Girl with A Canon Loc: Myrtle Beach,SC

Lord what a mess I have created. Under Catalog in all photos it says I have 1075. As I also have all my photos in a File Explorer on my desktop they were taking up to much space. So I removed them and put them on my external hard drive. So I know all of you know what I have done. I go to open up a photo and it says “Folder could not be found”. Well I do know now it is because of how I was importing to Lightroom. I have it such a mess that I don’t use it at all and I am paying $9.99 a month for it. I use Elements 15 or Topaz Studio. I have spent much time studying YouTube videos of how to use those two and the sliders. So my question to all is simple and please don’t come down on me. I have it (Lightroom) broke so should I cancel it and just stick with what I know the best? Or should I cancel it and eat my looses and stay with what I know?

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

Love your opening statement! What you describe has happened to many of us- some of us more than once!! Don't be too hard on yourself. My solution was to keep the monthly subscription and use Bridge/ Camera Raw instead. Bridge provides the organization end and Camera Raw the editing portion with most, if not all of the same edits in LR. Bridge is very easy to work with to organize your files with none of the nonsense. You can set up your files, move them around, delete files, copy or move to external disks with none of the hassle of LR and none of the "Folder or file could not be found" messages. You can move your files to PS from Camera Raw with one click to finish your editing. Good luck.

Designdweeb Loc: Metro NYC & East Stroudsburg, PA

Read more watch more on how to organise in LR, try to learn it. You’ll untangle it.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Hi, LR is a great program and it would help you a lot to read the LR help manual found online by clicking Help at the top of the application menu, in particular read any section on the Library Module. I recommend the Martin Evening book for long-term use. One thing to remember is that LR links files by name so if it can't find the names it needs the link is broken. Is it possible for you to simply put the folders you moved right back where they were? That is one simple way to get things back in order if nothing else has changed. After that you can then move the folders anywhere you want from within the LR application, even to a new external drive. If the new drive does not show up in LR you can make it show up by creating a new folder and the pop up box will ask where to place the new folder and you can navigate to the new external drive. IF you don't want to keep the new folder you just delete it. I've use LR for more than 8 years and have about 70,000 photos on it, and have processed about 6,000 photos so my advice, of course, is to learn about the program and what it does and stay with it. Once you understand how it works it's amazing how easy it it to operate and use and how quickly you can do whatever you want with your photos.

ebcobol

Hi;

I will not be able to help you and you will probably find the correct solution from this knowledgeable group. However I am going to give you the number for Adobe support. 800-833-6687. Note and cherish it because you may need it in the future. I can tell you that I had the same problem when I tried to use the old lightroom 5 version instead of cc but I solved it by selecting my imports from my backup hard disk. I never use the library feature. Still your best bet is to hear from someone else on uglyhedgehog but the adobe support, a little frustrating at times, might help.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

Learn Lightroom--it will be eventually be worth the effort and frustration.
Laura Shoe.
Don't ever stay with what you know.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

You can redirect LR so it will see your files on the external drive. It's fairly easy to do and you don't have to do it to every file individually. The help function and/or some tutorials will help you.
http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/05/why-cant-lightroom-find-my-folders-of-images.html

JD750 Loc: SoCal

You can fix the problem if you want to. Simple re-direct LR to the new folder location, use the link DirtFarmer provided (above this post).

To avoid this problem in the future, never move things around outside of Lightroom. Use Lightroom to move the folders and pictures.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Your mistake was moving the files outside of LR. LR does not store a copy of the image. It only stores the location of your image files and the record of any PP work you have done on each image. Again LR does not have a full copy of your image, only a thumbnail and the record of the PP work you did on it. When you click on the thumbnail of the image in LR it pulls a copy of the image from your files, applies all your edits and puts it in the work space. When you finish LR saves the new changes to catalog and deletes the copy of the image (the original image is still in your files at the same location).
When you move images outside of LR then the location info in LR is no longer good and it can't find them.
Read the manual or google how to have lightroom find "lost" images. Other wise move them back to the harddrive with the same location/file names etc then move them to the new drive using LR this time. That way LR's "map" of the file locations will be updated and correct. And don't change the drive letter or LR's map will again be useless since it will be looking for the images on drive X and you now have it named drive Z.

