New Here, Need help please. Missing last several years of edits

[miguelE]

Hi There!
I am trying to not freak out here as I have over 20,000 images that are due this week. I have all of my original photos but the last image in my lightroom catalog is from years ago.

I have about 30 different catalogs: editorial, portraits, architecture etc. I have not confirmed that they are all missing images but many of the important ones are.
to clarify I know how to relink images that have no preview and are greyed out but thousands of images are missing in my catalogs along with all of the rating, culling cropping, straightening etc.

I am also not opposed to hiring someone with the proper skills to help solve this quickly. Adobe has been very unhelpful and slow.

Please hit me with your questions to clarify my problem and thanks so much for taking the time.

 

[clee01l]

Welcome to the forum.
If by missing images, you mean that the catalog file contains the images BUT the location of those images are missing, then you have one of two situations. 1) the images are located on a volume that is not mounted or 2) the images have been moved or deleted outside of LR. If you have volumes listed in the Folder panel but no green icon light indicating that it is present, then you need to find the volume and mount it and all will be well. If you moved the image files outside of LR, then you need to move them back or use the find missing file or folder function in LR to tell LR where they are now. If OTOH you deleted these image files outside of LR, then I think you know the answer to your problem and only a system back up will save you.

If the catalog file that you have open no longer has the images listed and you have been using the missing images recently, then likely you have opened a backup catalog from long ago by mistake.

FWIW, "30 different catalog files" is 29 too many. Most people need one and only one LR catalog containing all of their images. Some commercial shops ma have business rules in place that require client data separation but this is the only exception to the one catalog rule.