Folders don't show up on left panel.

[gepatch]

For some reason, my 35 folders quit showing up on the left folders panel. I have the word "FOLDERS" showing, but no sub folders.
I check the hard drive and they are there.
The internal HD and the External HD, have the folders listed, but for some reason, nothing in the left panel.
They have shown up for a month. I must have hit some key that hid them. I just started using LR 2 a Month and was getting the hang of it, then this problem.
Thanks for your help.
Glenn

 

[Mark Sirota]

If you click on any panel header (i.e. where it says "Folders" with a little triangle next to it) it will open or close that panel. If you click on the Folders panel header, does it open up?

 

[gepatch]

I noticed the left panel showed no photos imported, so I re-imported the photos of my Ext HD. Everything is find now.
I don't know what I did to delete all the photos.

I still have several questions.
1. Whats the best way to move photos from one folder to the next. When I high lite a photo and try to copy and paste, the copy is grayed out.

2. Whats the best way to copy the photos (back-up) from one ext. HD to another. I understand back-up in LR 2 is the catolog only.

I'm new to the MacBook and LR 2

Thanks
Glenn

 

[Mark Sirota]

(1) Ah, if there were truly no photos in the catalog, then you probably accidentally opened a new catalog. Try looking under "Open Recent" under the file menu and see whether there's another catalog there that has your photos.

(2) To move photos within Lightroom, just select them and drag them to another folder in the Folders list. You need to click and drag on the photo itself, not the gray border.

You can also move them outside Lightroom, then point Lightroom to the new location. If you do this to entire folders, right-click on the old folder and choose "Update Folder Location" (if you copied) or "Find Missing Folder" (if you moved). If you moved individual files and not entire folders, then click the ? that appears next to the thumbnail in Grid view.

(3) To back up your files, the general recommendation is to use whatever you normally use for system backups. Since you're using Leopard, you can use Time Machine. Or whatever you prefer to use to back up your files outside of Lightroom.

 

[gepatch]

Your right, I must have been using another catalog. When I imported them again, I now have dups. Every photo in the catalog has a duplication. The same file # with a -1 added to the file name.

There must be a way to eliminate the dups automatically, but I don't know how. Right now, I'm doing it manually.
What a job.
I found in the book, how to remove dups on import, but not if they are already in the catalog.
Thanks
Glenn

 

[b_gossweiler]

Filter your catalog by metadata, specifying "Filename contains -1", select all filtered images and delete them from the catalog. Make sure you don't delete them from your hard disk.

Beat Gossweiler
Switzerland

 

[gepatch]

Beat
Why don't I want to delete them from my disc?
As I manually delete them, I'm deleting them from my dick.
It seems to me that I dont want the dups taking us disk space.
Thanks
Glenn

 

[Denis Pagé]

Because Filename.jpg and Filename-1.jpg are pointing to the very same original!!!

So, deleting one from disk delete both! If you delete Filename-1.jpg from disk, you will see a "?" mark on Filename.jpg telling you that it is missing. When you import in Lightroom, you are not importing into Lightroom but in fact just getting a pointer to the location of the original imported file.

I would be really good for you to take some time on The Starter Kit ...

 

[Mark Sirota]

Please go back to suggestion #1 in post #4 on this thread -- look under "Open Recent" in the File menu to find the catalog you had been working with before you re-imported.

Also, learn this lesson -- re-importing is almost never the answer!

 

[gepatch]

I hope when I manually delete the dups and click "delete from Disk" its not effecting both the one good image.
I will read the info you suggested.
I have three books on lightroom and two videos.

One of my problems is, I think I'm going brain dead at times. I just switched to a Macbook after 25 years on a PC, just started LR 2 and bought a new camera, a Canon 5D Mk ll, trying to learn HDR and started using a iPhone.

Too much high tech at one time for this 68 yr old brain.
Thanks for your help.
Glenn

PS: I don't remember doing anything to switch catalogs on LR 2. Whats the best way to check that I'm on the right catalog.

 

[Mark Sirota]

[quote author=gepatch link=topic=7711.msg52793#msg52793 date=1251999'91]
PS: I don't remember doing anything to switch catalogs on LR 2. Whats the best way to check that I'm on the right catalog.[/quote]

I may sound like a broken record, but check under "Open Recent" under the File menu. If there are other catalogs listed there, open each and see what you find.

 

[Denis Pagé]

[quote author=gepatch link=topic=7711.msg52793#msg52793 date=1251999'91]
I hope when I manually delete the dups and click "delete from Disk" its not effecting both the one good image.[/quote]
As I said, saddly, it is!

Whats the best way to check that I'm on the right catalog.

Close Lightroom then in finder, double-click the catalog you want.

 

[gepatch]

Now, I'm really screwed up.!!

Per suggestions, I checked my most resent catalogs and find, I have two catalogs on the Mac internal HD and one catalog on the ext. HD.

One of the catalogs on the internal HD have twice as many photos in it.

After reading some more, I think I want my catalog on the internal HD and the photos on the Ext HD.

I checked the ext HD by clicking the icon on the desktop and the photos are there.

My question is ---

Would I be better off wiping out all the catalogs and starting over?

How can I make sure that I only have one catalog in the future?

I never tried to make differend catalogs on my drives now, it just somehow happen.
Thanks
Glenn

 

[gepatch]

Re: Folders don't show up on left panel, I have a plan

I think I have a plan of action!!!

But, before I do it, I want to check with you guys to see if its a good plan.

I've checked in preferences and I was using the backup catalog on Int HD.

I have three catalogs, two on inter HD and one on Ext. HD

What if I delete all catalogs "send to trash" and start over.
I checked with finder, and the photos I want are on the Ext. HD. I would then start import again using the Ext Hd as a source

Would this start me out clean and I could go back to taking photos?

Hopefully, if I set the default in LR preferences on Int HD, I will not ever have a problem again.
Thanks for your input.

Glenn

 

[Brad Snyder]

Glenn, the main problem with deleting your existing catalogs is that you may lose any Lr work that you've invested in them. So the answer to your question is: "It depends on how much time you've spent on the images in your 'current' catalog." If not so much, then your plan is more or less reasonable.

If, on the other hand, you've spent a lot of time tweaking and tagging photos, say so, and we can help you 'restart', while preserving most of your work.

If it were I, I'd stash backup copies of those 3 catalog files somewhere, before proceeding. I presume you already have backups of the images? If not, I think it's important that you consider that as well.