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Lost edits

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jerry12953

Active Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
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128
Location
mid-wales, UK
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I'm sure my problem is closely related to many others on here, but I can't relate the replies exactly to it.

I've lost all the edits to the images on my external hard drive. I can open them, but the history pane just says "Import '8/'2/1'".

That may well have been the date I moved everything over to a new PC, but I can't quite remember.....

To get access to the edits I can go to my lrcat backups and use one dating before '8/'2/1', but I can't, for example, add them to a collection started since them. And it's a pain, of course.

At one time the external HD had two letters "I" and "J" in the folders panel, but "I" has disappeared.

How can I solve this one?
 
You re-imported your photos into Lightroom. Re-importing is almost never a good idea.

This is the cause of losing your edit histories, which are stored ONLY in the Lightroom catalog, along with other information that is ONLY stored in the catalog. Re-importing means that Lightroom thinks you have a brand new photo that it has never seen before, and thus has no edits.

If you restore one of the backup catalogs, you should be able to view your edits and reconnect the photos, if necessary. For collections started after this date, you might have to merge (Import as Catalog) your newer catalog into the restored backup. I'm not sure that will work as I have never done this, maybe someone else can speak up.

In the future, no re-importing. The proper way to handle moves to a new PC is to move your catalog file(s) and photos, keeping the same folder structure of your photos, and then just double-click on the catalog file and if necessary, reconnect the photos/folders.
 
Hi,

Thanks for replying.

So what you're suggesting is this -

I go back to a pre-'8/'2/1' catalogue, click on that, which opens LR -yes?

Then I have to bring everything more recent .....new images and all the edits done to them......into that ?

You think I might be able to do that by using "Import as catalogue"?

I'm just trying to get everything straight in my head before I do anything too drastic......LR seems to have a peculiar kind of logic which I find it difficult to comprehend.....
 
I think it might be easier to do it the other way round....i.e. try to capture all the metadata from the pre-'8/'2/1' catalog and bring them into your current 'master' catalog.

Paige, I think this is actually the exact same process as we were discussing in Newmarket2's Elements thread earlier today. The process would "simply" be to open the pre-'8/'2/1' catalog, select all photographs, then export the metadata only to a 'temporary' catalog. Then relaunch Lightroom with the current master catalog and run an "Import from Catalog" process, specifying the temporary catalog as the input. That should cause the metadata of all 'matching' images to be updated with the "old" metadata.

The issue, before starting any of that, would be to ensure that the folder structure from BOTH master AND pre-'8/'2/1' catalogs is 1''% aligned....if not I'm not sure what might happen (this means careful backups of BOTH before starting!).

Before we do anything, can you post a screenshot of the top-level folder hierarchy as seen in the Folders panel of BOTH catalogs? If we can get them lined up, this might be an easy fix.

What do you think, Paige? Denis?
 
just two other things......

A) There's a lot more folders and files in the J drive now than there was on '8/'2/1'.

B) I've been reading round a bit and I just wonder if the problem could have been caused by the J drive being renamed the I drive at some stage? I can remember being puzzled by the fact that the ext HD was called both I and J. I read that windows can do that for you.
 
Hello Jerry,

Picking up on some of your points:

1. To attach screenshots, click on the + at the side of Additional Options when previewing your post and you will see the option to browse to and attach a small (256kb max) picture.

2. "There's a lot more folders and files in the J drive now than there was on '8/'2/1'."...does this simply mean you've added a lot of pictures/folders since then (not a problem) OR do you mean that there are more pre-'8/'2/1' folders in the current catalog than were in the backup catalog (which could be a problem).

3. Drive letters....yes they can change, but if we are dealing with only one external drive it probably means that on your old PC the drive letter changed and you either didn't notice or didn't understand the implications. The consequences could well have been that some folders were imported into Lightroom when it was, say, Drive I...and after the change subsequent folders were imported as Drive J. Lightroom will happily show both drives in the Folders Panel, but only the current drive letter would have 'the green light', and all folders logged under the I drive would have had ? against them (meaning Lightroom cannot locate the folder because it's on a drive letter that no longer exists).
When you moved to your new PC, I suspect you created a new catalog (rather than restoring the catalog from the old PC), then imported all your picture folders anew...this would explain why now only one drive is shown in the Folders Panel (which is good), but you've lost all the edits that you did prior to the switchover (which is bad).

Does that make sense?

If you could progress the screenshots that would be great (you may need separate posts) and if you could also include in the same shot a Library Filter breakdown of the total number of pictures in the catalog by year upto 2'1' and by month for 2'1', that would be most useful. See my attached screenshot.

Yell if any of this is not clear.
 
Hi Jim,

Its very kind of you to take time out to help me with this.

1) Excuse my ignorance but I don't know how to actually do a screenshot! So it may take me a while to sort it out.
2) There are 5885 photos on the J drive now as opposed to 1571 on 8/2/1'. I'm not sure how they got there, although i have a horrible feeling it may be your second possibility. (ie bad).
3)As far as I can remember I used a file transfer cable to move all the stuff from my old PC to the new one, and re-installed LR on the new one. I may have re-imported the files from the ext HD, which I now realise was "a very bad idea"!

I'll come back with a screenshot asap.

jerry
 
Jerry,

If you are using Win7 you have a utility called 'Snipping Tool' which you will find in All Programs>Accessories. You can take a screenshot with that.
 
Thanks for that, but in the meantime I'd worked out how to do a screenshot using the keyboard control.

I'll attach the first ('8'21') with this post.
 
Jerry, thanks for those screenshots, but could I ask you to do them again with a couple of small changes.

