Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: sanfairyanne on October 24, 2020, 02:46:59 pm
-
Please forgive me, I'm sure this question has been answered before but I was struggling to make sense when using the Search function.
I know that it's possible to ask LR to back up images to multiple drives upon import. I wondered if it's also possible to save the edits to duplicate catalogues?
If so what is the process; assuming you were starting from scratch would you for example upload images to your main drive, then build a catalogue around those images, then simply duplicate both images and catalogue onto a duplicate drive? I would assume this would be a sensible approach.
Is this correct and if so do you just tell LR to do this in preferences?
Many thanks in advance.
-
When you backup upon import, that's basically so (If converting to DNG), the proprietary raws are also backed up to that secondary drive. Nothing else; anything 'backed up' is just those raws; no edits, sidecar's etc.
Easier, far more effective: backup everything you can't afford to ever lose using a good backup utility. The catalog, the raws, the presets, the camera profiles; everything. Knowing what OS you are using, one can recommend a backup utility, many can do this whenever any file changes automatically and do so automatically when you're fast asleep. On Mac, I use Chronosync to do this and backup to a cloud too (Backblaze).
-
Ah ok I think I understand, so essentially I could ask LR to back up my RAW files to a dozen drives but it will only ever save the catalogue to one drive. So if I want to back up my catalogue, presets etc I should do this with a backup utility. I'm on Windows 10, so if you can recommend a good backup utility I would appreciate it.
Thanks for the help, I'm socially isolating from Covid, so it's good to be able to use my time to do this.
-
The LR backup ONLY backs up your catalog. A dedicated backup utility will back up anything you ask it to, to any drive you ask it to.
Can't help on Windows but I'm sure other's can.
-
A related question. I run LR6 licensed on Windows 10 64 bit. The computer has a single hard drive is split into two sections: a C drive and D drive. The LR program, catalogs, etc are on the C. But I keep all my photos on the D drive. Both the C and D drives are automatically backed up continuously to a WD Passport 4TB drive connected to the computer's USB jack. Is that OK?
What I'm concerned about is if my computer fails, and all I have left is the WD external drive, will I just be able to copy everything from it into the new computer and run windows with all the photos as before? Or will there be some problem with addresses or other things that I should change my methods now to prevent problems later?
-
Hi Alan, I'm not the best to answer your question but from what 'Digital Dog' suggests in his answers to my post you will have all your photos backed up on your 4tb drive BUT not your catalogue, that will be on your D drive. Personally for me securing my photos is a bigger priority than keeping my catalogue, having said this it would be good to back up the photos AND catalogue to a dedicated backup utility (as Digital Dog says).
-
A related question. I run LR6 licensed on Windows 10 64 bit. The computer has a single hard drive is split into two sections: a C drive and D drive. The LR program, catalogs, etc are on the C. But I keep all my photos on the D drive. Both the C and D drives are automatically backed up continuously to a WD Passport 4TB drive connected to the computer's USB jack. Is that OK?
What I'm concerned about is if my computer fails, and all I have left is the WD external drive, will I just be able to copy everything from it into the new computer and run windows with all the photos as before? Or will there be some problem with addresses or other things that I should change my methods now to prevent problems later?
You will be fine. Periodically my photos exceeded the size of the drive I was using so I'd buy a new larger drive and back up all the images to the new drive then switch drives and the catalog was happy, as long as the new drive has the same letter (in your case D). In Windows you can assign drive letters as you wish, so you can change D to be a new seperate drive rather than a partition.
Mike
-
Hi Alan, I'm not the best to answer your question but from what 'Digital Dog' suggests in his answers to my post you will have all your photos backed up on your 4tb drive BUT not your catalogue, that will be on your D drive. Personally for me securing my photos is a bigger priority than keeping my catalogue, having said this it would be good to back up the photos AND catalogue to a dedicated backup utility (as Digital Dog says).
I back up all of my D drive. Wouldn't the LR catague be on the C drive? HOw would I search for it or determine where it is?
-
You will be fine. Periodically my photos exceeded the size of the drive I was using so I'd buy a new larger drive and back up all the images to the new drive then switch drives and the catalog was happy, as long as the new drive has the same letter (in your case D). In Windows you can assign drive letters as you wish, so you can change D to be a new seperate drive rather than a partition.
Mike
These are the files that are backed up in the WD 4TB Passport. A check mark means the whole folder or drive is copied. The black box within a box mean only some folders and files are. As you can see, the entire D drive is backed up where I keep my pictures. Is the LR catalog being backed up? Where would I find it to check?
-
The first photo in the last post is ALan folder opened. THis photo shows all folder backed up.
-
Ah ok I think I understand, so essentially I could ask LR to back up my RAW files to a dozen drives but it will only ever save the catalogue to one drive. So if I want to back up my catalogue, presets etc I should do this with a backup utility. I'm on Windows 10, so if you can recommend a good backup utility I would appreciate it.
There are a lot of backup solutions and I think Windows 10 has one built in that you can try. I use NovaBackup: https://www.novabackup.com/ which works quite well. It also allows you to configure a backup to Amazon Web Service which is very low cost Cloud storage. I pay about $3/month for this and have all my images and current catalogue there. Upload time can be slow the first time around if you have a lot of images.
If you are looking for a good free solution that works locally, Free File Sync is quite good: https://freefilesync.org/ I use this to back up my Firefox and email folders weekly. It's easy to use and there are good tutorials on the website.
Alan
-
A related question. I run LR6 licensed on Windows 10 64 bit. The computer has a single hard drive is split into two sections: a C drive and D drive. The LR program, catalogs, etc are on the C. But I keep all my photos on the D drive. Both the C and D drives are automatically backed up continuously to a WD Passport 4TB drive connected to the computer's USB jack. Is that OK?
What I'm concerned about is if my computer fails, and all I have left is the WD external drive, will I just be able to copy everything from it into the new computer and run windows with all the photos as before? Or will there be some problem with addresses or other things that I should change my methods now to prevent problems later?
Make sure you know where your LR Catalog is located to make sure that you are backing it up. Other than the program itself, I have all my LR stuff under one main folder on a separate data drive. I just make sure that folder and all the contents are backed up. I've migrated from Windows 7 to 8.1 and now to 10 using this approach and never had any issues regarding LR recognizing the catalog, presets, and images. Personally, I think it is better to keep the Catalog associated with images on the data drive.
-
Make sure you know where your LR Catalog is located to make sure that you are backing it up. Other than the program itself, I have all my LR stuff under one main folder on a separate data drive. I just make sure that folder and all the contents are backed up. I've migrated from Windows 7 to 8.1 and now to 10 using this approach and never had any issues regarding LR recognizing the catalog, presets, and images. Personally, I think it is better to keep the Catalog associated with images on the data drive.
Thanks for the info. How do I find where the catalog is located?
-
Thanks for the info. How do I find where the catalog is located?
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html
-
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html
Thanks. OK I found it. It's on the C drive, see picture. Why would I want to move it (LR Catalog IRCAT) to the D drive?
YOu can see that I have catalogs that go back 6 years occupying 11 gb of memory on my C drive. Can I delete all the old ones to free up space? Why would I keep any of them?
-
You don't have to move it. You mention that you backup your whole C drive which includes Lightroom so you're OK.
-
Can I get rid of old Catalog saves and just keep the latest? I've got dozen and dozens of the old ones.
-
You don't need more that one catalog for LrC to run unless it get corrupted. I usually keep a few of the most recent catalogs. My choice is to store them on an external drive.
-
You don't need more that one catalog for LrC to run unless it get corrupted. I usually keep a few of the most recent catalogs. My choice is to store them on an external drive.
Do I just delete the files using Windows? Or do I have to use Lightroom and if so how?
-
If you have a good backup plan, you don't need to use the LR backup catalog schema at all. Delete all the old backup's; they are only a backup of your catalog and a robust backup plan backs up that catalog and ALL OTHER data you can't afford to ever lose.
