Lightroom - moving files & file settings

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Nathan Lanni

Senior Member
I moved files around in my photo image directory which I have identified in the FOLDERS area of LR.

I moved the folder outside of LR and when I came back to LR noticed some of the basic changes I made to images (white balance, lens correction) were no longer in effect. The History and Snapshots for each file were gone too.

So my question is where does LR save the change settings for each file so I can copy them?

Every 8 or 9 months I re-image my "C" drive with an image template. All my regular files are on separate drives, so the process typically takes about an hour because I save the settings for individual programs and would to do that for LR as well.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Lightroom has the option of saving changes in a sidecar file which would then need to be moved, but by default the changes are tracked in the LR database. When you move images outside of LR you lose the linkages with the image, so for all intents and purposes you lose the changes you made. The one thing about the LR catalog is that once you start using LR to maintain your images then you need to use it for maintaining their storage as well. It's a hard lesson, and one we all learn once if we haven't read up on things carefully.

There may be a way to relink them, but I'm not aware of it off the top of my head. Tim Grey does a lot of work on this stuff and he may have had this question asked before, so if you can track down his blog you may be able to find an answer.

If you opt to keep the changes in sidecar files then you must move the files together when you move them or you bust the linkages as well.
 
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nickt

Senior Member
Are the non-working thumbnails in the original locations still visible in lightroom or did you remove them? When I did this, the thumbnails were still there and had an ! on them. Clicking on the ! gave me the chance to manually locate the file as well as nearby files. So in finding one, it found all from the same folder and all the edits. If you don't use the sidecar files like Jake said, your edits are in the catalog file, *.lrcat. No way that I know of to recover individual edits, but if they are still available, I think you would see the dead thumbnails and be able to do the manual locate to link them back up.
 
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Nathan Lanni

Senior Member
BackdoorHippie said:
Lightroom has the option of saving changes in a sidecar file which would then need to be moved, but by default the changes are tracked in the LR database. When you move images outside of LR you lose the linkages with the image, so for all intents and purposes you lose the changes you made. The one thing about the LR catalog is that once you start using LR to maintain your images then you need to use it for maintaining their storage as well. It's a hard lesson, and one we all learn once if we haven't read up on things carefully.

There may be a way to relink them, but I'm not aware of it off the top of my head. Tim Grey does a lot of work on this stuff and he may have had this question asked before, so if you can track down his blog you may be able to find an answer.

If you opt to keep the changes in sidecar files then you must move the files together when you move them or you bust the linkages as well.
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Thanks for your advice.

In the future I'll use LR to organize my files. Not a big thing but I do need to find out where the database is stored.

Yes, I do need to read up on LR. I managed to stumble on a LR 5 handbook here on the site so I'll be reading it through.

Tim Grey's site is cool, so I'll be checking it out.

Again, thanks Hippie
 
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Nathan Lanni

Senior Member
nickt said:
Are the non-working thumbnails in the original locations still visible in lightroom or did you remove them? When I did this, the thumbnails were still there and had an ! on them. Clicking on the ! gave me the chance to manually locate the file as well as nearby files. So in finding one, it found all from the same folder and all the edits. If you don't use the sidecar files like Jake said, your edits are in the catalog file, *.lrcat. No way that I know of to recover individual edits, but if they are still available, I think you would see the dead thumbnails and be able to do the manual locate to link them back up.
Click to expand...

The thumbnails were visible and I used the Synchronize function to bring LR up to speed with the changes. I'm guessing the directory relocations were a bit much for LR to handle.

Fortunately I hadn't had a chance to make significant changes. Plus the changes I made on files using PS were still intact.

As mentioned, lesson learned.

Thanks for your help.
 
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