Recover a file right after deletion in lightroom CC

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
February 11, 2018
1 reply
5526 views

Hello,

I just started photography and I am currently trying Lightroom CC as RAW Image developement tool.

I just tried to reorganize my folders and albums, and accidentally deleted one reworked photo from disk instead of from album. I tried mashing up Ctrl+Z but it is not worthing. Could it be there is no way to recover a deleted picture even in the same session? That would be a real bummer (and probably means Lightroom is not a tool for me, sonce it always happen to misclick something and I know it for every other software I use that all actions within a session are reversible (things become irreversible as soon as the software closes). I tried to look for it online but the Adobe cloud already deleted the picture. I can still reimport the RAW image since I still have it on my camera but I will have to redo the modification (which will last forever since I am just beginning... And also mean that I can not rely on the tool since a simple button press is irreversible).

My Lighgtroom session is still open, so please let me know if I can undo the delete action.

Thanks!

EDIT: Recovering the modifications done to the photo alone would actually help.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Just Shoot Me

With both Windows and Mac OS X all deleted files, or folders, go into the recycling bin, Trash on the Mac, and can be restored from there.

But any adjustment you made will be gone. LR delete those as soon as you remove the image from the catalog.

Just Shoot MeCorrect answer

Legend

With both Windows and Mac OS X all deleted files, or folders, go into the recycling bin, Trash on the Mac, and can be restored from there.

But any adjustment you made will be gone. LR delete those as soon as you remove the image from the catalog.

N

NaityAuthor

Participating Frequently

Ok, thanks for the answer.

It is weird the file was not in my bin though. But I do not understand the reason while the file adjustments are defnintively lost. Having an option to "never delete them from hard drive" especially that those are not heavy files would be appreciated. And I really think Adobe should rethink their "deleting policy" and make deletion reversible (aka add "recently removed" menu) weither by having files stored in a cache until the application closes or by storing the files + modification in the cloud 24h more after they are deleted to give the oportunity to retrieve them and undo as.

As it is, I don't think I'll be able to adopt the product, which is sad as I really like the interface and the possibility offered by it...

Thanks Just Shoot Me

R

richardplondon

Community Expert

What you did is clearly User Error.

It is, I do not say "the software deleted my picture". I just know how sloppy I am and that I tend to do those a lot. This is why I put a lot of weight on "reversability" because I know I screw up every now and then:

(last major fail was to format the wrong drive... All the pictures from my students time and high school were drive A, with a backup on drive B. Drive A started dying and did not work animore. I wanted to format it to see if it was a OS issue (drive A was OS drive) and I misclickedformat and formated drive B... 15 years of memory odwn the toilet).

So yeah, it is why I came here asking. You might be very meticulous, organized, and read all the popup your computer gives you to read. I know I am not and most likely I won't become it. A lot of cloud-based solution allowto fix the kind of errors I tend to do, hopefully they will implement this kind of features in the future

If you delete an image from LR (regardless whether you also choose to delete it from disk) then all record of it and all related edits are removed from the Catalog then. You'd be looking to your most recent Catalog backup, to see what is recoverable that way - but that backup may not include the image concerned, and certainly not its last edit.

My point 1: all is not necessarily lost even so.

it is fairly common to activate a feature in LR Catalog Settings which writes out your edits as you make them, to the external file. They are either written into the file that was originally imported, or else alongside it in a small separate file (an XMP sidecar), depending what type of image file it is. This feature does not write out quite everything that is recorded in the LR Catalog, such as Collections, and takes no account of virtual copies. But it does capture latest Develop edits as well as keywording and such.

If you do delete an image from disk as well as removing it from LR, then this information accompanies that into the Recycling / Trash. But it is equally recoverable from there if you've made a mistake (so, you'd restore e.g. both the Raw file and the XMP file that has a related filename).

And on then re-importing this image, so it's back in the LR Catalog, those edits right up to the last operation done, get read back in and reapplied to the picture.

Point 2: it is sometimes recommended that rather than deleting images directly, you simply mark them for deletion by pressing the X key - and your view can be set so that images marked in this way are temporarily concealed. Then at some suitable time you can review the images that have been marked for deletion, and make sure there are no unintended deletions among these. That is far more robust and less dangerous a way to go about things. Personally I prefer to filter images during import so very seldom delete images out of LR itself - hence errors in doing so are inherently rare.

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