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T
Turkat
Participating Frequently
January 4, 2020
Answered

Export edited as RAW or DNG?

  • January 4, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 2872 views

New to Lightroom from Aperture. Aperture has a nice feature where you could relocate the RAW original files for selected photos.  Such, one could compartmentalize and back up locally only the RAW original files for photos deemed worth keeping and exclude photos rejected after importing to Lightroom.  Of course, the migrated RAWs would not include edits.

 

Any way to do this in Lightroom?  I noted export as TIFF but the file sizes makes this less practical for backup and archive.

 

Thanks,

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jao vdL

Which exact version of Lightroom are you using? There are two main versions. One is called just Lightroom and stores all originals in the cloud. The second is Lightroom Classic and is much more fully featured but stores all images locally. If you are in the cloud version, backup is not simple. You either export as original, which will put all the raw files with xmp sidecar files in the location you choose. The xmp sidecar files are actually included inside dng, tiff, or jpeg files if those were your originals and they contain all the editing instructions needed by Lightroom or camera raw in Photoshop to recreate your exact edits but when you open the raw file in any non-Adobe program you won't see the edits. This is how raw files work.

 

If you use Classic, simply set your local storage folder to backup using time machine or another dedicated backup solution. You can also export manually or using a publish service all highly rated images to a location on your harddisk (e.g. your dropbox folder to back them up to the cloud!) and generate backups of just your important images.

2 replies

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
January 4, 2020

Which exact version of Lightroom are you using? There are two main versions. One is called just Lightroom and stores all originals in the cloud. The second is Lightroom Classic and is much more fully featured but stores all images locally. If you are in the cloud version, backup is not simple. You either export as original, which will put all the raw files with xmp sidecar files in the location you choose. The xmp sidecar files are actually included inside dng, tiff, or jpeg files if those were your originals and they contain all the editing instructions needed by Lightroom or camera raw in Photoshop to recreate your exact edits but when you open the raw file in any non-Adobe program you won't see the edits. This is how raw files work.

 

If you use Classic, simply set your local storage folder to backup using time machine or another dedicated backup solution. You can also export manually or using a publish service all highly rated images to a location on your harddisk (e.g. your dropbox folder to back them up to the cloud!) and generate backups of just your important images.

ManiacJoe
ManiacJoe
Inspiring
January 5, 2020

Good catch on the LR Web vs LR Classic. I may have forgotten which forum I was browsing. 😞 

josephlavine
Community Expert
josephlavineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 5, 2020

Lightroom uses cloud-based storage, and Lightroom Classic is more full-featured and stores on your desktop. However, you have an option/preference in Lightroom to store your files both on the cloud and your desktop.  One of the great benefits of Lightroom is that the images are stored and backed up on Adobe's servers, but I do understand the need to backup some files locally.

ManiacJoe
ManiacJoe
Inspiring
January 4, 2020

Raw files are not image files, so you cannot export edited images in that format.

 

Your files are not "in" Lightroom, so there is no need to export them to create backups of the original files. Backups for the original files (raw or JPG) and the catalog are easily done using scripts or third-party backup software to copy the files to another drive or cloud service.

 

If you export your edits as new images (JPG, TIF, etc.) these files can easily be included in whatever backup process you are using. However, since the exported edits can be recreated at any time by doing a new export, there is no need to keep the exported images after you are done printing or uploading (or whatever you needed the exports for).

 

Edit: Just realized I am in the LR Web forum, not the LR Classic forum, so things may work a little differently with LR Web.

 

 

All that said, for my semi-pro "event" photography, I have two subfolders under the root "event" folder, one for originals and one for exports. All these files get archived to DVD on a yearly basis and removed from the primary hard drive. For my personal photography, my backups are of just the catalog and original files as I can export the edits as temporarily needed.

T
TurkatAuthor
Participating Frequently
January 4, 2020

(retyped from original post that did not make it to forum)

I appreciate you taking time to reply.  But, still hoping you can clarify a bit.

 

When you say.... "our files are not "in" Lightroom, so there is no need to export them to create backups of the original files. "

On our mac, when photos are imported into Lightroom, they are copied into a Folder called "Lightroom CC".  Thus, the photos exist in two places on the drive(s).  The Events/subfolder and the Lightroom CC folder.

 

Our goal would be to remove the rejected photos from Lightroom so that would be less drive space and less Disc space required for archiving (some events might exceed Disc space unless rejected RAW files culled).  Besides, why archive photos you do not want.

 

When the rejected photos are deleted in Lightroom they still exist in the Lightroom CC folder.  Though, hopefully, they will be automaticall removed after the 60 day waiting period in Lightrooms Delete folder.

 

If they are removed after 60 days, then one solution would be to Delete the rejectes in Lightroom, then wait 60 days, hopefully rejects are deleted from drive, find the remaining  "accepted" photos in Lightrom CC folder under the date of the event.  Copy from there for archive on Drive and Disc. (Though, this is not as convenient as Aperture's "Move Original Files" feature)

 

Another option would be if there is a way to have Lightroom NOT copy the files from the events folder but cull and delete directly from the events/subfolder.  Have you seen a way to do this in settings?

Thanks,

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