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dancingjewel
Known Participant
January 15, 2018
Question

How do I get Missing Photo to Display in Catalog/Folders

  • January 15, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 366 views

I am REALLY hesitant to post this, as it appears that there is often a disconnect between the question and the answer. But I will try to be as clear as possible.

In my folders I have (among MANY others):

2005 > 02 > 2005-02-21 "Folder 1"

2005 > 2005-02-21 "Folder 2"

Two different subfolders of 2005, but obviously same date. Folder 2 has only ONE photo in it IMG_1902.JPG, and this photo is NOT listed in Folder 1. Somehow it got orphaned from the others during import, even though it is definitely from the same shoot. However, when I try to move IMG_1902.JPG from Folder 2 to Folder 1, I get "File already exists in this destination."

While I can't see the image in Folder 1 in LR, looking in the folder on the Hard Drive, I can SEE IMG_1902.JPG in BOTH Folder 1 and Folder 2. Well, I WOULD like to see that  image in Folder 1.

To (hopefully) head off the typical responses, I HAVE tried to follow the following advice exactly as written:

1. Click on All Photographs (under Catalog)

2. Expand All Stacks

3. Turn off Filters

4. Perform a filename search

The result was that only 1 of the images is found, and doing the "Go to Folder in Library", shows the image in Folder 2.

I did a Synchronize Folder (with Add option) on Folder 1. No new images were found.

Finally, frustratingly, I deleted the Image in Folder 1 directly from the hard drive, and THEN did the "Move selected photo to this folder". That worked, and it now shows the proper number of files.

Not sure if I will come across this again, and not sure how to even check for other missing photos. Or how to deal with the situation in the future.

Any suggestions?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    D
    dancingjewelAuthor
    Known Participant
    January 15, 2018

    DJ,

    Thanks, I guess I wasn’t totally clear, but I did delete the image in my OS (since LR didnt’t see it except when I tried to move a same name file in), and then moved the duplicate from the orphan folder into the correct folder inside LR.

    The real question is: I found this problem by accident, is there any way (other than tediously comparing folders in LR and my OS one by one) to find similar “lost” images?

    Thanks for replying!

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    January 15, 2018

    In my OPINION (this is an important word), the problem can be prevented by different strategies to handle your photos, but I don't know any way to find if the problem has occurred with other folders, other than manually.

    To prevent the problem, when you import photos from your camera card, you import them all (every single one of them on the camera card, no exceptions) into Lightroom, rather than import some photos from the camera card today, and others at a later point in time. Then you know all of the photos from today's shoot will be in a single folder. Also, you know that you won't have two copies of the same photo in different folders.

    D
    dancingjewelAuthor
    Known Participant
    January 15, 2018

    Importing all of the photos at once is my SOP. Then, I typically reformat the card once I have verified that all of the images have transferred.

    I think this problem has occured because I am consolidating all of my libraries from other software into LR. I had no problem importing from Aperture, but I had older photos in multiple iPhoto libraries (multiple because of iPhoto limitations). Even though I have tried to pre-prepare the iPhoto libraries by Repair Permissions and Repair Library, I often hit a roadblock using the import from iPhoto plugin before the import completes, and I have to finish the import by copying the Masters folder out of the library and doing the import via the usual Import function (COPY and Do Not Import Suspected Duplicates).

    Maybe I can delve into building a plugin to export the LR filenames into a text file, which I can compare with the file structure in Terminal.

    Thanks again for replying.

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    January 15, 2018

    dancingjewel  wrote

    I am REALLY hesitant to post this, as it appears that there is often a disconnect between the question and the answer. But I will try to be as clear as possible.

    In my folders I have (among MANY others):

    2005 > 02 > 2005-02-21 "Folder 1"

    2005 > 2005-02-21 "Folder 2"

    Two different subfolders of 2005, but obviously same date. Folder 2 has only ONE photo in it IMG_1902.JPG, and this photo is NOT listed in Folder 1. Somehow it got orphaned from the others during import, even though it is definitely from the same shoot. However, when I try to move IMG_1902.JPG from Folder 2 to Folder 1, I get "File already exists in this destination."

    Any suggestions?

    Delete the file IN YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM from Folder 1. Then IN LIGHTROOM, move the file from Folder 2 to Folder 1.

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