Recover Your Lightroom Catalog with a Simple Trick (VIDEO)
Have you ever panicked when opening Lightroom & discovering that your photos are missing for no apparent reason? If not, you’ve been fortunate so far but it’s time to get prepared in case this annoyance happens in the future.
Today’s solution from British pro James Feaver demonstrates an easy, straightforward fix that takes barely three minutes to explain. The first thing to do is take a deep breath, because your hard-earned images haven’t disappeared forever—you simply can’t find them.
Instructor James is a popular British photographer and educator who kicks off the lesson like this: “In today’s video I’ll show you how you can quickly fix this problem by finding and reconnecting the missing photos in your Lightroom catalog. And trust me, it’s easier than you think.”
James just encountered this inconvenience himself and he explains several reasons why it may occur. Maybe you renamed the photo(s) or the folder in which they reside. Or perhaps you moved that image somewhere else—like from the computer to an external drive.
In any case, once you’ve calmed down, go to your Library and select “Find All Missing Photos” from the dropdown menu that appears on the left side of your screen. Lightroom then does a quick scan to locate any errant images. Then when you open the Catalog section on the right you’ll discover your lost images in a new folder.
The next step is locating the original files on your computer, server, or external drive. Once you’ve done that it’s easy to reconnect the images to your Lightroom catalog by following James’ step-by-step instructions. As he says, “doing this will not only link the photo you selected, but all the images within that specific folder.”
The remaining steps are so quick and simple that we’ll let James demonstrate exactly how they work. Problem solved! Be sure to check out the Photo Feaver YouTube channel where you’ll find many more how-videos for elevating your editing and shooting skills.
And don’t miss the earlier tutorial we featured with another post-processing expert who demonstrates how to employ Lightroom’s Color Contrast tools to create spectacular landscape photos with perfect tonal balance.