In the Library Filter you can make the display area larger by grabbing the bottom bar and dragging it downwards (I'd like to see an exact year by year photo count so that we can see what differences there are in the two catalogs).

Also in the '8'21' catalog can you collapse the Raw Files top level folder so that I can see what drives are listed further down?

Thanks.

BTW, I see you have some shots at Bala....coincidentally my sister has a caravan there and I was talking to her there today. I have a small Bala folder as well!
 
I don't think there's any more date info for 2'1'. Do you need it for earlier years?

Regarding the J drive, it has a very long list of folders which need scrolling through. Not sure how I can do a screenshot of it.....

To be honest its getting a bit late for me to be doing this sort of thing...could we continue tomorrow morning?

Perhaps by phone might be better?
 
No worries Jerry, I'm obviously not making myself very clear.

Will send a more detailed note tomorrow.

Cheers.
 
Jerry, picking up were we left off last night....

Summarising were we got to:

1. You have lost the edits to all your pictures pre-'8'21'.
2. We think they are in a backup taken before '8'21'.
3. We think that if we can export these edits as a catalog, we can then import into the current master catalog and bring all your edits back.
4. There is confusion over drive lettering somewhere in the mix.
5. Before we can proceed we need to ensure that the pictures in both catalogs are properly "aligned" from a drive letter perspective, otherwise we are wasting our time and potentially making things worse.
6. Hence the need for screenshots of the Folders Panel and the Year by Year picture numbers.
7. So far the screenshots you have sent are raising more questions than providing answers, so I would ask you to repeat them as follows:

A. Start with the '8'21' catalog. Drag the bar at the bottom of the filter panel downwards to expand the panel so that ALL the years are showing (see the example screenshot that I sent you).
In the Folders Panel (where we can already see that you have some "missing pictures") I would like to be able to see all the drives this catalog thinks it has images on.....I can see you have a total of 3'54 out of 4671 on the C drive, where are the rest. Just click on the down-arrow next to Desktop and Raw Files in the Folders Panel and those lists will collapse, allowing us to see what is further down the list.

B. On the current catalog, repeat the action on the filter panel so that we can see all years. And in the Folders Panel, collapse the list below the J: drive so that we can see where the rest of the 9593 images are.

We already have one glaring issue in that there is a large discrepency between the two catalogs in terms of the overall numbers in each. You may be able to explain that.

Have a go at the new screenshots and then I'll get back to you with some thoughts about where to go next.
 
Hi,

1)yes
2) They definitely are in pre-'8/'2/1' backups. Looking at the size of the backups (in MB) they vary quite considerably. There's a more or less gradual increase in size up to 63.1MB on 8/2/1', then it jumps to 93.6MB....... It rises gradually then until 27/'4/1' when it jumps from 1'6 to 167.

I suspect that it was at this point that I realised there was a problem, and I almost certainly DID reimport the J drive into LR. Since then it is either 167 or 63.7 - presumably depending on whether I'm using the current catalogue or the '8'21' one. But twice it's 93.8 , which is a bit puzzling? I'm fairly sure when I realised that re-importing didn't help, I deleted the re-import, by the way.
3) OK.....
4) yes
5) OK
6) OK
7) OK

I will have another go at the screenshots now, but there wasn't any further information in the Library file for 2'1'.

jerry
 
[quote author=jerry12953 link=topic=9715.msg65789#msg65789 date=12727'4922]


I will have another go at the screenshots now, but there wasn't any further information in the Library file for 2'1'.

jerry
[/quote]

Thanks for the screenshots, the Library Filter panel view was just what I wanted to see. However, I'm still not seeing the view of the Folders Panel that I need to see....the most important information first is the high-level view of the disk drives and any associated missing files. I need you to collapse the view of the sub-folders (we can expand them again later if we need to drill down to that level), so that ALL the disk drives (and their respective totals) can be seen in the Panel at the same time. Do you understand what I mean? If so can you retake the screenshots of both catalogs with that information showing.

As you will have noticed, there are significant year by year differences in the totals in the two catalogs....do you have any idea at this stage why that is? And ignoring the last 3 months of this year, as these are obviously not in the older catalog, which of the two catalogs would you say better represents your Lightroom library?
 
Almost there..... :D

If you get a minute, could you repeat the two screenshots but this time also include the Library Filter display (having all the data in one picture will save me from having to keep moving between the various shots that you've given me). And in the '8'21' shot can you also open the Catalog panel (just above the Folders Panel) as you did in the current catalog shot.

And have you had a chance to think about why the totals for previous years are so different....do you by any chance "remove" originals from the catalog but NOT choosing the "delete from disk" option, i.e. have you managed to reimport a load of pics that you've previously rejected but not deleted?
 
Try again.....

Am attaching latest snips. I hope these are the right ones.

I'm really not sure why the totals are so different. It's possible that some (or even many) of these images were never in Lightroom, just stored in the J drive with the ones that were. I'll have to think about it some more.

I'm fairly sure that when I delete files I get rid of them completely. But again I just don't know. One never thinks about these things when everything is hunky dory.

There seems to be some major shortcomings in the way Lightroom works. I wonder if they'll fix them in v3?

jerry
jerry
 
Jerry,
The last screenshot was incomplete as you didn't have All Photographs selected when you displayed the Library Filter, so the year by year count is wrong. Could you do that one again please? Ta.

Re your point about Lightroom's "major shortcomings", I would tend to disagree with that. Yes, it is easy to get into trouble if you don't fully understand how it fundamentally works....but that is true of most database software. The key is to get that understanding first before you lead yourself down a wrong path....and version 3 will not change things as the underlying principles of the "asset management" aspects will remain largely the same.
 
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