deleting images and re-importing ?'s

[kmhilton]

Since I take several thousand pictures a year, I initially decided that I would import a collection of images for each "event," edit them, then remove them from my lightroom catalog after storing them on a separate hard drive (space is a huge problem on my computer's hard drive). Now that I am beginning to re-import individual photos from these removed "collections" I have discovered that the history of these pictures' edits have been lost. Is their any way of getting this history back or any tricks on how to re-import images in a better way? With this, I think I might misunderstand the best workflow of my images in my lightroom. Is it best not to remove any pictures from lightroom after transferring its original file to another location (and backing them up), but instead organize my pictures through the "Folders" or "Collections" options within LR and continue to have all of my pictures in LR with a ? attached to it????? THANX a million for the help!

 

[Brad Snyder]

km, Welcome to the Forums.

Your last couple of sentences are the best strategy. Leave the photos in Lr, and organize there.

If you've 'removed' the photos from Lr, (and don't have a back-up of the catalog) there's no way to recover the develop history.

 

[dj_paige]

You don't need to remove the photos from your catalog at all. If you want the photos on your other hard drive, why not put them on this other hard drive right out of the camera, import them into Lightroom from this other hard drive, and just leave them there? No moving of files, no photos with ?? attached. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

By the way, instead of "organize my pictures through the Folders or Collections", I would recommend collections and keywords. I feel collections and keywords are much more powerful than folders and collections.

 

[kmhilton]

Ok!....thanx for the QUICK responses. With photos I already deleted from my catalog, I would like to retain their history if possible. However, some of these pictures are from catalogs that are over a year old. I do have these catalogs saved. What is the best procedure at this point? If I reimport those pics from old catalogs, will it show up in my current catalog as a pic that was never removed?

Thanks again, I just have to rewrap my brain around the idea that I will continue to have over 1',''' pics in my catalog and it will only ever GROW!

 

[Denis Pagé]

Ok!....thanx for the QUICK responses. With photos I already deleted from my catalog, I would like to retain their history if possible. However, some of these pictures are from catalogs that are over a year old. I do have these catalogs saved. What is the best procedure at this point? If I reimport those pics from old catalogs, will it show up in my current catalog as a pic that was never removed?

Thanks again, I just have to rewrap my brain around the idea that I will continue to have over 1',''' pics in my catalog and it will only ever GROW!

I have over 2'''' and it works like a breeze. Others have in the 2'''''+...

Your history is lost. What is simliar that you can save in XMP are snapshots. Just right click a critical point in you history and select "Create Snapshot" in the future. Steps between snapshots can be lost but you save the essential if you have to redo a version. Otherwise, you can use Virtual Copies for different versions of the same image. If you didn't activate the "Automatically Write to XMP" in the Prefereces, before removing from catalog, remember to do a Ctrl/Cmd-S to same the XMP info to the file otherwise, Lightroom only knows the receipe and by removing from Lightroom... :x

 

[dj_paige]

With photos I already deleted from my catalog, I would like to retain their history if possible. However, some of these pictures are from catalogs that are over a year old. I do have these catalogs saved. What is the best procedure at this point? If I reimport those pics from old catalogs, will it show up in my current catalog as a pic that was never removed?

Don't re-import the photos into your current catalog.

Import the previous catalogs into your current catalog.
File -> Import From Catalog