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Question

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

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
December 23, 2019
7 replies
4951 views

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.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Rob_Cullen

Community Expert

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. 😞

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .

K

kerryn60621049Author

Participating Frequently

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

C

chanzzie

Participant

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.

dj_paige

Legend

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

Yes you could, it would be manual and slow and tedious and you'd have to re-organize the folders one by one (and don't make a mistake and skip a folder or put it in the wrong place...). And if you took more photos and wanted to include them in this manually modified folder structure, its more slow tedious work (and don't make a mistake).

I guess I don't understand your reluctance to use a Publish service here, it seems to do exactly what you want with no drawbacks that I can see. It's all automated, no manual or tedious or mistake-prone work for you to do, easily updated via the plug-in, you click the mouse on Publish and then you can walk away and let the computer do the work.

K

kerryn60621049Author

Participating Frequently

That seems like a great alternative!

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

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

Thanks so much!

Rob_Cullen

Community Expert

Here is another idea-

Requires disk space with the original files!

1. Select photos- (could be ALL Photographs)

2. Export as JPG to sub-Folders of the Originals. (Thus exported JPGs with edits applied remain in the same folder structure)

Export to: 'Same folder as original photo'

Put in Sub-Folder -named as required.

Rename, or not,

You could Resize, (to limit pixel dimensions) or not!

Folder structure is unchanged with originals and edited JPGs in sub-folders of their originals.

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .

Just Shoot Me

Legend

I have to partially disagree with both of the other replies.

If you want your Edited in LR images to be available to others in the future then IMHO you have only one option and that option includes using one of 2 file formats, JPG or TIF.

You Export your edited images to either format and store them on one of your external drives and then copy them to the other and even a third external drive.

If you want them to have access to ALL of your images then the ones you haven't bothered to edit export them as JPGs (that is if they aren't JPGs already)

The 2 other options listed above is based on someone in your family (Friends) having LR Classic to View either your published copies or the Exported catalog.

Your original images, whether they are JPG or RAW files contain No edits. All the edits you have done are stored in the LR catalog file. Only at the time of Export, as either a JPG or TIF files, are the edits burnt into, included in, that exported image file.

Even if you have the option check to "Auto Write Changes to XMP" the only programs that can read those edits, from the Sidecar XMP file, is one of the Adobe RAW file editors.

I am in the proccess of doing basically the same thing as I don't think in the near future I will have access to LR Classic, PS and Adobe Camera RAW anymore.

K

kerryn60621049Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks.

A couple of clarifications: 1. All my images are JPEGs. 2. All my images are ediated. (I delete unedited images.)

I understand that when you Export and image it saves the edits with the image somehow. I suppose Publish essentially does the same thing.

I'm just trying to figure out the best way to create a complete and organized copy of all my LR edited images that my family can readily access and search (with or without LR) if I'm not around to do it for them.

Thanks!

dj_paige

Legend

"A couple of clarifications: 1. All my images are JPEGs. 2. All my images are ediated. (I delete unedited images.)

"I understand that when you Export and image it saves the edits with the image somehow. I suppose Publish essentially does the same thing.

"I'm just trying to figure out the best way to create a complete and organized copy of all my LR edited images that my family can readily access and search (with or without LR) if I'm not around to do it for them."

It's hard to read this and come to a conclusion that either you have received the information you need, or that you still need more information. Do you still need more information?

K

kerryn60621049Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for the helpful reply.

I ran across the publish option (and the related plug-ins) earlier and briefly looked again at it now. Perhaps that will work, but I'm not sure.

The goal is to have an organized permanent archive of all my edited LR photos on a spearate drive that my wife or kids can access later with whatever program (Phjotos, etc.) they have handy. If I publish my LR photos/folders to a separate drive, will they be able to access/download/copy when they plug the drive into a different computer? Are the images/folders permanently published and accessible there? (Something about "publish' sounds a bit temporary and possibly restricted to me, but I don't really know.)

The Export as Catalog approach sounded like a a more customary way of "saving" images permanently, but as I said, it seemed that mnight only work to export selected images (not my entire LR catalog) and the folder structure wouldn't be preserved, so I'd have a mass of saved images without folders to organize them. However, if there's a way to use Eport as Catalog to achieve my goal, I'd love to hear it.

Any other ideas are welcome too! Thank you!

R

richardplondon

Community Expert

The only difference between "Export" and "Publish", is that "Publish" can be intelligently repeated at a future date.

If you Export copies of all your photos one day, and come back six weeks later, it would then be difficult to work out which photos were new in the meanwhile, and which had been altered in the meanwhile, and which were unaltered in the meanwhile. The only way to be sure might be to export them ALL once again, over the top. And the same the next time.

If you Publish, then LR keeps track of which photos in your Catalog have been changed subsequently. So when you next click the button, only the needed photos get copies exported.

But the exported results are the same either way: completely conventional JPGs, showing your edits and keywords. I export to a middle res with slight output sharpening, not to full original size, since that better suits my own and my wife's typical 'convenience' usage of these exports.

The Folder Publisher plugin can distribute these into corresponding subfolders automatically, which standard Publish does not do. It is probably better for you right now, also easier for others later, also better in principle IMO to not mix exports in among your LR originals' folders. These are two different kinds of file intended for different audiences, and with different organisational needs. Best handled independently.

Personally I export only selected images, in a fully separate location, into folders that are more descriptively named than with my LR setup. It's not helpful to me to do this with a Publish method, since this is usually a known one-off batch that will not undergo much later updating.

dj_paige

Legend

As I mentioned, I'm now using plugin to Publish photos to external drive at 75 Quality. It's running faster (about 600 photos/hour) but I wondered if it's a bit slower than it could be. In partcular, as you suggested I did not check the Resize box but the plugin populate the PPI field with 1,080, and I left it alone, thinking it wouldn't affect anything. Should I change the value in the PPI field? T'hanks!

The advice I gave was to ignore this field. However if "resize to fit" is UNchecked, then this field is not going to be used anyway.

It's running faster (about 600 photos/hour) but I wondered if it's a bit slower than it could be.

It runs at the speed it runs at. This depends on how big your photos are and how fast your hardware is. I'm not sure why you think its slow.

R

richardplondon

Community Expert

For this purpose - maybe consider using a Publish method. This in effect provides a single "update" button which, on demand, automatically evaluates which qualifying images have been added or changed since the last time you used it (if ever) - and exports (or, re-exports) whatever images are required to bring things up to date within a destination folder on disk (you can also Publish into an online location, such as a Flickr account).

Publish can refer to a special Publish Collection, or else it can follow a Smart Publish Collection method drawing from your entire library (whereby you can set up rules for which images should qualify, e.g. only those which are both rated 3 stars or above, and lack the keyword "private").

Jeffrey Friedl offers two Publish plugins with added function, which may be of interest to you:

One organises the published image versions into subfolders within the designated location, according to your folders structure seen in Lightroom http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-publisher

Another organises them according to your LR Collections http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/collection-publisher .

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