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Can I selectively restore developer settings for some photos from a catalog backup?

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XavierB

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Apr 25, 2016
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I'm getting frustrated with this. I can't find a practical way of solving what I've done.
I was tired and, rather than reorganize into date files some older photos in my catalog, I decided to delete them and import them again, and let LR 6.1 automatically set them into date files. As I clicked on "Yes, delete" I realized... Uh oh! There's some photos in there that have developer settings I don't want to lose!
In short: I lost them. I have them in several LR backups but, because the last backup was on March 31st, if I import from it all the settings, that'll create aver 2800 virtual copies, which I then won't be able to erase, unless I set them, one by one, into masters.
I'm currently looking into the possibility of rummaging through the Lrcat file (because it's basically an SQLite file, I can open it in SqliteBrowser) and seeing if I can't separate only the entries for the photos I erased and import those.
Any ideas either way? They'll be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
 
What you could perhaps do is the following:

1. Move the current catalog out of the catalog folder and place the backup catalog in that folder (don't forget to unzip it)
2. Start Lightroom with that backup catalog
3. Select the images that you deleted in the current catalog and choose 'Write Metatadata to File'
4. Close Lightroom and place the current catalog back into the catalog folder. Overwrite the backup you just used.
5. Import the images you deleted from that catalog. Because they have XMP-files now, they should import with all the settings.

6. Start to make more regular backups than once a month...
 
What you could perhaps do is the following:

1. Move the current catalog out of the catalog folder and place the backup catalog in that folder (don't forget to unzip it)
2. Start Lightroom with that backup catalog
3. Select the images that you deleted in the current catalog and choose 'Write Metatadata to File'
4. Close Lightroom and place the current catalog back into the catalog folder. Overwrite the backup you just used.
5. Import the images you deleted from that catalog. Because they have XMP-files now, they should import with all the settings.

Hello, Johan, thanks a lot for the quick reply! I'm currently trying this out but in another computer... I don't want to further mess up my catalog. I'll let you know how I fare.

6. Start to make more regular backups than once a month...

Haha. Thanks for the reprimand! I do appreciate it. And I do have backups set to once a week (yeah, I know what you'll say: they should be upon every exit... but it takes SO long and I'm often very much in a hurry!) but I don't know why my last backup was about a month ago... I guess I've been clicking on "Not now" too often! But, still, this weekend alone I've edited around 600 photos! And this is the first time something like this has happened to me after 4 years using LR. Anyway, the reprimand is still appreciated and duly noted! ;)
 
AFAIK, what takes so long is the 'verify integrity' part. If you're in a hurry, you could uncheck that (and also uncheck 'Optimize'), so you really only make a quick backup. Next to that, I would advise to use the built-in backup utility of Windows 10. It makes backups every hour, in the background.
 
My approach would be different from Johans as I detest XMP Side car files and Metadata updates to Master DNGs once imported.

I would open the backup catalog in LR. Use the Export as Catalog function to export just those images that were deleted in the master catalog and needed the develop settings. The going back to my master catalog I would import the just exported catalog which will update the master LR catalog with the develop and metadata changes. You may end up with virtual copies on the images because of differences in the develop history of the copy in the master and the copy of the same file in the catalog being imported. But I just answered that issue in your other thread.
 
I do what John describes (sort of) for moving photos between computers all the time; the main "loss" in using the XMP is the history - it has all the settings, just no history.

While I have yet to need to use them, I still write XMP files out periodically so I have a backup. If the XMP file is current and you accidentally delete the file from lightroom, you can restore it from the wastebasket (if you have one) then just synchronize and it comes back with the develop settings.
 
AFAIK, what takes so long is the 'verify integrity' part. If you're in a hurry, you could uncheck that (and also uncheck 'Optimize'), so you really only make a quick backup. Next to that, I would advise to use the built-in backup utility of Windows 10. It makes backups every hour, in the background.
Johan,

That Windows 10 backup facility is limited to the \users\username folder. Like many people, I keep all my data on a separate partition, the D: drive. That way, when Windows goes south, or I need to do a major rebuild of Windows, my data is not affected. However, the Windows 10 backup facility won't back up my D: drive. Still, for a lot of people it's a major improvement over what they do now, which is nothing.

Phil
 
Guys! I can't thank you all enough for your help! I don't know if it's common in this LR forum (cuz I'm brand new) but I've never receive so many and so useful tips in any forum about anything! So I'm surely going to be coming back (to pitch in, I hope, more than to ask for help when things are going south!).
Anyway, in the end I decided to follow Cletus' recommendation as to the getting-the-settings-back issue; it just seemed more straightforward and quicker... I have invested almost an entire day in this issue due to my faux pas.
The only thing I didn't do was check the "Preserve old settings as a virtual copy" because, after a day of this, I couldn't be bothered with having to deal with erasing the copies. (What I will do, Cletus, is try what you've recommended on the other thread on some other VCs and post the result there.)
Then, I decided to take heed of Johan's reprimand and, thanks to his recommendation about un-checking the "verify integrity" function when in a hurry, I now have no problem backing it up every time I exit LR.
As to configuring Windows 10, I'm happy to say that I'm shedding off this computer (which has a great amount of RAM and worked a wonder in Win 8.1, but upon upgrading has become a terrible poke) and investing in a Mac... my photographic and audiovisual projects deserve better, and I deserve a computer that doesn't take 10 times longer to do simple tasks (right now I can't even have LR and PS open at the same time!).
So thanks a million, guys!
 
In that case, use another backup utility that automatically makes incremental backups, and does so at least on a daily basis. I'm sure there is more on that D: disk that you don't want to lose...

I do. Retrospect Professional for Windows, www.retrospect.com. Does progressive backups, sophisticated filtering criteria for backups and restores, can transfer backup sets between media, can "groom" backup sets for files that have been deleted, etc. The Pro version can back up the host system plus five additional systems.
 
I use CrashPlan. Free for local backups, Unlimited Cloud storage backups are $60USD per year. I currently have 1.5TB backup to an external disk and the cloud. This backs up critical user data from three drives.

FWIW Apple's TimeMachine will backup multiple disks to a local disk drive or a NAS. By default though, it only backs up the primary disk. I suspect that Windows backup will backup External disk drives as well. It just needs configuring.
 
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