Importing developed images and settings bacck into Lightroom

[StickySteve]

Hi All

Ive numerous folders of images that I've finished with in LR.

I'd like to back them up and free up some drive space.....but if the need arises be able to bring them back into LR complete with all adjustments made before removing.

Is that possible at all? I've just one catalog with all photos at the mo.  I know you can export a folder out as a catalogue, but thats the wrong route I believe.

Steve

[dj_paige]

Do not remove the images from Lightroom. That is the easiest and most mistake free method of maintaining the edits and user-provided metadata with your images. What you are proposing is not a good solution.

To save drive space, you can move the photos to a different disk without removing them from Lightroom. The instructions are in this document (scroll down to "Part 2 — Updating Folder Location") http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[StickySteve]

Yeah I had a feeling that would be the case. Annoying how this cant be done. 

Like a collect for output. Similar to indesign when creating and using documents

[Ian Lyons]

If you follow the instructions in the linked tutorial, only the previews will be left on your connected drive.

BTW, best you also read Part 3 of the tutorial as it describes how to go about offline storage, which is effectely what you asked advice about.

[GoldingD]

see:

https://petapixel.com/2017/06/14/psa-deleting-old-lightroom-data-can-clear-ton-space/ 

and, that one is a bit dated, you might also have smart previews that can be deleated

[StickySteve]

Might do that anyway. But more trying to keep edits on the way out of LR

[gary_sc]

Let me add one more on the same theme, this is what I do:

–I have ALL of my images on an external 4 TB drive including other documents. Call this Drive 1

–I have a 2nd 4 TB drive that I use to back up everything on Drive 1. I do a backup at least once a week or more often if I've just done a big job in LR. This drive is because all drives may fail and I do not wish to trust everything I have on just one drive.

–I also subscribe to a Cloud service (BackBlaze to be specific) on the chance of loss of house (which would cause both Drve 1&2 to be lost.

-Lastly, I also have a 3rd drive that is used for Apple's Time Machine.

Fortunately drives are not expensive (my first 30 MB drive was over $900. Yes that was 30 MB.)

Follow the instructions given to move this drive. 

You don't say if you are on a Mac or a PC, if you are on a Mac I can give you suggestions for backup software for this task.

[StickySteve]

I use both mac and PC and use a back up called livedrive on both and the great time machine on the PC. Have heard of back blaze and might check them out too.

So theres no real way to extract photos from lightroom complete with edits, with the potentail to bring them back in. Like restore a photo/album/folder for example?

[dj_paige]

Sure there is a way, if all you care about is one set of edits (but the sequence of the edits in history will be gone). And its easier just to not remove the photos from Lightroom in the first place, and still reduce the drive space used by moving the photos to an external drive.