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U
Uksnapper11581870
Inspiring
October 2, 2019
Question

BACKING UP EDITED PHOTOS ON EXTERNAL HARDRIVE

  • October 2, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 1085 views

Once I have edited photos in LR the catalog is saved and backuped up daily to both Time Machine and through Carbon Copy Cloner.

I realise of course that the 'original' photos in Pictures remain un post-processed and live on my internal ssd drive which is also backed up as above.

It would give me peace oif midn to be able to back up the edited/post-processed LR images to an external hard drive.

What is the simplest/most efficient way of doing this without having to rely on always having Lightroom.  Other than exporting each indivual photo from Lightoom I am stumped.

Help please and apologies for the clumsy posting of this query.

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    4 replies

    U
    Uksnapper11581870Author
    Inspiring
    October 3, 2019

    Thank you both.....nikunj and Per....both replies much appreciated.

    Am I right in thinking now that if I have done what you both suggested......'Auto write changes to XMP' (which was alreadsy done) and 'save metadata to file' on all photos in the Catalog ...and have a backup on TM and/or CCC then using a different application capable of reading raw/jpg/tiff etc will bring up the edited/postprocessed image that I 'created' in Lightroom?

     

     

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 3, 2019

    No, most applications will still show the unedited image. Lightroom edits can only be fully read by Adobe applications, no matter if they are stored in the catalog or in XMP files. There are a few competitors to Lightroom that claim to be able to read the edits as well, but because they use a different raw engine, the results vary from fair to extremely poor.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    U
    Uksnapper11581870Author
    Inspiring
    October 3, 2019
    Thanks Johan.......so....really the only way to do it is to export the Lightroom edited file to a folder to be backed up etc etc.....(other than the same folder within Pictures) so that I have the original and the post processed image?
    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 2, 2019

    Uksnapper, 

    If you turn on Automatically write changes into XMP, it doesn't do that with all files, only the ones that you edit after turning it on.

    To write XMP settings into all your files, click on All photographs in the Catalog panel. Then select all the files and go to Metadata > Save metadata to file.

    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 2, 2019
    The XMP data can be read by other applications as well that are capable of reading/previewing RAW files.

    As far as I know, only Lightroom and Camera Raw can read the XMP settings.

     

    If you are editing JPEG images, then you would need to export the edited images and then back them up since the edits for JPEG images get saved in the catalog and not XMP files.

    XMP settings are saved to jpg files as well – not as a sidecar file, but they are written to the header of the files.

    This also applies to Tiff, PSD, PNG and DNG files. 

    nikunj.m
    Community Manager
    nikunj.mCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 2, 2019

    Hi there,

     

    To backup the edits you have done on the images (assuming you shoot in RAW) you can save the edits in XMP files (since the RAW formats can not be edited). The XMP files get saved right next to the original RAW images and they can also be backed up using time machine or Carbon copy cloner that you use.

     

    The XMP data can be read by other applications as well that are capable of reading/previewing RAW files. To enable the option to save the edits to XMP files in Lightroom Classic, go to the Catalog Settings through the Lightroom Classic menu on the top left while working in Lightroom. Then go to the Metadata tab and check the box to Automatically write changes to XMP. Then quit and relaunch Lightroom Classic.

     

     

    If you are editing JPEG images, then you would need to export the edited images and then back them up since the edits for JPEG images get saved in the catalog and not XMP files.

     

    Regards,

    Nikunj 

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