UKC

Oh dear, I think I've just made a HUGE boo-boo.

The other day I had to reformat my desktop PC. Thought I'd backed up everything I required before doing so, but when I opened the reinstalled Lightroom this evening, I noticed the most recently edited RAW files didn't have the small 'edited file' icon showing on the thumbnails in the Library. No problem I thought, I could see the edited images which had 'obviously' been remembered by the application. I've just realised however that these are the jpgs which were created after exporting the original edits - the RAW files still appear to be as shot, not as adjusted in LR.

My photos are stored on a separate internal HD, but everything else, eg the programme is on the main HD.

Have I effectively just lost all the edited RAW I've done in LR for the past few years?

In reply to Fraser:

Hi Fraser,

If I understand this correctly, when you edit your RAW files, you export as Jpeg and re-import them to your LR catalog?
It is these Jpegs which you can see in LR, but your original RAW files have lost their edits?
You still have the original RAW files saved?

If that's the case, then it sounds like your LR catalog didn't get backed up. Do you back it up weekly as per the prompt?

Phil

In reply to Phil West:
Thanks for the reply.

No, I don't re-import the jpgs as such, I just save them to the same folder location on exporting as the original RAW files. And yes, I always back-up the catalog when prompted. (tbh I'm not exactly sure what the 'catalog' actually is!) I've not edited any photos for a few weeks at least now, till last weekend when I did some NY trip photos. It was a couple of days after this that I had to reformat the pc's primary HD.

Edit: should the catalog be located in the same folder as the programme itself?

In reply to Fraser:
Ah ok, I get you. So the catalog points at that folder and so it sees them.

Your catalog is all your edit data so you need to get hold of the last one you backed up so that you don't lose your edits. Without that, you are left with the original RAW files and the exported Jpegs. It would be a pain but better than if you'd deleted the RAW files cos you can always go back and re-edit your most important ones (still a pain I know).

I don't think they have to be in the same location, no. Yes,I think your catalog is saved naturally in the program folder unless you choose to move it elsewhere.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Phil

In reply to Fraser:

To the best of my knowledge, Lightroom catalog stores all the previews and edits to files, the individual RAWs stay exactly as they are. My lightroom catalog is in "My Pictures", may / may not be the default for Windows LR. Did you have to reimport everything into Lightroom after formatting?

In reply to Phil West:

Thanks for he explanation Phil, but I think I'm scuppered in that case! I didn't take a separate 'back-up' of the catalog before reformatting the drive and don't have it duplicated anywhere. I'll ask my wife as she's way more techy-minded than me, but she did ask if there was anything I needed to back-up before she reformatted and reinstalled Windows. Unfortunately, I said no, thinking that all the edits to the RAW files were somehow saved with them on the second internal drive.

In reply to tk421:

Thanks. All my previously imported RAW files are no longer visible in the folder tree on the left hand, pop-out palette. I've just checked the Libraries and My Pictures (presumably these are also on the main HD) which explains why they are empty I'm afraid.

In reply to Fraser:

Yep, looks like you killed the catalogue file with all of your edits. Virtual copies will be gone, as will all additional metadata (keywords etc). It's gutting. I lost 6 months of edit in a corrupted backup which i rushed to do and then assumed had worked.

I've moved my catalogue to a remote drive now which gets a back up once a week to avoid this happening again. Hope you manage to find a back up somewhere.

In reply to Fraser:

Commiserations! LR is wonderful in many ways, but it would be even better if more attention were paid by its evangelists and manual writers (eg Martin Evening) to explaining file structure, catalogue "hygiene" and all those other things that are basic to its functioning but boring by comparison with moving sliders.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this so far but I think that by default LR saves backup files to the hard drive on the same device that the program itself is stored on (Pictures on a Mac). If they're kept on a separate hard drive along with the catalogue then, if I've understood things correctly, it would be possible to recover one's edits. But I am far from being an expert and am very happy to be corrected if I've got any of this wrong.

