Skip to main content
P
poplarstreetphotography
Participant
December 10, 2016
Answered

All my edits are missing!! And I didn't move any files or do anything weird I can think of

  • December 10, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 499 views

I have a lot of photos that I edited of my best friend's wedding. I was looking at the photos with her in LR last weekend.  A few days later I opened LR and the folder said it was empty, 0 photos in it. I have the RAW files backed up on my external hard drive, but I spent a lot of time editing all those images. I re-imported the files and of course none of my edits or flagged picks, etc. are there.  If I go to my previously backed up catalog will that help?  When I searched for my backup catalogs it shows the most recent being backed up 10/9/16, but I know for a fact I backed up the photos 12/3/16. I am at a loss.  Any help is appreciated.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer dj_paige

    Re-importing will not solve any problems in Lightroom. Reimporting will not make edits re-appear. Re-importing makes Lightroom think this is a brand new photo that it has never seen before and thus it has no edits at all.

    Use your operating system to search all hard disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT. Double-click on each one found until you find the one with your edits. If that doesn't work, and you have some version of Lightroom 6 or Lightroom CC 2015, search for the backups, do the same thing, use your operating system to search for all files whose name contains .LRCAT.ZIP

    1 reply

    dj_paige
    dj_paigeCorrect answer
    Legend
    December 10, 2016

    Re-importing will not solve any problems in Lightroom. Reimporting will not make edits re-appear. Re-importing makes Lightroom think this is a brand new photo that it has never seen before and thus it has no edits at all.

    Use your operating system to search all hard disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT. Double-click on each one found until you find the one with your edits. If that doesn't work, and you have some version of Lightroom 6 or Lightroom CC 2015, search for the backups, do the same thing, use your operating system to search for all files whose name contains .LRCAT.ZIP

    P
    poplarstreetphotographyAuthor
    Participant
    December 10, 2016

    I get a permissions error when I try to open the backup catalog. I've tried to open the back up catalog from inside LR and I've tried to open the backup catalog from my windows explorer and both give me the error message.

    ManiacJoe
    ManiacJoe
    Inspiring
    December 10, 2016

    You cannot directly open a backup. You need to unzip it to a writable folder.

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices