Photo edits not copied to new external drive

[amandawood14]

Hi, I keep my photo library on an external hard drive and my LR Catalogue on my internal drive. I wanted to make a second backup of my photos to a newer faster external hard drive from the first one. In the first attempt to do this the copying kept stalling because a number of photos could not be read (The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “ALW_150626_3022.NEF” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36). So I installed CHRONOSYNC App and used this to copy between the two drives. (It also highlights the photos with issues but at least allows the copy to go ahead and produces a list on completion. I was lucky that only 20 out of 25,000 images were corrupt).
Now I want to use the new faster hard drive as my photo library but a number (not all) of the photos I have edited are in their original state.
So I have 2 questions
1. How can I trust the integrity of my photo library;
2. Have I mixed up the latest catalogue somehow? Is that why the edited photos are not showing in the new drive?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

How do you get at the photos on the new drive? Did you open Lightroom, select the folder(s) and choose 'Update Folder Location'? Or did you use some other method (like creating a new catalog and importing the images into that catalog).

 

[amandawood14]

How do you get at the photos on the new drive? Did you open Lightroom, select the folder(s) and choose 'Update Folder Location'? Or did you use some other method (like creating a new catalog and importing the images into that catalog).

Mmmm, I used Finder in the unsuccessful run and then CHRONOSYNC app for the second attempt.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Mmmm, I used Finder in the unsuccessful run and then CHRONOSYNC app for the second attempt.

I know, because you said that the first time. That is not what I asked however. What I asked is how you made It possible to see the copied images in Lightroom. You had to tell Lightroom where they are. Or are you not looking at the images in Lightroom right now? If you are not using Lightroom to view the images, then that explains why you don't see the edits. Lightroom does not apply edits to the images, it stores them in its catalog and only applies them when needed for things like exporting.

 

[amandawood14]

I'm accessing my photo library on my new drive in LR. My catalogue remains on my internal drive on my computer. I keep new photos temporarily on my computer until I've finished editing and then move them to external drive through LR. This is how I worked with the previous external drive.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I asked HOW you accessed those photos in Lightroom. Let me explain:

If you copy photos from one disk to another using the Finder or Chronosync, then Lightroom knows nothing about that. It has no knowledge whatsoever about those copies. So when you open Lightroom, it will still show you the photos on the original disk, not the copies on the new disk.

If you say that you are using Lightroom to access the copied photos, then you must have done something in Lightroom to make that possible. Maybe you imported those photos? What I need to know is what you've done, because what you've done to make Lightroom see the photos will almost certainly explain what you are seeing right now

 

[amandawood14]

Hi Johan, thank you for your comments. I have managed to locate everything now but I'm left with one residual problem. The folder structure and content for the two hard drives is exactly the same but LR shows me only part (see Screen shot attached). The number of images in each folder shown in LR in each drive also differs and yet clearly all the images are in the folders on the drives. Have I somehow 'merged' something? And how can I get it back to what I want i.e. show 2014, 2015, and 2016 in both Seagate and Transcend drives?

 

[Gnits]

When ever you are checking the number of images in folders and/or sub folders, make sure that you have the following parameter set correctly in Library / Show Photos in sub folders ...... so that you do NOT show images in sub folders. This may not be the reason, but should be the first think to check.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

And how can I get it back to what I want i.e. show 2014, 2015, and 2016 in both Seagate and Transcend drives?View attachment 8002

If I'm understanding you correctly, the photos are identical and duplicated on both drives, right?

So you don't actually want 2014/2015/2016 showing under both drives in Lightroom, because then each photo would be in LR twice (once at each location) and you'd have to remember which one you need to edit.

What you actually need to end up with is all of the photo records in LR pointing to your new fast drive, with just one record for each photo.

If the photos are not currently duplicated in Lightroom, and you simply have some photos showing under the Seagate HD and others showing under the Transcend drive, then you'd back up your catalog, right-click on the Photos Go Here folder under the Seagate HD in the Folders panel, choose Update Folder Location and point it to the Photos Go Here folder on the new drive. Lightroom would ask to merge, and you'd agree.

BUT, I think it's become more complicated somewhere along the line, because it sounds like you've imported photos from the new location, resulting in two copies of some photos in the catalog - one edited and one not. Is that right? If so, you're going to need to work through, deciding which to keep and which to remove from LR, before you can do the steps above.

 

[amandawood14]

Thank you so much. I have just around 50 photos left to move which have been edited. As they have the same file name as the original LR won't merge them - I tried some and it said something like "the photo already exists and so it has been kept in its original location". When I searched the edited version has disappeared. So please can you tell me how I can preserve the edits for the remaining 50 before updating file location and merging.

Can I go back to a backup to retrieve the edits?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Do you have a catalog backup from before you moved the files? If so, the easiest way to solve this is to replace your current catalog with that backup, start Lightroom, and then in Lightroom do the 'Update Folder Location' again. This time, because you start from a catalog that is not 'contaminated' with double imports, everything should go smoothly. You will end up with a catalog that points to the new location of the images, and all adjustments and metadata will still be there.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Thank you so much. I have just around 50 photos left to move which have been edited. As they have the same file name as the original LR won't merge them - I tried some and it said something like "the photo already exists and so it has been kept in its original location". When I searched the edited version has disappeared. So please can you tell me how I can preserve the edits for the remaining 50 before updating file location and merging.

Can I go back to a backup to retrieve the edits?

Select one of the 50 edited photos, then click on All Photographs. Assuming it's set to Capture Time order, the 'other' version of the photo should show up next to it. Decide which one to keep, and remove the other from the catalog. Repeat for the other 49, then it'll let you 'find missing photo' with those too.

 

[amandawood14]

Thank you once again. I have just about everything in order now. Just one final question if I may before I finish and make final backups.
Attached is a screenshot. The top one show a Previews.lrdata file of 96.04GB. I don't know where this one has come from.
Underneath is the backup I used this morning to start the de-duping and folder update and shows a Previews.lrdata file of 4.55GB (much, much smaller than the one above)
The bottom one shows the .lrcat folder after I backed up and closed this evening. But there is no Previews.lrdata file.
Please can you explain this and let me know if I can clear the 96.04GB Previews file.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

No, you can't! The preview file is what holds all the thumbnails and the images you see when you are in Loupe view. It belongs to the catalog. If you delete his file, Lightroom will initially show no thumbnails at all, and then it will start rebuilding this file. The only Previews file you could throw away is the small one, because that is part of a backup that you used only temporarily.

 

[amandawood14]

No, you can't! The preview file is what holds all the thumbnails and the images you see when you are in Loupe view. It belongs to the catalog. If you delete his file, Lightroom will initially show no thumbnails at all, and then it will start rebuilding this file. The only Previews file you could throw away is the small one, because that is part of a backup that you used only temporarily.

 

[amandawood14]

Please can you help me understand why the Lightroom Catalogue is showing "modified 20 July" when I have been using it daily and backing up each day until today, 26 July. My backups are all in the backup folder but the catalog does not seem to be current.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

You can probably ignore it. That date is notoriously poor in the Apple Finder. If you want to make sure that you are not using a backup by mistake, start Lightroom once by double clicking on this file.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Go to Edit menu > Catalog Settings and it'll tell you the name and location of your current working catalog. That'll confirm whether you're looking at the right file.