Ron 717 Loc: Pennsylvania

My friend passed away 6 months ago and I am helping his widow with disconnecting his computers and external drives. He had an IMac with all of his photos approx 50,000 worth on an external HDD with a back up on second external HDD. She does not want to continue Adobe Photography Plan, he used LR Classic, so I canceled that plan. She would like to be able to view his photos from time to time but when we attempt to open a photo a pop-up comes on advising to renew subscription. If I disable or quit the Adobe Desktop App will the pop-up stop and we can view his photos using the LR app that is still on his computer?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/cancel-cc-subscription-photos/

The LR Queen states in the linked post above that you should be able to continue to EXPORT images. This is important because you should work with your friend to created an mass-export of your friend's edited work. You can create one mass 50,000 image folder. Use a renaming command for YYYYMMDD so the files sort by the shooting date so she can find images based on 'when'.

Taking LR out of the access method will greatly help things. You can update a computer to run a slideshow of the images. If you can create new LR export presets, resize the images so they fit on a UBS thumbdrive and run a slide show on a TV. Or, get a digital frame and let them run on a continuous loop on a digital frame, or old tablet or laptop.

If you're an active subscriber, just take one of the harddrives and work on the export at home. You can access the LRCAT with your active software. You might need to update the catalog pointers to the file location, but the work should be minimal if your friend kept all the images under a single highlevel folder.

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

The LR catalog is a standalone database. If you have a current subscription I believe that you could take the catalog and the external hdd and export the images so you could present them to her. The only thing you need is to make sure the external hdd has the same name on your computer so that the path to the originals is the same. I also assume you have a Mac.

Ron 717 Loc: Pennsylvania

Thank you for the info, I’ll try what you suggest.

Ron 717 Loc: Pennsylvania

Thank you, I have received 2 solutions that are similar so I’ll give them a try.

Bayou

And this is why many LR users are creating a life's work that may be lost to their heirs. If not exported to jpegs and stored in the computer's file manager in a way that makes universal sense to ANYONE looking for your collection, those collections are at risk.

Our heirs do not have LR skills. They are not going to subscribe to Adobe, or even understand that they would need to in order to access our catalogs of images and edits. They may well find a big mess of RAW files that they don't understand, don't look good when opened, and are likely horribly disorganized.

Export your images (jpeg) to folders that are smartly named and organized so that when found, they can be appreciated. Over reliance on proprietary third party software can cause horrible, unforseen loss.

Leaving behind a mess of RAW files that were organized only in LR is paramount to leaving your heirs boxes of unprinted negatives.

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

Not quite: unprinted negatives can be scanned and inverted. Raw files need raw conversion software.

I agree that you should have an organizational structure that is usable by anyone. LR doesn't care what the file name is, nor where it's stored, as long as those parameters are saved in the catalog and not changed outside of LR. DSC_5843 is perfectly acceptable to LR. But do you think of that name when you look at an image? Renaming your files is very important. Give them a meaningful name so your descendants can figure out which photos they want to look at. Placing them in folders with a meaningful name will help them also. File names are no longer limited to the 8.3 format (I think there is a 256 character limit in Windows).

LR can rename your files if you download them from the card through LR. It can also place them in a specific folder. Using that capability will help organize things.

I use Downloader Pro to download and rename my image files and place them in folders with meaningful names. I find it more efficient than using LR, but it's another program to place into your workflow. To each their own.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

One thing that should be done regardless of which photo program you use is to be sure to write/save the metadata to each file/picture each time you save or edit. This way you can read key words, description, comments and such with just the operating system, Windows File Explorer or whatever MAC uses. No need for a photo program to see the information.

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

So you wind up with two files: Photo.jpg and PhotoMetadata.jpg. Someone who you send an image to but doesn't know what a metadata is will just throw away the second file.

The best way to ensure the metadata are preserved with the image is to make them readable on the image. Maybe in the margin rather than on top of the image, but part of the image anyway.

Bayou

Oops, a literary slip up. I meant to use the word tantamount.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

No, you do not have two files, only one file, Photo.jpeg, Photo.tif and such. Using Windows File Explorer, right click a file/picture will open the file properties tab where you will see keywords, description, comments and much more, as long as you "save metadata to file" in whatever photo program you are using.

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

OK I did misread your comment. Yes, I believe you should always keep the metadata with the file. Including fine art images.

But just having the metadata in the file isn't enough. It has to be visible to people to whom metadata are something supernatural. The only way to ensure that any random observer will be able to use the metadata is to have it visible with the image at all times. Maybe in the margin where it doesn't impact the image, but it needs to be visible. That way if someone down the chain saves the file without the metadataa, the documentation is still there on the image and visible.

And to reiterate, I am talking about images with historical importance. Maybe only to the family, but still it is important to carry the documentation along with the image. Taking a file with metadata and printing it effectively removes the metadata. Documentation is a distraction for fine art images. Documentation is an enhancement for family images.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

UKnomad Loc: England

[quote=CHG_CANON]https://www.lightroomqueen.com/cancel-cc-subscription-photos/
The LR Queen states in the linked post above that you should be able to continue to EXPORT images. This is important because you should work with your friend to created an mass-export of your friend's edited work. You can create one mass 50,000 image folder. Use a renaming command for YYYYMMDD so the files sort by the shooting date so she can find images based on 'when'.



How would one create a 'mass-export'.....? I've been wondering how to manage the same process of exporting edited images to an external hd.

TIA

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Select the all. Edit / Select All from the menu or Ctrl+A on a Windows machine, then export. You can use metadata filters to better isolate the images that fall into the Select All criteria.