Back up all this data daily, data that has changed.
Back up all this data to multiple drives and locations!
Consider a backup of this data to a cloud (off site).
If you suffer data loss, you have multiple backup's to go back to.
On my side, I have Time Machine (which you can't use on Windows) but do not target LR dedicated disk.
On my side my LR images and all associated files are backed up to a back up drive, every day automatically and unattended.
On my side the same gets backed up to the cloud.
Every few weeks, I rotate a backup from a fireproof safe.
I also have a travel HD clone of the other LR data as well. That means at any time, the last data backed up is only 24 hours old as the oldest. In TWO locations. Two other drives have data that's older but backed up from those older dates.
Absolutely no need for me to futz with LR's backup that only backs up a catalog and zips and keeps em around.
-
If you have a good backup plan, you don't need to use the LR backup catalog schema at all. Delete all the old backup's; they are only a backup of your catalog and a robust backup plan backs up that catalog and ALL OTHER data you can't afford to ever lose.
Back up all this data daily, data that has changed.
Back up all this data to multiple drives and locations!
Consider a backup of this data to a cloud (off site).
If you suffer data loss, you have multiple backup's to go back to.
On my side, I have Time Machine (which you can't use on Windows) but do not target LR dedicated disk.
On my side my LR images and all associated files are backed up to a back up drive, every day automatically and unattended.
On my side the same gets backed up to the cloud.
Every few weeks, I rotate a backup from a fireproof safe.
I also have a travel HD clone of the other LR data as well. That means at any time, the last data backed up is only 24 hours old as the oldest. In TWO locations. Two other drives have data that's older but backed up from those older dates.
Absolutely no need for me to futz with LR's backup that only backs up a catalog and zips and keeps em around.
So now I need a clarification. What does Catalog backup? What's in the IRCAT file? If I stop backing up Catalog which I do when shutting down LR if I made any changes (LR asks me if I want to backup), where are those changes located so I know what to backup?
-
So now I need a clarification. What does Catalog backup? What's in the IRCAT file? If I stop backing up Catalog which I do when shutting down LR if I made any changes (LR asks me if I want to backup), where are those changes located so I know what to backup?
Catalog backup, backs up your catalog. ;) That be the good old lrcat file. Changes are always automatically updated to the catalog, there is no 'save' function in LR, never was. You want it to stop asking you to use it's backup on close, you turn it off in catalog preferences of course. You then conduct a through and ideal backup schema using something else/better.
-
Catalog backup, backs up your catalog. ;) That be the good old lrcat file. Changes are always automatically updated to the catalog, there is no 'save' function in LR, never was. You want it to stop asking you to use it's backup on close, you turn it off in catalog preferences of course. You then conduct a through and ideal backup schema using something else/better.
But I don't know where Lightroom backs up all the data other than Catalog IRCAT which I do copy to my external backup drive. So if I stop backing up IRCAT, which are the other files I have to backup and copy to the external drive?
-
But I don't know where Lightroom backs up all the data other than Catalog IRCAT which I do copy to my external backup drive.
Well you need to read about the product you purchase and use.
Since it's your system,I too have zero idea where it resides on YOUR drives.
The location of the catalog is shown to you in the preferences IF you look.
-
OK Thanks. Alan
-
Alan, just in case you’re thinking of deleting the lrct folder, don’t! That is where all the data is kept. What is being suggested is that you don’t need to keep all the Lightroom backups of that file. Instead do your own regular backup of the current lrct folder.
Jim
-
Alan, just in case you’re thinking of deleting the lrct folder, don’t! That is where all the data is kept. What is being suggested is that you don’t need to keep all the Lightroom backups of that file. Instead do your own regular backup of the current lrct folder.
Jim
I deleted all the Backup IRCAT files except for the last 4 backups I did freeing up around 11gb. That was in the Backup folder. The single orange arrow. But there are a bunch of files also in the Lightroom Catalog Backup Ircat folder. Double orange arrow folder. (another 8gb) What are those?
-
Here's photo of those.