In reply to Fraser:

Have a look at, https://www.lightroomqueen.com/

Fantastic resource for Lightroom and easily understandable.

Hopefully you will be able to sort out your issue.

In reply to alex anderson et al:
Thanks all for assistance and links. Lesson learnt I fear - it's probably about 4 years of developed RAW info. I've lost I'll back-up the catalog to a duplicate and separate location from now on. Not sure if I'll have an accidental disk image or something like that but it won't have been taken from any time recently. Cheers again.

In reply to Fraser:

I have done this a few times now.
My catalogue file is now saved on the external raid drive, the default location is a bit stupid.

In reply to Fraser:
Terrible news ;-(

Search for files *.lrcat

This might find your old LR catalog.

I store my LR Cat in my Dropbox Folder (which you can put where you want); turn-off syncing the Previews Folders. though (do this via Dropbox Preferences)!

The LR Cat also gets back-up on 3 other hard drives and online via BackBlaze.

But then I'm overly cautious

I've been using Allwaysync Pro (in one-way mode) for years now to backup various disks to other disks (8 back up schedules at the moment!).

In reply to Fraser:

If you have a look online you should be able to get your hands on some software that can pull a lot if not all off the data back from the drive. I've had to do this in the past after accidentally wiping a drive with uni work on it.

Definitely worth a try before giving up entirely.

In reply to Fraser:
Get some recovery software and DO NO copy and paste anything onto the drive before you recover your save files.
You can fix this.

*Edit, I have a Sata to USB Dock you can borrow if you need options.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/25-inch-and-35-inch-sata-usb-dock-a83hq?cmpid=ppc...

You could pull your drive out, use recovery software on a laptop or other computer, get your config file off. and then replace hard drive and copy in the save file?

In reply to all:

Thanks folks for all the comments and suggestions ... and your kind offer zimp! I do have some recovery software which worked fairly successfully in the past so I might try it again. Plus, I've never actually had to revisit old developed RAW files, but you never know. It'd be nice to have that option in the future.

I'm wiser and more informed now so thanks all for your input and commisserations.

In reply to Fraser:
Don't know how you intend to run LR in future, but after a hiccup or two last year I decided to leave the working catalogue on the main C drive, but changed the back up location to an external hard drive where I store all the RAW files. I then backup the external drive to another external drive so I have a backup of all the RAW files and a second copy of the backup.

I'm not that knowledgeable about LR, but I had read a few places on the web that keeping the working version of the catalogue on the drive with the program kept the speed to the max when working with photos since it does not need to continually access the "other" drive. Maybe worth checking out if you have to start a fresh with a LR catalogue?

Also, as you will be backing up the catalogue regularly, the number and size of the backup folders will grow esp if a daily "on exit" setting. There is no problem deleting old versions of the backed up catalogue keeping just a few of the newer ones (in theory only the latest is required, but some older ones can be useful if you need undo something that's gone wrong).

Anyway, hope you recover the catalogue or one of its backup.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

Thanks, that's what I've essentially now done, except it's being backed up to a second internal drive, rather than an external one. Under the Catalog settings, I think it said it'll delete the older ones regularly.

In reply to Fraser:

If you're shooting RAW then it is worthwhile considering converting them within Lightroom to DNG as this allows you to store any changes you make to the image within the DNG. During the conversion you have the option to store the original RAW within the DNG.

In reply to kmhphoto:

That's a useful tip thanks, and it does vaguely ring a bell.

In reply to kmhphoto:

To do this, you don't need to convert to DNG. LR can store the RAW 'edits' in a sidecar .xmp file alongside the original RAW file. Go to CatalogSettings/Metadata/AutomaticallyWriteChangesIntoXMP

Used to do it, but it slows LR up as it keeps having to save to the xmp after every edit.

In reply to ChrisJD:

It takes a fraction of a second to update a sidecar file a DNG whereas editing the image takes a lot longer so personally I always convert to DNG.