Sorry to hear that you lost so much hard work. Turning on the “Automatically Write Changes to XMP” preference switch when you first started using Lightroom might have saved you some of this pain but it too is no substitute for a robust backup plan. See Professional-Grade Backup Plans for more advice that is probably too little and too late :<

–
David Marx

Wish I read this sooner. Should be a default setting in LR.

Just lost changes on 6800 photos after the dire lightroom 4 corrupted all my files, so ‘upgraded’ to 3.6. no problems since but couldn’t get my changes back no matter what.

Gutted, but at least I have my raws and I keep all my jpegs archived.

A common confusion. XMP means two things in digital photography. To make life confusing this abbreviation is the type of file that Lightroom and other sophisticated Adobe programs use when working with camera raw files. XMP sidecar files store metadata for propreitary camera raw files. Adobe uses these files when it cannot store the additional metadata like your copyright info, keywords, and develop settings inside the file’s data block. This is what you were seeing with your CR2s.

Unfortunately, XMP also means the data block within a jpeg file, a tif file, a psd file, etc. This is the portion of the file where data–metadata can be written–without changing the visible pixels. I suspect that you found the “Save Changes to Metadata” switch back in Lightroom 1 or that you were working with raw files that you used with another program like the Adobe Bridge. You saw the sidecars for your Cr2′s because some Adobe program created them. But because you never found this preference switch, or pressed the Metadata > Save Metadata to File button, in Lightroom 2 and 3 your changes to all types of files were never pressed down.

Your changes exist, or existed, only at the Lightroom Catalog level. As you can tell from my video I don’t like this but as long as you still have your Lightroom Catalog it’s not a disaster. Turn the switch on now, or invoke the Save Metadata to File command with all your thumbnails selected, and your work will be pressed down. It’s only a disaster if your Lightroom Catalog is gone and you have no backup plan…..

–
David Marx

When I had Lightroom 1, it seemed to create XMP files automatically to go with my .CR2s, and I understood that these were sidecar files that contained my post-processing information. (I thought Lightroom was actually reading the XMPs to show my edits.) After I switched to Lightroom 2(.7), there stopped being XMP files, yet Lightroom continued to show the edits. I found this baffling but didn’t understand the ramifications until now.

The fundamental trouble here is that you are not yet using Lightroom to create your folders and sub-folders. Keep the ones that you have already created but from here on do all of this work from within Lightroom’s Library Module. See:

http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/06/importing-images-creating-an-import-preset-and-copying-in-files-from-a-digital-camera-memory-card-with-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-3/
http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/07/using-add-to-import-files-into-your-lightroom-index-without-moving-or-copying/
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/09/moving-folders-with-adobe-photoshop-lightroom/

Once the files are referenced into your Lightroom index you can move them from folder to folder, and rename the folders, from within the Library Module’s Folder Panel. (Most of the greatest features of this panel require a right-click!)

–
David Marx

Saving changes to each file’s metadata is supposed to happen immediately if you turn on this preference switch. If you are making changes to a massive number of files at once, or if you are using a very slow hard drive / drive connection, there maybe a delay but the process is supposed to begin immediately. With the ideal hardware the changes that you make should be saved down to the file’s metadata block level almost instantly.

The question that I would ask for follow up is what changes are you making and what other programs are you using to see the results?

–
David Marx

“I’m just learning LR3. In Finder on my MBP, I usually ARRANGE files as follows:”

Sam Ling

I’m just learning LR3. In Finder on my MBP, I usually arrive files as follows:

2011
> 2011-01-01 (trip to Banff)
> 2011-02-10 (golf tournament)
> 2011-06-15 (camping trip)

In the above folder and sub-folder set-up, I IMPORTED into LR3 by selecting the root folder “2011″.

In the above example, what happens if I add additional sub-folders in Finder.
For example:

> 2011-11-20 (Thanksgiving)

In other words, should I import just the new sub-folder, or select the 2011 main folder again? Will my previous import be OVER-WRITTEN?

Thanks and sorry if this is too basic a question. I’m still learning.

Sam Ling

I’m having issues, I can’t seem to get changes to appear in other programs still unless I manually do a metadata save.

thanks,

Dan

Ah the confusion over what XMP means! XMP is the a shared set of metadata fields and code that allows textual information, like keywords, to work with files from a variety of cameras in any number of programs. Most digital file formats–jpeg, psd, tiff, doc, mp3, mov, etc–contain a data block that can hold the XMP metadata. Proprietary digital camera raw file formats sadly do not allow this internal data storage. These files require an “XMP sidecar” file because these brand specific camera raw formats cannot store the textual information internally. Only proprietary raw files require this extra hassle….

So the answer to your question is to let the Adobe Bridge save XMP data down to the file level. Most file’s will hold this information internally. For the odd-ball proprietary digital camera raw files Bridge will create XMP sidecar files for you. If this all seems like a needless and potentially confusing disaster consider repackaging your raw files using the DNG file format. For more see:

http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/06/digital-camera-file-formats-raw-and-jpeg/
http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/06/converting-digital-camera-raw-files-to-the-dng-format-using-adobe-photoshop-lightroom/

–
David Marx