Lost Half my pictures from Lightroom 4: I lost about half my pictures from lightroom. If I use Adobe Bridge I can find them, but they disappeared from Lightroom. HELP!

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

I lost about half my pictures from lightroom. If I use Adobe Bridge I can find them, but they disappeared from Lightroom. HELP!

papa Loc: Rio Dell, CA

Did you check your hard drive? All is not lost; just in another place. Now on with the excellent adventure. Push comes to shove restore. AND NEXT TIME BACK UP AND DOWNLOAD COPIES TO A CD OR SD. We're never too old to learn new tricks; we're just big kids anyway. Remember to play and have fun.

BigDen Loc: Alberta, Canada

If the files were moved on your hard drive, you just have to redirect LR to look in the new location. The files are misplaced, not lost.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

radiumjohn wrote:

I lost about half my pictures from lightroom. If I use Adobe Bridge I can find them, but they disappeared from Lightroom. HELP!

They weren't lost! (that's the good news)

The problem is that LR is now confused; where did they go?

LR only keeps a "pointer" to them with some data to "display" them...the actual files aren't touched.

What you need to do is tell LR where they went to.

Click the ? on the picture and hit the "locate" button to reestablish the link in LR.

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

Chances are you opened or switched Catilogs or created a new one. Your images are in the Catilog that imported them. You may have more than one Catilog in Lightroom.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

papa wrote:

Did you check your hard drive? All is not lost; just in another place. Now on with the excellent adventure. Push comes to shove restore. AND NEXT TIME BACK UP AND DOWNLOAD COPIES TO A CD OR SD. We're never too old to learn new tricks; we're just big kids anyway. Remember to play and have fun.

Thank you for the suggestion.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

BigDen wrote:

If the files were moved on your hard drive, you just have to redirect LR to look in the new location. The files are misplaced, not lost.

Thank you.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

romanticf16 wrote:

Chances are you opened or switched Catilogs or created a new one. Your images are in the Catilog that imported them. You may have more than one Catilog in Lightroom.

Thank you.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

rpavich wrote:

quote=radiumjohn I lost about half my pictures fr... (show quote)

Thank you.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

Thanks to all of you. You may be Hedgehogs, but you certainly aren't ugly.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

romanticf16 wrote:

Chances are you opened or switched Catilogs or created a new one. Your images are in the Catilog that imported them. You may have more than one Catilog in Lightroom.

Thanks. I believe I may have inadvertently created another lightroom catalog that now has about half my pictures. How do I find that catalog?

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

radiumjohn wrote:

romanticf16 wrote:

Chances are you opened or switched Catilogs or created a new one. Your images are in the Catilog that imported them. You may have more than one Catilog in Lightroom.

Thanks. I believe I may have inadvertently created another lightroom catalog that now has about half my pictures. How do I find that catalog?

While in the "Library Module" click on "File">"Recent and a list of catalogue files should appear.

If that does't show the file you want do a search in "windows Explorer" or "Finder" on a Mac for a *.lrcat file. Double click on it and LR will open with that catalogue file.

LR will only let you open one catalogue file at a time and automatically opens with the last used catalogue. If you have launched LR with one catalogue and want to switch to another, LR will re-launch and open the new catalogue.

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

radiumjohn wrote:

Thanks. I believe I may have inadvertently created another lightroom catalog that now has about half my pictures. How do I find that catalog?

The Catalogs are either stored with your original photos, on your computer's HD or on your external. On a Mac they'd be found in the home folder (the one that looks like a house symbol), under Pictures.I'm not sure how Windows files things.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

birdpix wrote:

quote=radiumjohn quote=romanticf16 Chances are y... (show quote)

Thank you.

radiumjohn Loc: Pulaski, Virginia, USA

romanticf16 wrote:

radiumjohn wrote:

Thanks. I believe I may have inadvertently created another lightroom catalog that now has about half my pictures. How do I find that catalog?

The Catalogs are either stored with your original photos, on your computer's HD or on your external. On a Mac they'd be found in the home folder (the one that looks like a house symbol), under Pictures.I'm not sure how Windows files things.

Thanks to all of you. I had solved the problem on my own by muddling through, but I wouldn't understand how to solve the problem again without your help.