LR flow advice

Darthchaffinch

Darthchaffinch

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Am processing raw shots on a laptop and then exporting catalogue to desktop pc (ideally..). Think have messed up somewhere and have a lot of 'missing' pics within LR, possibly by moving photos around in windows... :nono: Not sure what the best way of 'fixing' the mess is?

Another problem possibly is that I may have lost (?) the sidecar files with the RAW files in this god awful mess- would I be better off converting to DNG at the start of my flow to avoid the seperation of edit files?

Thanks
 
Firstly there is no need to use sidecar files in LR at all. I think it's an option you have to turn ON - I don't use them - just let LRs database look after things. If you have pictures with ? on them - it's almost certainly becuase you have NOT moved everything from within LR as you should. Right click os a directory and select synchronise folder - and LR will find the missing pictures. OR right click on a single picture with a ? and select show in explorer - if LR cannot find it - then manually navigate to the folder with the picture - LR will then find all other ? photos in the same folder.
 
no they're stored in the LR database - one of the benefits!
This is how it's possible to search in LR on all sorts of things - metadata, keywords, lens used etc - almost anything in fact
 
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They're stored in the Lightroom database AND the sidecar file/DNG. Although unless you have switched it on may need to force this, I find it very useful to have the processing/metadata embedded in the DNG file.

If you can convert to DNG I would advice that, but also, one of the golden rules of Lightroom Don't move files outside of Lightroom.
 
You don't need to convert to DNG.
 
Darthchaffinch said:
but then if I screw up again it won't matter that the links broken?? :shrug:
Click to expand...

Sorry don't understand that comment. Just process your nef files and let LR store the info in the database. No need to convert to DNG at all.
 
I,d also look at your workflow. This way you wont lose images with them being in different locations.

I'd suggest the easiest way is to export the images from your laptop as a catalogue. You can include the original files themselves as copies, by ticking the "Export negative files" option. This will create a new catalogue with all the thumbnails as well as copies of the original image files.

You then simply import this catalogue to your desktop. Everything is neat and tidy. The only problem is that it does take a while if you have a large number of images. But it does keep track of you originals.

An alternative is to have a similar directory system on both laptop and PC. Here you can simply "Export a catalogue" without the image files. This just generates the database and the thumbnails .You then copy the originals from you laptop to exactly the same location on the PC. Import the catalogue and the Lightroom should find the copied files as they are in the same location on the PC's hard drive.. A lot quicker.
 
Darthchaffinch said:
but then if I screw up again it won't matter that the links broken?? :shrug:
Click to expand...

Yes, it will matter. So don't screw up again ;)

The DNG or not-DNG argument could go on for ages, personally I don't like them as it's too many eggs in one basket and I like my raw files original and unmolested - corruption in your Lr catalog can carry over to your DNG file and unless you have embedded the Raw file (thereby making your DNG huuuuge) you're screwed again.

No need to do DNG, just use Lr to move your files, have a good backup system, and you'll be peachy.
 
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