How come LR wont SEE my Raw images

[RebeccaAPhotography]

Hey guys!

So I backed up my photos and put them on my external hard drive. Now that I've done that lightroom 3 does not SEE any of my photos. Say I have a folder that has 100 photos it sees them then slowly goes to 0. It does this with only the photos that have gone to my external hard drives, which is A LOT.

 

[Mully]

Have you imported them into LightRoom....is there a ? On the folder

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

yea I was trying to import them into lightroom. In the end it just says the folder has no photos.

 

[KmH]

Did you use Lightroom to do the backup? If you didn't, Lightroom doesn't know where the photos are anymore.

Photos never actually get imported to Lightroom. Lightroom only imports the path to where the photos are in your computer memory.
One of Lighrooms big advantages that you can make collections of photos that all reside in different folders in your computers memory.

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

Ok now I get it! The reason it was seeing them is because it already had them in there! I get it now. Thanks!

 

[Mully]

LR can be a bit confusing as to where your files are. If you are using an external HD dedicate it to LR You only want one catalog for everything and if you make one folder where all your import files live it will be simpler to know where everything in LR is. I have one folder called Photo Library and in this folder are 2 other folders ( lightroom catalog and Photos Go Here) in the photos go here folder is the place for all the imports. This system was proposed by Laura Shoe so look up her website and gather some very good info from her.

 

[KmH]

Or get - The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers

for more in-depth information.