked. I was pretty impressed . I think as long as the parent directory structure remains the same, it doesn't actually matter where it lives.

Obviously if you've got presets, templates, addins, etc, you'll need to find those and move them over as well. There's info on how to do this if you google for it.