Lost hard drive

Question

I have photos on Lightroom classic but I don’t have the original external hard drive. Do you have a suggestion on how I can share the photos outside of the smart previews?

Rob_Cullen · Accepted Answer

Meaning is there a way that I can view the photos outside of Lightroom. For example putting them on a USB flash drive.

There is a way. You would need to Export photos as JPG file-type , and set the destination for the export as the USB flash drive. (accepting the warning message as shown in earlier post)

The caveat is that you only have Smart Previews so the maximum 'native' size of the exported file would be with a long edge dimension of 2560 pixels (unless you Resize to Upscale in the Export dialog).

Rob_Cullen · Answer

So where are your original photos? Do you only have them on the one external drive?

Without the originals connected to the catalog you cannot export full-size derivative images from the catalog.

If you original files are totally lost without backups, then I am sorry for you. Lesson learnt.

Without you originals you may have two 'last resorts'-

1) If the image you want to export has a Smart Preview then you can continue with an export but the resulting file will use the available size of the Smart Preview ie. 2560px long edge. (Export can resize- resample- up or down.)

2) If there are no Smart Previews then you have a very limited option to extract JPGs from the standard previews with a Plugin. Extract Cached Image Previews (New for v13.3)

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