Lightroom Catalogue folders are a mess/Lr converted files to dng and jpg

Dael_Pix

Dael_Pix

Messages
1,631
Name
David
Edit My Images
No
Not sure if I'm posting in the correct part of forum

In 2018 I reinstalled Windows. For some reason something went wrong when I chose the latest Lightroom catalogue and I had to create a new one. I noticed some files were 'converted' to DNG and JPG.

I don't want it happening again in the future.

Is there a way of getting the files back?
Can I stop it from happening again?

When backing up files in Lightroom, does it back up ALL files in that library?


My backup folders in the Lightroom folder are a complete mess. I need to sort it out but don't know how without losing all files.

Pictures > Lightroom

Folders are
  • Backups (Folder inside is called 'Created 15.10.17')
  • LightroomCatalogPreviews.lrdata
  • LightroomCatalog-2Previews.lrdata
  • LightroomCatalogue (Folders inside are 'Backups' and 'LightroomCataloguePreviews.lrcat'. File called LightroomCatalogue) [Inside 'Backups' there's a folder called 2020-07-07-1851)
  • New Cat 9.2.18 ------ This is my current catalogue I'm using right now (46 backup folders in here)
Files are
  • LightroomCatalog


Now and again I backup everything on an external hard-drive and I'm backing files up as I type this
 
Last edited:
As far as I am aware, Lightroom only allows you to back-up the catalogues but not any image files referenced by the catalogues. The catalogues do not contain the images. There is no point to having back-ups on you internal drives as you will lose these if your hard drive fails.
 
Last edited:
Purely my understanding.

LR does not move your image files unless you "tell" it to i.e. they should be where you put them.. .... somewhere in an orderly folder structure on your data drive NB not within the LR program folder and ideally not even on the same C drive as the OS and programs.

As for backing up your image files ~ I always do that independently from any image processing software.

Unless you 'set' LR to convert your raw files to DNG it would not do so by default.

So, just take your time in reviewing what you have done and don't make changes before you have considered all the factors.
 
@john.margetts I always back up my files on the computer in case something happens and I lose everything. I have always files backed up internally when I first started using Lightroom.

@Box Brownie I have never made any changes to what Lightroom does with files



I'm using version 6.14 by the way
 
As far as I'm aware LR will only convert to DNG on import. If so I imagine it will have that instead of the RAW. Are the jpeg images you have found not your exported RAW's?

I've never backed up via Lightroom so I'm not sure what that is about - I always click 'skip' on shutdown.

All my 'library' links are fully connected. I had to do that when I swapped to a bigger external drive a month or so ago.
 
Lightroom files are a bit of a mess.

Assuming you haven't called your catalogue "Previews"... Anything with "Previews" is going to be a folder full of compressed jpeg files that Lightroom builds from dngs/raw/big jpegs. You can happily delete these and Lightroom will just build more as it needs them. Computers can't display raw files, so they need to build jpegs to show you the picture in Lightroom. You'll get a bit of a delay when you open images as it builfds new preview files.

Anything with the extension .lrcat is the actual catalogue. If you look at all the ones you've got of this, you'll see some that haven't been updated in a while. Assuming you don't work with multiple catalogues (most people don't) you can safely delete all bar the latest one as that's the one you're working on. You can double check this by looking in the bar above the "File - Edit" etc menu with Lightroom open.

gqregreger.JPG

As you can see, my working catalogue is called "Master Catalogue v10" and in my folder, it's showing as "Master Catalogue v10.lrcat" I have no other files with .lrcat extensions on my PC. It's a big file.

Don't look in the folder whilst Lightroom is open, because it generates another whole bunch of .lock files that are only there when the app is open. This will just add more confusion.

Backups are useless in Lightroom. All it backs up (last time I checked) is the .lrcat file. Doesn't back up your images, and doesn't back up lightroom settings like print profiles, develop templates, custom label settings, etc etc. Much better to have a separate program or process to back up your images and your .lrcat file, as well as all the files in Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom (not sure if this is the same for your version so double check). I just backup my Users folder every day anyway. No need to back up previews as they are rebuiilt on demand anyway.
 
Last edited:
LeeRatters said:
As far as I'm aware LR will only convert to DNG on import. If so I imagine it will have that instead of the RAW. Are the jpeg images you have found not your exported RAW's?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. I hardly exported anything as JPEGs and I always keep the RAW files.
 
Edit: I've deleted all the unnecessary files and just kept my latest catalogue, so there's only that folder in the Lightroom folder now.

Older files that were strangely converted to either dng or jpg might be lost forever, but I'm not too fussed about it.

Thank you for all your help (y)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top