Saving Lightroom Photos to my WD External Hard Drive

Hi, I have plugged in my WD My passport ultra to my pc as this is what I have used to save all my photo files which I have in the C-Drive under My Photos, Nikon Transfer 2 then folders relating to the photos. I have now got Adobe CC and have imported them to Lightroom in the similar layout. My question is- I currently save photos only on the drive where I select whats my photos only. Looking at what I am saving there is not lightroom option which has my adjustments in? Am I missing something as I will be getting a new pc soon so dont want to just copy over the originals only and not the adjustments made in lightroom. Please help as I am a complete doughnut regards to computers.

Your edits are always in your LR catalog, but they could be in side car xmp files as well.

Here is my thread when I had my mess:
http://nikonites.com/computers-and-...uestions.html?highlight=catalog#axzz3ii6ZMtvW

Posts 6 and 7 were the answers that worked out for me. The side car files were totally not needed for my use.

I don't fully follow your question, but the bottom line is you need your catalog to move to the new computer and tell LR to use that catalog. Your picture folders need to move over also in the same structure as they are now. That would be you copying the My Picture folders or if pictures currently live on the external drive, simply move the drive to the new computer.

What is unclear is how you imported your photos. Did you import to LR from your main drive or from the backup drive? Also, did you copy or add, or move them? Some people do run LR with the images only on the external drive. In that case, just move your catalog to the new computer and plug your external drive back in. Otherwise, be sure where your files actually are. That structure is what needs to move to the new computer.

Either way, your catalog and picture folders in same structure need to move over. Catalog will have your edits.

I added the files to Lightroom from my pc. They are under the folders section on lightroom now but cant see anywhere if they have been saved

If you added them, they stayed where they were on your pc and were just added to the catalog. That was the best way to do it. Nothing to save, they didn't move. Edits are in the catalog and automatically saved, originals are not altered. For the move, you would copy that folder and all sub folders and restore it with the exact same structure on the new machine. Bring the catalog over as well.

So save changed files in LR itself when going to move? Then all unaltered ones direct from hard drive?

No, everything can move direct from old hard drive to new hard drive. Just keep structure intact. Catalog keeps track of everything, changes or not. When you edit a file in LR, changes are immediately written to the catalog and original is not changed. There is no 'edited' picture ever stored, just a recipe in the catalog that is applied every time you work with the photo. This is not to be confused with an Export which commits your changes to a totally new file.

So just carry on saving as i am to my external drive?

Welshy74 said:

So just carry on saving as i am to my external drive?

Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean. Saving to the external as a backup? Or are new files being imported and stored on the external? Some people store all pictures on a external drive and use LR from there. That makes moving to a new computer easier, just copy the catalog and plug the drive into the new computer. But it sounds like you are working from your main drive and just backing up to the external. That should be ok, but I would make a fresh copy of the whole image directory tree on moving day. Your backup may contain things that you no longer want.

Sorry bit confused now. Copy the files which are currently on my c drive to my external and the lightroom changes would be on there? As you can tell me and computers don't mix!!!

No. I am assuming you are using your computer normally. Imported pictures are stored on your pc. Occasionally or everytime, you copy the pictures to your external for backup. Ok, that is what I am assuming.

So we will ignore the external drive for a minute. To move to a new computer, you want to move your photo folders with structure intact AND catalog to a new computer. That's it. If your external backup is a perfect mirror image, fine, you are ready to move. If your backup has extra photos and not a perfect mirror, you can still use it, but a clean mirror image would go smoother. I like to copy folder tree and catalog on the same day. Of course for my crash, that didn't happen. I had a few dozen extra images on my external as well as the unneeded sidecars. So I had some cleanup to do.

To restate the important part: catalog + folder tree is what needs to move. If you do it that way, LR will be very happy.