Lightroom 5 lost all my edits

LASTOLITE

LASTOLITE

No longer has 4 inches
Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,617
Name
Bill
Edit My Images
Yes
Ive installed LR5 on my win 7 64 bit pc. PC has an SSD as the boot drive this has about 50gig remaining with all my OS and software on so fine....However I have inadvertently cleared out some personal photos from the pictures folder in windows as my SSD was filling up, I had not realised LR5 was the problem as it was storing all manor of files here.

I have now lost all my edits on my last shoot....I did not have the little tick box ticked that writes the alterations to the XMP so all my alterations have gone too........However I had rendered off the Jpegs for client before so as long as nothing needed on those I am ok....just!

How can I set LR to store all its own files and catalog bits to an alternative drive? damned if I can find how to do it.

I have and SSD as boot (C)
3tb as photo store where all my Raws go (Photo X)
3tb as photo backup thats a copy of the above 3 tb (Photo Backup Y)

LR want to fill my boot drive with what I think are the catalog reference files - is this the way it is or can I change it?
 
Go to Meni, then Edit, Catalog Settings, then choose where you want your catalog saved.

Also worth telling LR to do a backup to another location.
 
LASTOLITE said:
Ive installed LR5 on my win 7 64 bit pc. PC has an SSD as the boot drive this has about 50gig remaining with all my OS and software on so fine....However I have inadvertently cleared out some personal photos from the pictures folder in windows as my SSD was filling up, I had not realised LR5 was the problem as it was storing all manor of files here.
Click to expand...

The lightroom catalog (which contains all the edits you did) is relatively tiny. For 30,000 photos mine is still under 1GB.

You can have your photos anywhere (mine are on a network drive) but your catalog needs to be on the same machine. Putting it on an SSD is even better.

Smart previews will by default get put where the catalog is and these can be large.
 
OK all points taken - What I cant understand is this...ALL my RAW files are on my dedicated 3TB photo drive the LR software is on my SSD with the operating system as normal "C".

My work flow is like this -

After a shoot I

Place CF card into card reader and open up the files D3 then copy and paste ALL the RAW's from the CF card to my Photo drive. I
I then copy them ALL to my backup drive which has exact same files structure based on name and date

I then start LR and import pictures from the file on photo drive and edit discard crop and what not then render them off to Jpegs for delivery or inclusion to a DVD ect

LR keep making a file in the pictures folder of windows on C and it contains a bunch.....

OK as I have typed this I see I have not been using LR as it was meant to be used, getting in a right mess by importing raws once manually and again from the same folder on the hard drive NOW to another folder on the C drive by default....I should be importing from CF card to the PC VIA LR letting LR do the work......What a balloon head....

I am correct here? yes.
 
I'd say it's better to let LR handle it so it'll sort it into a YYYY/MM/DD structure but depends if you want that or not.
 
neil_g said:
i already have a folder structure in place :)

i just prefer to get the location right rather than relying on an automated process.
Click to expand...

Yes this is why I started that way.......linear mind you see!

As I see it now I can do either - Just had LR wrong in my head:rolleyes: I have now opened My original shots in RAW and sadly I have lost ALL my edits but It wasn't catastrophic as I had already done a set of none watermarked set of jpeg files

:ty: for your help .....was a panic and confusion for a bit there:D


I am opting to have a separate catalog for each job I do......keeps it simple for me;)
 
I actually do much as yourself but I think you must have altered your Import / Export settings?

I go from a card-reader to one of my photo drives.

I then use Windows Photo Viewer (or Windows Live Gallery if they are RAWs) to weed out the crap before importing the folder from that same drive to LR.
Make some nice images in LR and export to new folder, within the original folder, then copy that original folder to a million other places as backups:banana:
 
Last edited:
Yes Mike cocked up my import settings is the short of it...Now I understand the flow Especially the destination folder tick box shenanigans...I am good to go BUT I have lost all my edits on my last show.....

:rolleyes:
 
You still shouldn't have lost your edits unless you deleted the catalog file by accident.

It might be that you were "editing" the wrong RAWs but pointing the catalog at the right files should magically bring everything back.
 
Broric said:
You still shouldn't have lost your edits unless you deleted the catalog file by accident.

It might be that you were "editing" the wrong RAWs but pointing the catalog at the right files should magically bring everything back.
Click to expand...


Tried all that and I could see them BUT each one said file missing - pointed LR to them and even reinstated them on the SSD where LR defaulted too and no joy. I had deleted something but I dont know what to be honest......I am over it now and have moved on to another edit today and all is fine I have a work flow that works now!

Thank you for all the help.
 
It said file missing because the source file had been deleted. All the edits were still in your catalog database. If you could have got the files back (or pointed it to the other copy of them) then it would have restored all the edits.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top