Girl with A Canon Loc: Myrtle Beach,SC

Well I gave up drinking years ago but might have to consider taking it back up. If I was at a total loss before now I am on the moon and all alone. Talk about confusion well folks this ole chick now has no idea even what planet she is on. What would happen if I cancel my subscription and then get another one and start all over? Is Bridge/Camera Raw different then LRCC? I use Adobe Camera Raw with in my Elements.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Have you read the replies from Dirtfarmer and robertjerl? I'd start there.

HarryBinNC Loc: Blue Ridge Mtns, No.Carolina, USA

Bah! Lightroom's horrid UI drove me to convert to MAC so I could use Aperture instead. I am now a fan of ACDsee, which IMHO does a DAM right. Bridge isn't half-bad either, but I had to divorce Adobe after they switched to the SAS (rental software) model.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

You need to understand the application. There is no need to cancel anything. You can, in fact, have multiple catalogs, not a good practice for most people. The LR application contains a catalog function and this file is where all of the image edits are kept. It also contains general metadata about your file. If you wanted to just start over, assuming you have made no edits on any of the files you have in mind to start over with, you can simply open a new catalog and import (think link) your files. You can trash the old catalog but when you do this you also trash any edits you've made.

People, including me, have given you multiple options for re-using your existing catalog. LR is an application that allows several ways to do almost anything in the application. Some ways are more "tricky" than other ways and you can, indeed, get even more lost. I recommended simply putting your folders back where they were and then starting over within LR to move things given your inexperience with the program. Please read the HELP manual online, it will give you some much-needed basic information. I am LR certified and teach the program and I know that it can be confusing if you don't know anything about it.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

It is not LR, it is how you moved the files to the external drive. (Lightroom does not have another copy of your photos, only the location of your photos, a thumbnail and a record of the edits you have done. So you did not have two copies of every photo on your harddrive.)

1. In future import all photos to your computer directly from the memory card to LR. By default it puts them in the Pictures Library of Win 10 or equiv on a Mac. While doing so it makes a "map" of where they are. It only puts a thumbnail and record of edits in Catalog.
2. Never move any picture files or rename any folders in any way except from LR's Library mode. Otherwise the "map" is no good and LR will not be able to find them until the problem is corrected.
3. You do not need to replace LR with a new copy, just correct your mistake.
4. In LR's Library mode go to the top menus, click on Library and about 2/3 of the way down the menu drop box that opens you will see "Find All Missing Photos", click on that an follow the instructions (may ask for a drive letter to search). If you are lucky that will fix the whole problem by updating LR's "map" so it can now find the files again.

If you had pictures on your computer before you got LR it can import those by you telling it where to find them and "Import" will then import them and add records of their location, file names etc to catalog - then every time you work with a photo it pulls up a copy, applies all edits you have done in the past, saves all edits you add back to catalog and deletes the copy of the image it is working with when you close LR. The original image, just the way it was imported is still in your files. Since the image file is not changed in any way you can go back to the original import in the Develope mode's history menu and start over with the original out of camera image in either RAW or DNG(if you converted the files, DNG is just Adobe's version of RAW which can be exported to any other Adobe or many other post processing apps-even if the app is too old to recognize the Camera's native RAW format) and do a completely different edit. You can also make a virtual copy of any image while working in LR's Develop mode and edit it in a different way to see if you prefer one edit over another.

Girl with A Canon Loc: Myrtle Beach,SC

Thanks all I am not sure I am grasping what you are telling me. So let me explain how and what I do. I came home with my camera and I plug in my card reader and download my photos to my Windows 10 Photos. There I have created a new folder for that day and subject. Then what I did was import that folder into LR. Well my computer C drive was getting full so I plug in my WD external hard drive and transferred many of those folders on to that. So if I am grasping what you are telling me to do I need to plug in that WD again and then open LR and the photos will all reappear. Is this right or am I way off. Or should I because they are all on my external HD just delete all those others and start over again. I have not done any editing in LR in over a year or more so I would not be loosing anything. This time out I will make sure I understand just how LR works 100% before I download and use it.