DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Here's my response to your 4 questions:
1. Once you download an image from card to computer, you're done with it on the card. It can be reformatted and used to capture more pictures. Once you complete your PP work, there's no need to export it - the file is right where you downloaded it to. Accordingly, there is only one file for the image. Your edits are saved in the LR catalog.
2. If you delete the file on your computer, LR will have a small representative image in its catalog, but it will be asking you where the file went. If you want the image, don't delete it!
3. As noted, LR saves your edits in the catalog, in the order they occurred. You can review the editing history, and re-edit from whatever point you choose. You can also make virtual copies of your image, and edit them in different ways.
4. If you are using LR, only rename within LR. Doing otherwise is a recipe for disaster.

To reiterate the earlier key point, once photos have been imported into Lightroom, only edit, rename, or delete using Lightroom. Don't use Windows Explorer or any other SW other than LR to delete or rename. You can use other editing plugins to Lightroom, such as Photoshop, the NIK suite, Landscape Pro, Paintshop Pro, On1, etc. to modify your file. The way that works is you launch the plugin from within Lightroom, and, once finished with the plugin, you are returned to LR and the plugin's output is entered into the catalog. That's called round-tripping. Don't open a file and edit a photo with another editing product - Lightroom won't know about your edits.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

1. Yes, an image, once exported, is a separate file wherever you store it.
2. If you delete the original on your computer the image in LR will have a question or exclamation mark on it, can't remember which without looking, that is telling you that the file is missing: that image will no longer be usable. The edits will still be in the catalog but useless without the original image. If you exported that image to somewhere that exported image will be intact and would include the edits.
3. A. You can continue to edit an image in LR forever and all of those changes will be applied when you look at it in LR and when you export it. B. The original in LR is never gone, you can go to the History Panel and find it or use the Reset button in Develop to take it back to the original (using the Reset you would lose all the edits). And, you can also re-edit the exported file as well in any way you want, either in LR or in some other program. 4. You can change the name of an original image endlessly from within LR but DO NOT change the name of any file outside of LR, this will destroy the link from the original file to the application: the application links images by metadata and in this case the metadata it uses is the name file. Martin Evening has a good and complete book on LR that is logical and easy to follow: I recommend it along with the help manual.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Deleting your original / source image is a bad idea. The history of your edits will exist in LR, but without the source, you cannot continue to edit. Your output (Export) files can be created for a variety of reasons, but replacing the original source file is not one of them. If you rename a file with LR, the LR catalog knows both the name and the location. If you rename the file outside LR, you have to update the catalog and will be prompted this is a potential error as the file does not have the same name as the original entry in LR.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You can download to your computer, then use the ADD option to catalog them.

When you export an edited or unedited image, you cannot export the original file. You have the option of creating a jpeg, tiff, psd, or png - and in your choice of color spaces and bit depths where the file format permits it. You cannot export a 16 bit jpeg, and if you used ProPhoto, a huge color gamut, it would look pretty bad. However, you can "use edit in" a 16 bit ProPhoto image to continue to work on it in a bit-level editor like Photoshop, and you will preserve as much image detail, tones and colors as the view in the develop module in LR. If you launch the external processor from within LR, it will by default place a copy of the LR-processed file in your catalog, and it will launch the external editor. If you have Photoshop it will default to that, but you can add as many external editors as you want, and save them as a preset. By default LR will place the file created with the "Edit In" option along side your raw file. But you can put it anywhere you want.

So now you are ready to distribute your image - more than likely you will make a jpeg, since it is file that can be opened by anything, including a web browser. But each destination is different. You wouldn't use the high quality, full-sized, jpeg option to send an image to Facebook or Instagram. You wouldn't send a full sized image for online viewing in a gallery, if it has been created for a print destination - the sharpening will be different, as will the rendering intent and other aspects. LR is great since you can create and save specific export presets for specific destinations.

So in order:

1. Yes. The original source file and the one edited using the "Edit In" option will be alongside each other. If you Export - you can place the exported file(s) anywhere you want. As a rule I don't save exported files, which are highly compressed and generally of a lower quality than the original or the 16 bit tiff or psd file I use to make my final edits.

2. If you delete the original file from the catalog and NOT the computer it will not be visible in the catalog but it will be on the computer where you imported it too. If you use the option to delete from disk, then it will be placed in the recycle bin or trash can on your computer.

3. You can always revisit an image in the workflow I described. If you keep the original file (absolutely no valid reason to delete it unless it is truly beyond recovery), you can create a virtual copy, use "Edit In" to create a second or more high quality wide gamut uncompressed bit mapped image (16 bit psd or tiff, with ProPHoto color space) that reflects your Lightroom edits, or you can take the edited psd or tiff and, if you saved the layers and edits you can revisit those changes as well, and output additional psd/tiff files without any loss of image content but with your new edits. Creating a LR virtual copy will allow you to "start all over" if you are trying to edit the raw file, or you can open your raw file in LR and reset all the changes to their defaults.

4. You can change the name - but you really should do this inside of LR. You can do it outside, but I think at the current time you don't have the proper skills to sync the changed names with Lightroom, a step you need to do if you want to preserve any editing. Just change the file in LR - keep it simple.

5. I strongly suggest you join a local photo club. There will be people in your situation, and people who are willing to help you out. This is really hard to learn by reading stuff, and in some cases getting bad advice here or somewhere else on the internet. The photo club will help you steer clear (in most cases) of bad advice and help you get things sorted out.

You do have quite a mess - what prompted you to seek help at this point instead of 2 yrs ago?

lsupremo Loc: Palm Desert, CA

Thanks for all the responses, I’m starting to get it and starting to figure out how to clean up my catalog.

Thanks agin, I really do appreciate how incredible the UHH community is.