One of the things I enjoy about publishing my daily Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter is that it often leads to something of a conversation among different readers. One question and it’s answer will trigger a question from another reader, and sometimes that question in turn leads to another question. Such was the case with a recent series of emails on the subject of photos that go missing in Adobe Lightroom. A question on the subject led one reader to pose a very simple question: “Can you explain why a photo goes missing in Lightroom?”
This is a very simple question, at least in concept, and for most situations the answer is quite simple as well. Photos generally go missing in Lightroom because the user did something to those photos (renamed the photos, renamed the folder, moved the photos, etc.) outside of Lightroom.
Here’s how I explained the most likely causes of images suddenly going missing in Lightroom:
First, if you rename an individual photo or a folder containing photos outside of Lightroom, then those photos can no longer be found where Lightroom expects to find them. Either the folder name has changed, or the filename has changed, and in either case Lightroom isn’t able to locate the image based on where the catalog indicates it should be.
The other possibility is that removable media has been removed. That could be that your photos are stored on an external hard drive, for example, and that drive has been disconnected from the computer. Or you could be managing images on DVDs or other removable media, and the disc is not in the drive.
If you’ve renamed the folder or an individual photo outside of Lightroom, the first step is to remind yourself that you should never rename files or folders outside of Lightroom if those files or folders are being managed by Lightroom. Then you can reconnect the folder (or individual photos) by right-clicking on the folder that is missing (indicated by a question mark icon) and choosing Find Missing Folder from the popup menu, or by clicking on the question mark icon associated with a specific image and clicking Locate in the dialog that appears. You can then navigate to the location for the folder or photos so Lightroom will know where to find them.
Of course, if the issue is simply that a removable drive is disconnected, all you need to do is reconnect that drive (or insert the media) and the images will be located again.
Of course, in theory (and sometimes in reality) a photo going missing in Lightroom is not the fault of the photographer. I explained this issue in my answer as follows:
Theoretically an image file could become corrupted or you could experience some other cause of loss or damage for photos or folders. But in almost all cases I’ve seen, the cause of missing photos is the photographer renaming files or folders outside of Lightroom.
It seems to me that many (perhaps most?) photographers got their start with image management by using browser software such as Adobe Bridge. With these tools you’re simply pointing a browser to a particular folder, and then viewing the images contained within that folder. With a database (or catalog) driven application such as Lightroom, things are a little bit different. You must start by pointing the software to the location where photos are located that you want managed by the software. From that point forward, any file management tasks should be performed within that software.
This change in the approach taken by certain software applications obviously requires photographers to think a little differently about how they work with their images, and how to deal with tasks they didn’t really have to give much thought to in the past. In short, if you’re using a tool such as Lightroom that utilizes a database for tracking your images, it is critically important that you perform all your work with your photos within the context of that software application.
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