Lightroom workflow help

[Hollis]

Since I have been traveling so much and have been going through hard drives like crazy, all my photos are disorganized and very useless to me right now. I need some help getting my lightroom world back in order.

Essentially, I only have a laptop that I work off of and I don't keep any images on the internal HD. So, all of my stuff is on a few different drives (well, it all fits on one, just have backups) right now. I going to be moving to a RAID system that will grow with my needs but want to be ready for that when the time comes.

My problem is that I screwed up all the file structure in Lightroom when I had to make room on a drive. Im afraid of losing all of the adjustments and corrections I have made through lightroom. So, what do I need to do to be sure to keep all my adjustments and be able to work off of one drive?

Right now my images and Light Room catalog are all on a small USB portable drive but I want to get them over to my faster FW800 500 gb drive. Note, there are already identical copies of the actualy image files, its just that right now, LR looks for the little drive to find the photos.

Hollis

[bob carnie]

Can you not , right click the image in Develop and *edit in photoshop* , then save as tif in a folder while you are in photoshop to a main hard drive , do the work you need to do and re import back to lightroom at a later day. All your lightroom adjustments should be saved.
We are doing this for work in progress, as we get use to lightroom 2.
If you are talking a lot of files there must be a batch function to do the edit in photoshop move so you do not have to do one file at a time which would be a pain.

[darr]

Copy your files into a new folder with a unique name (i.e., 'Drive H imports') on the drive where you want to keep them. Open LR and in the Library module select File > Import from Disk. Select the (Drive 'H' imports) folder and import. Do not erase your original files until you can confirm it imported them correctly and that your database did indeed pick up your corrections. What version of LR are you using, 1.0, 1.3, 1.4, 2.0 or 2.1RC ? Mac or Windows?

Best,
Darr

[Hollis]

I don't think that is what I am talking about. I just need to point lightroom at a different hard drive.

So, on drive A I have say, 100 folders, by date with my images in them that I have imported into lightroom and made my corrections to. Now, on Drive B (which is bigger and faster) I have the exact same 100 folders (mirrored backup) and I want lightroom to look at those instead of drive A (which will just be a just in case backup) but I want to keep my adjustments to them. Can I just copy the .lrcat file over to drive B? There has to be an easy way to do this.


Also, I don't process out any of my images until I need them. Granted, my limited editons get processed out but not the day to day stuff, would take up way too much room. And, we are talking about around 10,000 images here.

[BarryS]

Here's one way I've dealt with a similar issue of files moved from one external drive to another. If your original files were on A:\photography and located in various subdirectories, you can disconnect that drive and connect the new mirror drive. Let's say it shows up as the B: drive and your files are all mirrored in subdirectories under B:\photography2. In the Library module of Lightroom, you'll see in the Folders window on the left that A:\photography is listed in red. If you right click A:\photography and select Locate Missing Folder, you can point Lightroom at B:\photography2. LR will search that directory and every subdirectory to re-establish the links between the database and the image files.

[Hollis]

See, that is perfect and simple. Damn, I feel dumb right now. Thank you.

This is perfect timing since I found out that my main HD that I left at a friends place a month or so ago when I was in Washington in now being held by the Cowlitz county sherrifs dept. in connection with a crime that took place at said friends house. I am not involved but it is complicated. Annoying too.