Lightroom - PLEASE HELP

[Basil Dardagan]

Hi - Please could somebody help me. I am a novice Lightroom user and have been using the program for about 6 months. I havent ever stored my images in specific folders or catalogues or anything. I simply imported what i wanted to work with and went ahead. Yesterday - to my horror when trying to use Lightroom, 75% of the images i have (in Lightroom) say 'file is offline or missing' and have a question mark attached when i try and work with them. I have googled the problem and have learnt that it has something to do with the computer changing a drive classification letter and that you just need to change it back to the correct letter in order for Lightroom to 'see' the images. However I have no idea what the drive letter was in the first place and dont even know if all the hundreds of images i have in lightroom were or are on the same drive. In a nutshell - most of my lightroom images say offline or missing and cannot be accessed ! I know how to go through the control panel and get to the point where i can change the drive letter however i have no idea what to change it to. Please help me !!!!!!! Thank you !!!

[Arne]

Hi Basil,

Dont worry about changing drive letters. Go to one of the photo's click on the missing photo link and it will ask you if you want to locate your photo, say yes, navigate to where the photo is on your PC and highlight the origional file. LR should then ask you if you want to update the rest of the missing files.

If you have your images scattered all over your PC, on separate drive etc, you will need to do this several times.

A good tip for managing your images with LR is to have one main folder into which all your images go. Using your My Docs folder is also a pain. How you sort your images under this one folder is really up to you. I use year and then let LR import to day/month.

Having all ur images under one folder also facilitates easy backups. Hope this helps. I also make sure that my LR catalogues, preview folders, backups etc also reside under this one folder in a separate sub-folder.

Cheers
arne

[JPvanRooyen]

My advice would be to buy yourself the Lightroom 4 book by Scott Kelby. It'll be worth every cent.

[Piet Venter]

Basil, open Lightroom and make sure all the drives where your images are stored, are connected. In the Library module, open the "Folders" panel. The missing folders will be indicated (probably greyed out and with a question mark - I don't have my computer with L/R with me at the moment). Right-click on any folder - this opens a dialogue box. Click (normal) on "Locate missing folder". This opens a browser window. Browse to the specific (be careful!) folder that you are trying to locate, click on it and select "Choose". As long as the folder is in tact, you should have your images back. Repeat for all missing folders. If, however, your folder structure was arranged differently to mine and this advice does not work, you may have to do this procedure for each individaul image (i.e. "Locate missing image" instead of "Locate missing folder") a very time consuming exercise.
I hope this helps.

[Irene McCullagh]

The best advice is to follow what Arne said. LR is a DATABASE, it is so much more than a mere editing tool. It is important to keep this in mind: your importing of images and resultant folder structure are of huge importance to the smooth running of LR and to get the most use from its potential.

This is a quote taken from Wikipedia's Lightroom entry:

"designed to assist Adobe Photoshop users in managing large quantities of digital images and doing post production work. It is not a file browser like Adobe Bridge, but rather an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos, the same way photographers used to do in the non-digital world."

[Chris F]

a small tip -

a while back I got a new PC. As the smallest hard drives are so much larger than needed for an operating drive, the primary drive was partitioned into a C and D drive. I decided to start using this partitioned D drive as the primary source for LR, and to keep the extra drive as a backup drive .... The D drive was NOT as big as I thought and quickly got filled up. I then switched back to the second physical drive, and moved about a few directories - NOT realising just how this would impact on LR.

The posts above DO explain how to get the pics "back" into LR. But best is to understand that LR REMEMBERS the actual file location. PLAN your system/process and avoid these issues.

[SimonDP]

Hi Basil, for that reason of LR catalogues alone, do I not use LR as an archiving software. I prefer to keep control on where my pics are kept, and backed-up, and the physical size of LR catalogues with HD space means its not for me. Feel free to contact me for my preferred workflow and storage methodology, there's not enoguh space/time to type all of it here.

[Chris F]

Simon now you have put your foot into it ....

Every second member on ODP is now wondering about the alternate workflow method

[SimonDP]

Don't I always. Maybe its time for another PP session at my home - any takers? We'll casually discuss LR and PS workflow.

[Irene McCullagh]

Don't I always. Maybe its time for another PP session at my home - any takers? We'll casually discuss LR and PS workflow.

Your home is too far from my home ! But seriously now : you can exercise full control over the location to which LR imports your photos.
Even after importation, if by accident it's gone to the wrong place, you can easily change it and so keep your folders exactly the way you want them.

It took me a while to warm to LightRoom, but now I'm a full convert and can certainly state that it has speeded up my workflow significantly.

[Piet Venter]

It took me a while to warm to LightRoom, but now I'm a full convert and can certainly state that it has speeded up my workflow significantly.

Ditto. I accept that LR is not necessarily the tool of choice for everybody, but for me it has opened up a new world of possibilities.

[Leo Theron]

Still not sure how to go about it in LR 4.x?

Here is a good starting point by Martin Evening:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/543...m-photo-import


The better your catalog, the more the value you can squeeze out of LR - LT, 2012

[Peter Connan]

Don't I always. Maybe its time for another PP session at my home - any takers? We'll casually discuss LR and PS workflow.

I would certainly be interested!

[Henk Coetzee]

Don't I always. Maybe its time for another PP session at my home - any takers? We'll casually discuss LR and PS workflow.

Me three.

I'd like to see how other people are approaching LR, both for archiving and processing.