How to restore photos and edits from a backup drive?

[Mitchell Zimmerman]

(1)  Mostly hypothetical (so far):  My Lightroom Classic application is on my iMac; my folders with nearly 800GB of photographs is on a connected external G-Drive w Thunderbolt.  I regularly back up the G-Drive and everything on the iMac's hard drive (including the LR catalog) onto another large external drive which is a backup.

If the G-Drive crashed and all on it was lost, there is presumably some way to apply the catalog with the Lightroom edits of a zillion photos to the backup copy of the photos.  But how do I do that? I have seen lots of articles on restoring the catalog, but nothing on what to do if the original photos are lost and the catalog and backup of photos are available. Help!

(2) That part is hypo; this is not:  I inadvertantly deleted from my G-Drive one folder of 900 recently taken photos, partly processed with Lightroom. (I.e., many of them were edited.) But I have another copy of the same folder on my iMac.  Can I apply part of the catalog to the backup copy of the folder? Thanks very much for your advice.

[Todd Shaner]

You need to copy over the folder you deleted on your G: drive from the backup drive. Place it in the exact same location in the folder tree as the original deleted folder. LrC will see it as if it never happened!

[Mitchell Zimmerman]

Thank you for responding and advising.  But that didn't work. The photos still don't have the edits. And when I tried restoring from an earlier catalog, that didn't work either.  😞

[dj_paige]

If the G-Drive crashed and all on it was lost, there is presumably some way to apply the catalog with the Lightroom edits of a zillion photos to the backup copy of the photos. But how do I do that? I have seen lots of articles on restoring the catalog, but nothing on what to do if the original photos are lost and the catalog and backup of photos are available.

I see lots of articles on how to re-connect your photos to the catalog. Here's one: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[Mitchell Zimmerman]

Thanks for your response.  I've tried restoring from an earlier catalog that was created after I did some editing of this folder But no soap.  None of the edits are restored. 

[dj_paige]

Thanks for your response.  I've tried restoring from an earlier catalog that was created after I did some editing of this folder But no soap.  None of the edits are restored. 

This is too vague to extract any meaning. We would need to know exactly what you did, and what you mean by "none of the edits are restored"; or better yet, just focus on following the instructions in the link I gave, which will work.

By the way, just to be clear, the edits are in the catalog file. By properly linking the catalog file with the original raw, then everything in Lightroom Classic works, even though by default, the edits are not stored with the photo file and the image portion of the photo file remains unchanged. That's still a success. Even if you override the defaults, the image portion of original photo remains unedited, that's still a success and that's how Lightroom Classic works. I don't know if that's what you mean by "none of the edits are restored", that you can't see the edits when you look at the photo file, but hopefully now we all understand what will happen by following the procedure.

[richardplondon]

When you mention "restoring from an earlier catalog" what specific sequence of actions do you mean by that?

I ask because often people presume it's necessary to carry out some form of re-importing to recover from such a case. You may or may not be aware that doing so is not only unnecessary - it is actively counter-productive.

Your question "Can I apply part of the catalog to the backup copy of the folder? " is difficult for me to square with how the Lightroom Classic Catalog actually works, so more clarification of the current situation and of what you are trying to achieve, would be helpful IMO.

[Todd Shaner]

"I inadvertantly deleted from my G-Drive one folder of 900 recently taken photos, partly processed with Lightroom."

Since restoring that folder at its original location doesn't show edits you most likely deleted it from inside LR. Doing so all of those edits are removed from the LR catalog file and can only be restored if you have a backup of the catalog file made AFTER that folder was imported and the files edited. Lacking that you'll need to start over with your editing of the files in that folder. Best suggestion is to always create a LR catalog file backup after any major editing session that would make you cry if lost. Ditto for backup of the image files!