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Saved catalog for old pictures

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
May 27, 2025
2 replies
346 views

My harddrive have crashed. I have saved catalogs for my works on my computer. Will all the changes of pictures i have done under the last year appears in pictures on the backupharddrive that i haven't been used for one years. Sorry if question is a bit strange. Thanks

Windows

Correct answer dj_paige

Will all the changes of pictures i have done under the last year appears in pictures on the backupharddrive that i haven't been used for one years.

This is somewhat difficult to understand. It sounds like you are asking if the backup catalogs that are over a year old contain your work of the last year. The answer is NO. Or maybe I am misunderstanding the question.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

... Will all the changes of pictures i have done under the last year appears in pictures on the backupharddrive that i haven't been used for one years.

...

By @Tommy Engman

As @dj_paige wrote NO. All editing were saved in Lightroom's catalog files. If you have backups from your catalogs? If yes restore the catalog from the latest backup.

There is an exception: If you have exported the images from Lightroom to your hard disk. In this case the files are in a processed state.

If we are wrong please describe your problem more detailed.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

T

Tommy EngmanAuthor

Participating Frequently

If I understand it right I could get all resent work on old pictures back if I restore the old pictures through the latest catalog. But when I did the backup I used a backup program, and did not exported them from lightroom. Hope they can restore my harddrive. Thanks for respons

AxelMatt

Community Expert

If I understand it right I could get all resent work on old pictures back if I restore the old pictures through the latest catalog. ...

By @Tommy Engman

That's not entirely true. You ONLY need to restore the Lightroom catalog. This will give you the corresponding image edits. You don't restore picture through the catalog.

... But when I did the backup I used a backup program, and did not exported them from lightroom.

...

By @Tommy Engman

If you didn't use the export function, the photos will not contain any edits. These are the original files. You need the catalog.

Do you have backuped your catalog (and images) at regular intervals? It's recommended and very important to do this on another internal hard disk or an external drive. It makes no sense to store the backup on the same drive as the original files are stored.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

dj_paigeCorrect answer

Legend

Will all the changes of pictures i have done under the last year appears in pictures on the backupharddrive that i haven't been used for one years.

This is somewhat difficult to understand. It sounds like you are asking if the backup catalogs that are over a year old contain your work of the last year. The answer is NO. Or maybe I am misunderstanding the question.

T

Tommy EngmanAuthor

Participating Frequently

thanks, I think I get it

Regards

Tommy

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