windshoppe Loc: Arizona

I inadvertently ended up with duplicate photos in 2 folders while in the process of moving some photos from one folder to another. While the duplicates do not appear in the actual physical folder on the computer, they are in that folder according to LR. Is there any way of eliminating the duplicates from appearing in that folder without removing them entirely from LR or the disk? When I remove one of the duplicates by any means it also eliminates the original from the other folder that it's actually in.
Hope this isn't ridiculously confusing.

Dr.db Loc: Central Point, OR

Here's a free duplicate finder plugin that can probably help - it does a very good job of identifying duplicates even if they have been cropped, renamed, resized, etc., and will put them into a Collection that you can manage appropriately:

http://www.bungenstock.de/teekesselchen/

I haven't tried it with a situation like yours, but chances are it will help sort out the phantom files at least. If it will successfully sort them to a Collection, you could probably select them all and do 'Remove Photos...' but NOT 'Delete from disk.'

windshoppe Loc: Arizona

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

SteveG Loc: Norh Carolina

I just posted on another string. It DOES work beautifully! Just follow the instructions for installation and the tutorial for operating it.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I don't understand your question. Are you saying IMAGE01.xxx exists in your LR catalog from two locations, \folder1 and \folder2? And that IMAGE01.xxx is the same image, as in size, date, content? This clearly can happen, but you also should be able to pick the 'master' versions from either folder1 or folder2 and remove (or remove and delete) from the other duplicate position. Your comment "While the duplicates do not appear in the actual physical folder on the computer, they are in that folder according to LR." is the most confusing of all.

If you don't want to clean-up the catalog and clean up your disk, you can 'stack' the images. But, the images do need to be in the same folder for this stacking feature, where of course, you can't have the same file name in the same folder name multiple times. So, some more clarity is needed to better understand the situation.

SteveG Loc: Norh Carolina

I don't know if you are referring to me but this is all I know on the subject of duplicate images. Using that free download will find tge images in all folders that are duplicates and give you the chance to gain a lot of valuable hard drive space. It works. That is all I wanted to update this post with.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Copies can be created in LR in three ways: a virtual copy, a second copy being imported, and a preview image in a collection. The virtual copy does not create a second "hard" copy in the original file folder, but is also a preview; a virtual copy will have a "page turn" icon at the bottom. Creating a collection folder and putting an image in that will not create a second "hard" copy as it, too, is only a virtual image. The only way that you would have multiple "hard" copies in a folder is if you did actually import duplicates, in which case a duplicate removal program might work. Since you have said there is no second "hard" copy and that if you remove one of the "copies" the hard copy is removed from the file my guess would be your "copy" is one of the other types of copy. But, it's really difficult to know that this is the case since there is limited information. Providing detailed information and even screen shots is helpful with this type of problem.

SteveG Loc: Norh Carolina

You are correct! My copies were imported over the years each time I tried out a different editor. Lightroom would then, I would guess, imported the same images as duplicates. I'm not well schooled in the ins and outs of how the programs interact and how one effects the other, but the bottom line was that almost half of my images in Lightroom were dups. The program found them and I was able to delete them.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

If you figure out how the program works you can avoid problems. The program only does what you tell it to do. Many people have trouble with the import section because they fail to check or uncheck a box. Martin Evening has a very good book on the program. Also, the online Adobe help manual is excellent for learning the basics of the Library Module, which is the workhorse section of the program. If you keep the "Don't Import Duplicates" box checked in the import panel then as long as the images you are trying to import have the same name as an image already imported the program will ignore them. It reads the image by file name so if the file name is changed it will import a duplicate. Read everything in the Help manual on the Library section and you might be able to avoid future problems.