Importing a backup catalog in LR

[Thomerik]

When I got my main PC back from repair I forgot to plug in my hard drive with most of the RAWs before starting up LRC. This caused a bit of chaos for me. I now have a bunch of older files without any edits, and the catalog file has been updated to the current state. I do however have a backup from march.

The problem is that the backup does not contain edits that I did in Lightroom Cloud in the last month. Those are the most important ones anyways, as I don't go back to re edit old pictures that often anyways, and I'm in the process of editing all the newer ones. Worst case scenario is when I need to go back to an older one, I could allways edit it from scratch.

Anyways, importing the backup catalog from march will remove the most recent edits, right? Is there a way around that?

 

[dj_paige]

When I got my main PC back from repair I forgot to plug in my hard drive with most of the RAWs before starting up LRC. This caused a bit of chaos for me. I now have a bunch of older files without any edits, and the catalog file has been updated to the current state. I do however have a backup from march.

I'm not sure I grasp the details, and specifically I don't see from what you said that you need to use a backup. Why do you need to use a backup? Please explain in more detail.

The problem is that the backup does not contain edits that I did in Lightroom Cloud in the last month. Those are the most important ones anyways, as I don't go back to re edit old pictures that often anyways, and I'm in the process of editing all the newer ones. Worst case scenario is when I need to go back to an older one, I could allways edit it from scratch.

Anyways, importing the backup catalog from march will remove the most recent edits, right? Is there a way around that?

You don't Import a backup. You open it. (File->Open Catalog) Also the backup has to be unzipped first.

Your recent edits will not be in the backup catalog from March.

--
Paige Miller

--
Paige Miller

 

[CameraCarl]

I agree that your question needs more clarification. For example you say LRC. That is typically the abbreviation commonly used for Lightroom Classic, the hard drive based catalog system. You later say Lightroom Cloud. Which are you using for your editing and cataloging?

When you plugged in your hard drive with your images on it, Lightroom should have automatically found them assuming you did not have them in a different catalog file name from the one that existed before your computer went into the shop. Or did you start editing image files before you plugged in your hard drive? Or did you edit them in the cloud before plugging in your hard drive?

Perhaps if you gave us a step by step description of what you did when your computer came back from the shop, we could be of more help.

 

[Thomerik]

When I got my main PC back from repair I forgot to plug in my hard drive with most of the RAWs before starting up LRC. This caused a bit of chaos for me. I now have a bunch of older files without any edits, and the catalog file has been updated to the current state. I do however have a backup from march.

I'm not sure I grasp the details, and specifically I don't see from what you said that you need to use a backup. Why do you need to use a backup? Please explain in more detail.

The problem is that the backup does not contain edits that I did in Lightroom Cloud in the last month. Those are the most important ones anyways, as I don't go back to re edit old pictures that often anyways, and I'm in the process of editing all the newer ones. Worst case scenario is when I need to go back to an older one, I could allways edit it from scratch.

Anyways, importing the backup catalog from march will remove the most recent edits, right? Is there a way around that?

You don't Import a backup. You open it. (File->Open Catalog) Also the backup has to be unzipped first.

Your recent edits will not be in the backup catalog from March.

My PC was reset. I was loading Lightroom from scratch with the Lightroom folder untouched from before the reset, and located in the same place on the computer. The problem was that when I opened Lightroom to load everything I hadn't plugged in my hard drive which had about 80% of my RAWs in it. I think this caused me to have to import the images that Lightroom could not find from the hard drive later. It was about half of my images, if not more, and after import the edits for those images were not there anymore. It was like importing brand new files.

The backup file should have all the edits for these, but as you say if I open it, I will lose all the edits that I have done after the backup file was created, right? In that case I would rather lose half of the edits on my older files and just let it be. The newer files are more important. I was also wondering if there is any way of getting the edits from the backup file and still keep the recent edits made after that file was created.

 

[Thomerik]

I agree that your question needs more clarification. For example you say LRC. That is typically the abbreviation commonly used for Lightroom Classic, the hard drive based catalog system. You later say Lightroom Cloud. Which are you using for your editing and cataloging?

When you plugged in your hard drive with your images on it, Lightroom should have automatically found them assuming you did not have them in a different catalog file name from the one that existed before your computer went into the shop. Or did you start editing image files before you plugged in your hard drive? Or did you edit them in the cloud before plugging in your hard drive?

Perhaps if you gave us a step by step description of what you did when your computer came back from the shop, we could be of more help.

See my last post. I used Cloud temporarily while my PC was getting repaired (during the last 4 weeks), but my use of the Cloud version isn't really relevant. It's just that I made edits there on my recent files, and those are not included in the backup file from March (and I don't want to lose those edits).

 

[dj_paige]

The backup file should have all the edits for these, but as you say if I open it, I will lose all the edits that I have done after the backup file was created, right? In that case I would rather lose half of the edits on my older files and just let it be. The newer files are more important. I was also wondering if there is any way of getting the edits from the backup file and still keep the recent edits made after that file was created.

If you open the backup, now you have two catalogs, one with the new edits and one that is the backup. You have lost nothing.

To move edits of certain photos from backup to main catalog:

1. Make sure your main catalog is backed up (which you should be doing anyway).
2. Open the backup.
3. Select the desired images you want to transfer to the main catalog
4. (Optional) Drink a Dr Pepper to calm your nerves
5. File->Export as Catalog, a dialog box will appear where you give this new catalog a name.
6. Open the main catalog
7. File->Import from Another Catalog and select the catalog created in step 5

--
Paige Miller

 

[Thomerik]

The backup file should have all the edits for these, but as you say if I open it, I will lose all the edits that I have done after the backup file was created, right? In that case I would rather lose half of the edits on my older files and just let it be. The newer files are more important. I was also wondering if there is any way of getting the edits from the backup file and still keep the recent edits made after that file was created.

If you open the backup, now you have two catalogs, one with the new edits and one that is the backup. You have lost nothing.

To move edits of certain photos from backup to main catalog:

1. Make sure your main catalog is backed up (which you should be doing anyway).
2. Open the backup.
3. Select the desired images you want to transfer to the main catalog
4. (Optional) Drink a Dr Pepper to calm your nerves
5. File->Export as Catalog, a dialog box will appear where you give this new catalog a name.
6. Open the main catalog
7. File->Import from Another Catalog and select the catalog created in step 5

Thank you! This very much seems like what I was looking for, I will try this.