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KeithR

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Apr 3, 2008
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Okay, I had a semi senior moment(I'm not old enough to qualify-yet). I downloaded 1.4.1 to a download folder from where I do my installs of upgrades. When I did the double click to launch, it installed fine but I now have a folder on my desktop(PC-Windows Vista)that says Adobe. It contains a file folder that says Lightroom 1.4.1 and is about ~59 MB in size. Other than my desk top, where should I move this to?
 
Keith, I'm trying to overcome a senior moment of my own, and remember when I've seen that behavior before. I have seen some version of LR do this, but I can't put my finger on it.

I *think* that's just a temp folder holding the decompressed install files, but I'm not positive. I *think* you can just delete it. If it were me, I'd rename the folder temporarily and make sure everything is still working. When you're convinced everything is OK, then delete it (or stash it somewhere).
 
Okay, I had a semi senior moment(I'm not old enough to qualify-yet).
Not working on a PC so I can only attest to this part.


"not old enough to qualify-yet" - in that case it is called and Arts and Crafts moment. C.R.A.F.T. moment. Can't Remember An efF___ing Thing! and A.R.T.S. - Ain't Remembering That Stuff!

Neither refers to ones Age!

Don
 
That reminds me. I have a Lightroom folder that is in "My Pictures" and I think I moved it there last year from desktop when I either installed LR or upgraded. That's been too long ago now. It now (in properties) shows 113MB, BUT, it shows 49 files and 3358 folders. No, I did not reverse them, 49 files-3358 folders, in that order.
What in the world is happening?
 
Keith, I'm trying to overcome a senior moment of my own, and remember when I've seen that behavior before. I have seen some version of LR do this, but I can't put my finger on it.

I *think* that's just a temp folder holding the decompressed install files, but I'm not positive. I *think* you can just delete it. If it were me, I'd rename the folder temporarily and make sure everything is still working. When you're convinced everything is OK, then delete it (or stash it somewhere).

Thanks for the reply! If it were just a desktop shortcut, I'd just delete it, but the fact that it states that it is ~59MB has me stumped. The shortcut that I do have on the desktop(the LR in a square box) just gives the location which is: C:\Program files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4, which makes me believe that the program is where it's suppose to be. I just can't figure out why the desktop folder.
 
Ernie, your folder sounds like an LR catalog. Take a peek and see if somehwhere in that tree, there's a folder called Lightroom Previews.lrdata.

That's the folder where the various preview files are stored. They're stored in a sort of hexadecimally organized tree structure, (principally to keep any one subdirectory from getting tol large). If my math is correct there could be as many as 'xFFFF (64k) lowest level subfolders. As you probably know, rendered previews expire and are deleted after some (configurable) period of time elapses. I don't know that the directory tree gets pruned back if a lowest level folder gets emptied by preview expiration. So you could/should have way more folders than files.

It could be a real live catalog in use, or some temporary experiment you've made and abandoned. Where do you store your production catalogs? I believe on Windows the default catalog location is in "My Pictures" where your mystery folder is.

Let us know what you see in that folder, and how your working files are arranged, and we can tell you in better detail what to do, if anything.
 
Brad, you're right, that folder is in the parent LR folder. I'm not really worried about it, I was just puzzled why there were so many more folders than files. But you have explained it now.
I don't use the DAM functions of LR (I use Portfolio) so I don't have any production catalogs. I delete folders as soon as I have developed the raws and exported them.
Do you think I could empty that tree structure you mention (I saw it) without causing any problems? It's not a problem now, but someday, if it keeps growing, I may want to just to save space. Thanks
 
You can safely delete the Adobe folder on your desktop now that Lightroom is installed. This is normal behavior for any software distribution downloaded from Adobe; the Installer routine used by Adobe needs to create a temporary folder where the decompressed installation files can be stored. If you look at the properties of the file you downloaded from Adobe its called "Adobe Extractor" for this very reason.

As you can see from the attached graphic you could have chosen to create the temporary folder anywhere on your computer by clicking the folder icon and entering a new path, but you chose the default as prompted by the software.


Thanks for the reply! If it were just a desktop shortcut, I'd just delete it, but the fact that it states that it is ~59MB has me stumped. The shortcut that I do have on the desktop(the LR in a square box) just gives the location which is: C:\Program files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4, which makes me believe that the program is where it's suppose to be. I just can't figure out why the desktop folder.
 
Ernie,

In that same folder tree, is a file called *.lrcat (or if older, *.lrdb).

Double click that file, it should open LR. If there's nothing showing in that catalog you want to save, go ahead and kill it.

Just to ensure we're on the same wavelength .....

When you say you delete folders after export, are you deleting them in the OS, or using LR? I know you've described your workflow before (I forget), but what happens to your RAW files? What type of export files are you managing with Portfolio/

When you open LR to import new RAWs for processing, what catalog are you using, where is it located?
 
I just delete them from LR. They are still in the OS. I end up with a folder that contains the tiffs or jpgs (whatever I chose to export as) and within it a sub-folder with the raws.
I have been including everything in Portfolio, but I've been thinking that I really don't need to put the raws in there since they would be in the same parent folder anyway. I'd know where to find them if needed.
I guess I'm not using any catalog, since once I develop the raws I remove it all from LR. Is that right, I'm a little hazy on the definition of a catalog. I take it to mean like your compilation of "stuff", and then you could have even more "collections" inside your catalog. Isn't it just different names for the same concept of folders, sub-folders, etc. etc.?
 
That's why I asked the question. I wasn't sure we were using the same terminology.

Whenever LR is open, you're using a catalog. Catalog is the terminology for all of the images currently available in a LR session. In practical terms, it's the collection of files (as discussed above) that constitute the SQlite database (which contains all of the adjustments and other metadata pertinent to the images contained within the catalog, as well as the image previews cached in order to accelerate display). You can have as many catalogs as you like, (the efficiency of which is subject to a great deal of debate), but there's a minimum limit of 1.

Without the catalog, there are no imports, no adjustments and no exports. So you're definitely using the catalog. It's just that your catalog is always empty when you're finished.

So those folders/files in the My Pictures folder are important in the context that LR won't work without them. On the other hand, if you're not actually storing any images, they're not important, because you can just ask LR to create a new catalog every time you open it up.
 
Brad, OK that makes a lot of sense to me. Very good explanation. In essence then, I'm creating a new catalog every time I open LR (provided LR was empty when I opened it). Or maybe I'm just opening the same empty catalog. Either way, you've helped me understand it a lot better now. Thanks.
 
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