Reimporting Developed Catalogs

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intoca26319

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I recently processed pictures in a catalog that saved to my PICTURES folder on my hard drive. I import into lightroom by copying and saving as .dng's and designate the copies to a folder on an external hard drive. I had previously worked on the same images and did save them on the external hd but this time I decided to reimport as .dng's again from the original file folder so yes there were two redundant sets of this particular .dng import. I did a lot of processing work on the set that was on the hard drive. Unfortunately my working hard drive completely died and I cannot access anything on it. I installed a new working hard drive and lightroom and opened the catalog that I was working with. The catalog thumbnails show the processed work but with the missing file "?" on them. I "located" the "missing files" using the .dng set on the external hd, but it doesn't show the processed files. I think that if the thumbnails show the processed work that information is still out there. Can I find it w/out having to reprocess these files?
 
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The changes you made should be recorded in the dng files themselves. I don't fully understand your description of what copies you have and where. Did you backup your RAW files during the import using LR ? If so then these will still be in the original camera RAW format.
 
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Yes Sorry sounds a little confusing. I imported pictures to catalog saved as dng's onto the main hd, did some tedious work on them in develop module. Computer dies taking the imported files with them. The lrcat was saved onto an external hd. I opened the catalog (on new computer) and it showed me the thumbnails with the processing work I had done but with the "?" because the actual files are missing. I can re-import the same raw files as dng's (w/out any processing) on another computer then place them on the new computer. When I click the "?" it asks to find the missing files and then I can direct it to the "new" files. My question is is there a way to get the previous processing to apply to the new files? I mean is the processing data still out there somewhere associated with the original intact catalog or is it lost forever associated with the lost dng files? Sorry very convoluted but I can't seem to narrow it down anymore than that! Thanks for any help!
 
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Intoca, welcome to the forums. Hmmm, from what you say, clicking on the ? and pointing to the backup copies should be working. Of course it's a lot less work if the folder and filename structures are identical to the 'crashed files'.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'Import on another computer', tho'.
 
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I think what you are after is in Library/Grid select the ones you want to update with what is in the catalog and cmd/ctrl-s to save the catalog metadata to the DNG files.
 
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OK... lets see if we have got this correct.....

so you lost the dng's that contained all your 'develop' changes but you still have the original RAW files and a catalog from a backup.

1) You have restored your catalogue from backup.

2) You have imported the RAW files as dng's on a separate computer and then copied them to your original computer and told LR where they are.

3)now you need to get the 'develop' changes back in to the dng's.


If this is correct then I think Kiwigeoff has the answer.
 
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