-
Wait. I just noticed the second folder is IRDATA not IRCAT. DO I do anything with those?
-
Wait. I just noticed the second folder is IRDATA not IRCAT. DO I do anything with those?
Yes, you keep them. Or you delete and regenerate them. Or you ask or Google what they actually do.
-
Here's a good explanation from Scott Kelby on how to deal with IRCAT and IRDATA files. IRDATA are snapshots of the pictures. However, I'm not sure why I have 8gb and hundreds of folders of them and wouldn't know which ones to delete. The IRCATs which are past Catalog saves I deleted except for the last 3 or 4 saves. That eliminated around 11gb of wasted storage.
Frankly, I don;t understand all what he's saying. It seems very confusing to me. Has anyone else deleted their IRDATA folders or some of them and how did you do it?
https://lightroomkillertips.com/which-files-can-i-delete/
-
Here's a good explanation from Scott Kelby on how to deal with IRCAT and IRDATA files. IRDATA are snapshots of the pictures.
It's not. Best to stay away from Kelby and get this essential reference:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/adobe-lightroom-classic-missing-faq/
IRDATA is the previews LR builds for some modules (NOT Develop). Simple. You can delete them, you can regenerate them (which takes time), you can control how large that data gets based on preferences, and how much time you want to wait for previews to be built. ALL explained in the FAQ. Read it.
Frankly, I don;t understand all what he's saying. It seems very confusing to me.
Here's a good explanation from Scott Kelby on how to deal with IRCAT and IRDATA files
Is it good when you don't understand and are confused by what he's saying?
Has anyone else deleted their IRDATA folders or some of them and how did you do it?
RTFM, it is more effective to the goal of photography and using photo tools you own (pay for), then spending time on politics. Get Victoria's book, read it as questions come up, better use of your time than watching the election returns on Tuesday. ;D
-
Well, you're right, I conflicted. His "good explanation" seemed like a "thorough" explanation. I thought it was just me who didn't understand it. Well, in fairness to him, he did say it was complicated. :)
-
It's not complicated once you read and attempt to comprehend their role. Like anything else outside of partisan politics. ;D
-
I waiting for the election to be over so I have more room in my head to process data. I'm a senior you know, like the candidates. :)
-
I waiting for the election to be over so I have more room in my head to process data. I'm a senior you know, like the candidates. :)
”True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.” - Karl Popper
-
”True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.” - Karl Popper
I'm not refusing. At 75, my brain doesn't cooperate all the time like it used too. :-[
-
I'm not refusing. At 75, my brain doesn't cooperate all the time like it used too. :-[
I understand. I also recognize it's about priorities. Thankfully now, in these forums, you and others can concentrate on photography and imaging instead of the nonsense that filled the forums in the past that didn't. Again, get Victoria's ebook; spend some time with it assuming you desire to understand how LR actually works. It's a far better use of your time and brain cells than spending time in the Coffee Corner arguing about stuff that has no basis in facts or photography. ;)
-
If you have a good backup plan, you don't need to use the LR backup catalog schema at all.
Andrew, when I began to learn Lightroom some years ago, it was recommended that in Catalog Settings > General we set Backup to “Every time Lightroom exits” and to check the boxes for testing the catalog integrity before the backup and optimizing the catalog after it.
I’ve been doing it this way from the start, using Carbon Copy Cloner for the catalog and image files every day I work (twice, in fact, to two external drives) and pruning the backups regularly.
If one performs a CCC or similar backup of one’s catalog and image files every day (or however often it’s done), and does not use the "LR backup catalog schema" before the CCC or other backup, then the testing and optimizing don’t, as I understand it, get done. So is there something important or possibly useful lost in not using the built-in backup routine?
-
I don't know exactly what Adobe checks in terms of the integrity of the data nor CCC. I use Cronosync which does do an file validation when backing up. And I do regularly conduct Catalog Optimization.
-
And I do regularly conduct Catalog Optimization.
Thank you, Andrew. I had never thought to do File>Optimize catalog as a "standalone" operation.