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A
alexp30126950
Participant
December 9, 2020
Question

Backing up Lightroom (not Classic) albums on hard disk

  • December 9, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 225 views

Hi,

Hobbyist photographer using Lightroom on my iPad for editing/organizing photos. I'm wondering if there is an easy way to backup photos, both raw and edits, from Lightroom to an external hard disk for redundancy? As of now I've been backing up Raw photos straight from the SD card, not hard but can be cumbersome if I want to elimate all the garbage photos that I don't want (and have already eliminated from LR albums). For edits, the only way I can think to do so would be to fully export the photos and copy them to the external which also seems cumbersome and slow. Also curious if the community thinks this type of backup is necessary or would you simply trust LR and Adobe as a single cloud storage location? Thanks in advance!

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2 replies

selondon
Community Expert
selondonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 10, 2020

That's correct, I only back up without edits. I'm a really low level hobbyist though and rarely spend much time editing anyway. I wouldn't use me as a yardstick!

 

Exporting as Original + Settings is the same as RAW + xmp sidecar (which is a metadata file that includes your edits). And yes, if for instance you export a jpeg, then these edits would not be reversible. Another option is to export and archive as DNG format which retains the edits within the file.

 

The downloader tool is mainly meany for exiting the Cloud Ecosystem.

 

It's always worth keeping some kind of backup and if you value your edits, then I'd see no reason not to back these up also (apart from the hassle of course).

 

 

    selondon
    Community Expert
    selondonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 9, 2020

    I'm also only a hobbyist and all my photos in Lightroom's Cloud, I also copy to an external HD pre-import. I think most 'photographers' would. 

    I do trust Adobe's Cloud Storage though, I've been using it since 2013 with Adobe Revel and now Lightroom.

     

    You cannot currently export RAWs with a xmp sidecar from Lightroom Mobile.

     

    If you have Lightroom Desktop in your subscription also, you can export Original + Settings from there.

     

     

    A
    alexp30126950Author
    Participant
    December 10, 2020

    Thanks for the response. I'm still super new to all the backups and workflow stuff. Just so I understand your method fully, you personally back up your originals pre-import to an external, but don't do any sort of additional backup outside of the adobe cloud of the edited versions?

     

    As for additional ways to backup edits, etc I've only seen 2 ways really. The downloader app that can be used on a desktop that exports RAWs with the xmp sidecar (somewhat inconvenient as it always exports the entire library with ability to select what to backup or how to organize), or like mentioned above, exporting the original + settings from the LR desktop version.

     

    Honestly I have no idea what an xmp sidecar is/does, or how that varies from the Orignal + Settings export, or how any of that really varies from me just doing an export of my edited albums to an external. I'm guessing the last option exports edits "baked in" while the other options remain non-destructive somehow of the original file?

     

    Anyway, thanks again for any input. Still just trying to decide if all the shenanigans is worth while or just leave it all with Adobe and forget about it, but as it's up to individual preferences it's hard to answer that for someone else, I know.

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