I am unable to import files .after exporting them

[sockit]

I have been developing negatives into positives. I read that if I export these files and then reimport them, I can then use lightroom controls in the normal way.  I have just been testing this.I found that indeed it worked well and then hoped that I had saved these imported files. However Lightroom seems to have deleted them and does not allow me to import them a second time. I think this might be due to the folders that I used for this process and their location. I will try to outline the steps that I took. 

I was working with photos that had been taken in 2004 and were in this folder.

I had orginally imported the negatives into this folder into a subfolder Spring 2004 I had converted them to positives in the usual way,

I then exported them to a file called Intermediate also in the 2004 folder on my hard drive

I then changed the name of the spring folder in light room to Spring intermediate and afterwards removed it from the light room catalogue

I then created a new folder "Spring final" folder and imported the files from the Intermediate folder into it.

This worked perfectly I was able to edit the photos in the usual way with lightroom controls working normally and shut down lightroom

The next day the Spring Final folder was empty  The spring intermediate folder was on my hard drive

as was the intermediat folder and both contained the photos

However trying to import once again into the Spring Final folder from the Intermediate Folder would not work Thus I am stuck unable to complete my final output files. As I am trying to keep my files in the right place and have a lot of operations of this type I thought that having an intermediate folder in each year would be the best way, however I may have somehow confused lightroom which is preventing this operation. Is that the case? What is the best way to do this

Thanks

When I returned the next day the

[dj_paige]

You have the symptoms of a problem where you thought you were importing using the ADD options, but accidentally used COPY. So the photos are in your Lightroom Classic Catalog in a different folder, wherever the COPY option put them. Click on All Photographs, turn off all filters, and then use the Lightroom Classic Filter Bar to search for one or more of these photos by file name.

[Just Shoot Me]

You need to Stop whatever you are doing and review some of the tutorials on how to use LrC and how LrC works.

How Lightroom catalogs work

Lightroom Classic tutorials | Learn how to use Lightroom Classic

Doing that FIRST will save you a lot of headaches.

[KR Seals]

An easier way to do this is to have the conversion software create .tif files for LrC to use. Then you won't have to do anything else to be able to process the images. You will probably want to use LrC to delete the negative raw files (not the .tifs) eventually. I am using NLP quite successfully and have done several thousand digital copies of 35mm color negatives so far.

[Just Shoot Me]

Your First Sentence in your original Reply.

Quote:

I have been developing negatives into positives

End Quote:

If these are FILM Negative you are working with whatever system you are using to Scan them to make Digital files from them should be used to turn them from a Negative to a Positive image.

All Scanning software that I have ever used has that option. Especially the software that comes with film and flat bed scanners.