Trapped in Lightroom - HELP!

Mad Cat

Greetings all,

I hope someone out there with a little more Lightroom saavy than I have (Nearly none) can tell me how to or where to find information re: how do I clear every single image I have in lightroom out of there so I can start over fresh? I've recently moved all of my nearly 8000 photos onto an external drive - so while the images are still stored in the library, you can't open them or do anything with them. Any advice would be soooo greatly appreciated. thanks w/mc

Candid Arts

Sounds like you just need to re-sync up the folders. Assuming that the folder structure is still entirely the same for everything, and you little dragged and dropped your "Pictures" folder from one hard drive to your new external one...

There should be little questions marks by the pictures or folders where the photos used to be. If you click on that, it will open a window and basically you just need to go to your new ext. hard drive and find the photos.

OTHERWISE...if you want to start all over, you can just control click the now empty folders and remove them (however this will delete all metadata and anything you've done to the photos - unless you opted to have .xmp sidecar files written [as I do]). Then at this point you just need to re-import everything into the LR database again as you first did.

Hope that helps.

Mad Cat

Candid Arts wrote:

Sounds like you just need to re-sync up the folders. Assuming that the folder structure is still entirely the same for everything, and you little dragged and dropped your "Pictures" folder from one hard drive to your new external one...

There should be little questions marks by the pictures or folders where the photos used to be. If you click on that, it will open a window and basically you just need to go to your new ext. hard drive and find the photos.

OTHERWISE...if you want to start all over, you can just control click the now empty folders and remove them (however this will delete all metadata and anything you've done to the photos - unless you opted to have .xmp sidecar files written [as I do]). Then at this point you just need to re-import everything into the LR database again as you first did.

Hope that helps.

Thanks. I'll play with it this evening. That brings up another question: just exactly what IS the .xmp, why does photoshop remove and save in a separate file? I've been shooting digital for about 5 years now, and just about the time I think I've the perfect workflow figured out, up pops another question! Thanks, w/mc

colourbox

Are you really sure you want to start over? That would remove all of the edits from all of the images you've worked on, unless you made sure to sync all edits back out to the files before they were moved.

Take Candid Arts' advice but try doing just one thing. Go to the very top level of your folders and right-click or control-click the top level missing disk, and do an "Update Folder Location" to the new top level location on the new disk. If the structure of the folders on the new disk is the same as it was on the old disk, Lightroom should simply hook up the entire folder structure and reconnect all edits to all images so you don't throw out all of the hours of work you've put in.
Example:
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Candid Arts

the .xmp file holds all of your edits and metadata.

Example:

w/o .xmp files - you make all these edits, add keywords, copyright info, etc... OOPS! Accidentally deleted the file from LR. Everything is gone. You still have the original file, but all your edits, keywords, etc... are gone.

w .xmp files - same scenario, just deleted the file from LR. Just re-import it and the attached .xmp file, and everything is back as it was. No worries. It will take up a little space (a few kb), but well worth the safety in my opinion!

Mad Cat

colourbox wrote:

Are you really sure you want to start over? That would remove all of the edits from all of the images you've worked on, unless you made sure to sync all edits back out to the files before they were moved.

Take Candid Arts' advice but try doing just one thing. Go to the very top level of your folders and right-click or control-click the top level missing disk, and do an "Update Folder Location" to the new top level location on the new disk. If the structure of the folders on the new disk is the same as it was on the old disk, Lightroom should simply hook up the entire folder structure and reconnect all edits to all images so you don't throw out all of the hours of work you've put in.
Example:
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Oh yeah I'm starting over. In a couple of weekends from now one of the IT guys from my work is going to come over and wipe my CPU clean so I can reinstall and start all over. All files and folders have been moved to an external drive... Including raw and .xmp. I guess it doesn't matter about the Lightroom - it'll all be removed then, huh? Main reason I have to do this is because I made the uniformed decision to load the Nero software that came with my external CD/DVD burner last Christmas. So now any time I plug in an SD or CF card into the front of the computer, Nero grabs my Nikon Electronic Files and renames them Nero Encrypted Files. Then I catch hell trying to use CS3 because the Adobe refuses to recongnize it as a compatible format.

Everyone I've talked to has told me the same thing - wipe it clean, reinstall, and set the Nero preferences so it can't get anywhere near my images when I load them. Or just skip the Nero altogether....

I sure am gratefull to have folks like you & Candid Art, and all the other great folks on Smug and Dgrin as a resource when I get in a bind. Everything I haven't learned from you-all, I've had to learn the hard way! Thanks, w/mc

Pupator

That sounds like using an anvil when a hammer would do. Just uninstall Nero, then right click on a NEF file and choose "Open With," select CS3 and tell it to always do so. That'll re-establish the default application for NEF files.

Mad Cat

Pupator wrote:

That sounds like using an anvil when a hammer would do. Just uninstall Nero, then right click on a NEF file and choose "Open With," select CS3 and tell it to always do so. That'll re-establish the default application for NEF files.

Thanks... I knew it would be something incredibly simple - but my experience is limited. It took almost I had to learn to upload to smug or Dgrin.... Will it be safe to reinstall the Nero once this is done? Thanks to all you guys.... w/mc

Pupator

Mad Cat wrote:

Thanks... I knew it would be something incredibly simple - but my experience is limited. It took almost I had to learn to upload to smug or Dgrin.... Will it be safe to reinstall the Nero once this is done? Thanks to all you guys.... w/mc

I'm not sure, because Nero was acting buggy in the first place by taking over a file extension that shouldn't have belonged to it. When you install Nero pay attention to the step where you choose which files are associated with Nero. If any of them have the extension (or the initials) NEF make sure you do not associate Nero with it. In fact, you may be well served to uncheck ALL of them and not associate Nero with anything. Then you can just open Nero when you want to and open files from within.

Mad Cat

Pupator wrote:

I'm not sure, because Nero was acting buggy in the first place by taking over a file extension that shouldn't have belonged to it. When you install Nero pay attention to the step where you choose which files are associated with Nero. If any of them have the extension (or the initials) NEF make sure you do not associate Nero with it. In fact, you may be well served to uncheck ALL of them and not associate Nero with anything. Then you can just open Nero when you want to and open files from within.

Thanks, that's the plan. I've been having mega issues with not only Nero but Corel as well - it's just time wipe 'er clean and start over. Hopefully I'm a little closer to knowing what I'm doing than I was when I started shooting digital.... Thanks again. w/mc