Save all LR photos w/ edits and folder structure to external drive

[kerryn60621049]

I'm using LR Classic 9.1 and Catalina 10.15.

For a long time, have imported images to an external drive (Drive 1), but have backed up LR catalog to my laptop hard drive.  Occasionally I will copy the LR backup and Drive 1 images to a second backup drive (Drive 2).  

My catalog covers about 30,000 images at the moment, most of them family photos.  This system works fine for me, but someday I'll be gone, and when that happens, I want to be sure that other family members  (who may not have LR or an interest in getting and learning it) to be able to access the edited photos conveniently.

Is there a way to periodically export ALL my LR photos (including edits) to an external drive AND preserve the folder organization, so that that others can have a reasonable chance to find and access the edited photos they may be looking for?  

IBasically, I'm looking to periodically backup or copy all my edited JPEGs in an organized fashion so that others can access them even if they don't have LR.

Perhaps Export as a Catalog will do this, but I'm not sure.  Everything I've ready about that function seems to describe exporting a few selected images as a catalog.  And I haven't seen anything about preserving folder organization if you're exporting images from different folders.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Rob_Cullen]

First, let me say that Jeffrey Friedl's Publisher Plugin is the ideal answer for what you need!

But then to adderss your reply to my suggestion-

"So on the arhival drive, I would have all my original LR folders (containing unedited images), each of which will have subfolder with the edited JPEG images, right?"

Yes! But! The exported JPGs are within the Folder structure that Lr-Classic is referencing (not an "archival"? drive). You would still need your backup procedures to backup the entire referenced folder structure to a Backup disk location to include the 'Edited JPGs'.

"Could I later reorganize the folders on the archival drive so that I just keep (or separate) the folders with the edited JPEGs, so it's obvious to a future user that's where to look for the edited images?"

Do NOT re-organize. "Separate" only with much work (as stated by others). I presumed that looking in the sub-folders named "Edited" might be the "future user" method.

So big disadvantages with my suggestion. 😞

[kerryn60621049]

Thanks to all.  It sounds like Publish is the way to go. Will give it a try.

[chanzzie]

Kerry, I'm so glad you asked this question. Your question (and reason) was exactly what I was doing a search for. This thread has been very helpful to me as well. Thank you everyone who contributed to this discussion. 

[kerryn60621049]

I've now successfully published all my LR folders and edited pics to an external drives using Jeffrey Friedl's Folder Publisher plugin.  (Thanks to all who helped me get to this point!)

I'm now ready to publish all my LR collections using his Collection Publisher plugin.  I've read Friedl's instructions but am unclear on a few things.  I'm hoping someone with experience using the Collection Publisher plugin can clarify what I need to do.

Currently, I have 4 collection sets, each with 5-10 collections in them,  I also have an additional 4-5 collections that are not part of any sets.  Among my collections is the collection (containing all my ~50,000 edited LR photos) that I set up and used to publish all my LR folders and edited photos to an external dirve using the Folder Publisher plugin, as mentioned above.  I assume it's bettter not to publish this large collection because it's duplicative of what I did with Folder Publisher and will slow the collection publishing process down greatly.  (I also have one other large smart collection - of photos without a keyword - that I plan to delete before publishing)

Basically, what I want to do is publish all my collections (except the one used for folder publishing, as mentioned above) to an external drive, so that others can readily find and view the photos in each collection.

After reading Friedl's instructions page re the collection publisher plugin, I have the follwing questions:

Is Create Mirrored Collection that best alternative for what I want to do?  In general, it seems like it probably is, because it will mirror my collection structure.  If so, what do I specify as the root collection?  Will it automatically mirror all my collection sets and collections?  If so,  how could I exclude the big LR folder publisher collection?  (Maybe I could reorganize all my collections into one collection set that exludes this one collection, and then publish just that collection set?).

Friedl warns that (as of Aug 2015) the mirror function was pushing the limits of LR functionality.  Have others used collection mirroring and had a good experience with it, or not?  

As I read another part of his caveats, if you mirror a collection, you need to make sure and only make changes to the source collection (then sync or publish to the mirrored collection).  You shouldn't attempt to make changes directly to the mirrored collection.  Any changes you make first to the mirroed changes will be lost when you sync/publish.  Is my understanding correct?

If Create Mirrored Collection isn't the best way to go, how can I accomplish my goal using one of the other collection publshing alternatives ("Its own sub-folder" or "Part of its parent")?  Wasn't sure how I could use one of these and still preserve my collection structure and they sounded a bit more cumersome and time-consuming.  But perhaps it's a workable alternative.

I appreciate any guidance experienced users can give me!

Thank you!

[dj_paige]

Seems to me these are questions you should ask the author of the plug-in.

[kerryn60621049]

Appreciate the suggestion.  Have just emailed him.