Totally ignorant - help

[jltott]

Father in law recently died and left a computer with some photos on and Lightroom etc etc. Wife would like to keep photos but not subscritption to lightroom - are the photos tied into any of the lightroom files (*.lrcat etc). There seem to be few photos over the past 2 years - wondered if he had put them in lightroom databases and I was missing them. As you can see, I know nothing. Need to get rid of the kit but dont want to lose any of his photos or give them away to other people.

 

[tspear]

My condolences on the loss.

You can end the subscription, and then have access to just the Library functions. I am pretty sure the export functionality continues to work, but I will not guarantee it.
The lrcat and associated files are the catalog. Lightroom records all changes to the images in the catalog, not on the actual image. So you get the edited version of the images you will need to export them from Lightroom.
Further Lightroom does not actually store the master image in the catalog. Lightroom stores a pointer to the master image and some previews.
Therefore, once you export the images and copy them off, you will need to delete the lrcat and associated files plus the actual images. My suggestion would be to format the disk at a minimum.

The basic steps to export will be to select all images, select export from the menu and then tell Lightroom where and what quality you want the images. I do not have Lr with me, so we need someone to come along and give detailed answers on the steps.

Tim

 

[Replytoken]

My condolences as well on your loss. Tim's advice will get you copies of any edited images. If you do export, make sure yo do so at the best quality settings if you plan on keeping the images for possible future use. You can also just move the images (unedited) from their current location. LR will tell you where the images are stored (unless somebody moved them without knowing they needed to be kept in the curent location) as it has to keeep track of them for its own sake.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[Ian.B]

Sorry for your family's loss
consider posting a rough location and someone with LR experience might be able to help you. Camera shops; schools; professional photographers could help also or know someone who can

this is one reason I feel we need have a photos reasonably tidy in windows as well as LR so others can access the files when/if we cannot. Most can access photos and files in windows however very few in reality use LR [or mac]

Our photos might not be so important to others but if our photos are not well filed then no one will be interested imo