Those who do backup their systems might not be capturing everything they want to restore in the event of a failure.  Most Lightroom users who do backup would backup their photo files but not all will remember to backup their Lightroom catalogs, which contain all of the develop adjustments they have spent hours making while turning snapshots into masterpieces. Fewer still will remember to backup those templates and presets they have spent time collecting and creating, and the other program settings they have tweaked to their liking and help them efficiently execute their digital workflow.

The recent major update of my TPG LR Backup plugin (formerly Config Backup) can help make the backup of your catalog and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom configuration files painless, so you can work safe in the knowledge that your data is being safeguarded in case disaster strikes.

How I backup Lightroom

To backup my photos and Lightroom I use the following approach.  Your needs and environment may be a little different from mine so please treat this as a guide only and adjust the processes to suit your individual needs.

Pre-requisites

Before backing up Lightroom I use SyncBackSE to copy all image files to a separate system.  I’m not going to detail this aspect of my configuration because you can easily fill a book on this topic (and Peter Krogh already has – the highly recommended The DAM Book).  If you want to learn more about this I’d suggest starting with the Backup section of the dpBestflow.org site Peter contributed to. It not only explains the topic clearly (including videos) but also includes a number of example Backup System Configurations  to get you started.

Lightroom 2 and above includes a catalog backup feature.  I switch this on using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item and set it to backup my catalog weekly.  This ensures every time I start up (Lightroom 2) or shutdown (Lightroom 3) Lightroom checks whether it should create a new backup of the current catalog.

Plugin Configuration

Once I’ve enabled Lightroom catalog backups I then use features from my TPG LR Backup plugin to build upon this base level of protection. Installation instructions for the plugin are linked from the plugin’s home page so I won’t repeat them here. Please note the remainder of this post assumes you have registered the plugin to enable the automatic backup functionality.

Open the File –> Plug-In Extras –> Configure Automatic Backups menu item to show the following dialog:

The From folder needs to match the folder where you configured Lightroom to write its catalog backups.  The To folders indicate where you want the configuration and compressed catalog backups to be written. These can point to different locations but I prefer to write both types of backups to a single Lightroom backup folder.

TIP: If you use more than one Lightroom catalog consider using the Edit –> Catalog Settings menu item to configure all of your catalogs to write their backups to the same folder. This will allow the plugin to compress all of your catalog backups regardless of which catalog you have open when you start Lightroom.

I set the configuration to be backed up once per week, and the catalog backups (created by Lightroom’s inbuilt backup feature) to be compressed whenever they are found. The latter is particularly important because catalog backup files can be quite large and can quickly overrun your disk space. Compressing the backup files typically results in an ~90% size reduction so you can afford to keep more backups than you would otherwise.

It is recommended that your configuration and compressed catalog backups be stored on a separate hard drive from your Lightroom catalog and configuration files. Doing so will help increase your chances of recovering from a disaster. If your hard drive fails, backups will do you no good if both they and your Lightroom catalogs are stored on the failed drive.

Once you have configured your automatic backups press OK to save the settings, and it is best to restart Lightroom as soon as possible to test that everything works as expected. If this is the first time you have enabled automatic backups they will also run at next startup (regardless of the selected backup timing) to confirm you have configured your backups correctly.

Plugin Operation

If you are a Lightroom 3 user and have just setup catalog backups then you should see the following dialog when you exit Lightroom.  Make sure the backup folder matches the folder configured for your automatic backups then select the Backup button.  Lightroom will then take a few moments to copy your catalog and add it to the selected folder.

If you’ve used the settings suggested in the previous section then next time Lightroom starts you should see the following appear at the top of your Lightroom workspace. You may need to open the top panel of the Library module to see it.  This progress bar lets you know that TPG LR Backup plugin is executing your backups in the background while you continue working on your images.  Once this step has completed you will have a new zip file in your backup folder for each type of backup that was scheduled to run.

If you ever want to know when your last backup occurred just open up either of the plugin’s menu items and you will be able to see the most recent backup events at the bottom of the dialog.

Feedback

I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to setup your own Lightroom backups. Please let me know via the comments if there is anything other part of my backup regime you would like me to expand upon.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Quick and easy way to back up Lightroom

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Update: A newer version of this plugin is now available. 
Please visit the LR Backup plugin page (formerly Config Backup) to download the latest version, and find the latest documentation for the plugin.

My recently released backup plugin helps you backup your Lightroom configuration files and compress Lightroom generated catalog backup files.  To access these features you use one of the new menu items it adds to the File menu’s Plug-in Extras sub-menu.

1. Customisable Configuration Backups – Allows you to customise and manually trigger the backup and compression processes
2. 1-Click Configuration Backup – Immediately backs up the Lightroom configuration files and Catalog backups using your previously configured settings, and optionally displays the results of the backup process.

Due to the vagaries of my own personal experience, namely recent Blue Screens Of Death that corrupted my Lightroom preferences file, I focused on backing up that file and forgot to include presets, plugins and other important pieces of the Lightroom configuration information.  The latest release will now backup all of these and more.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Config Backup Plugin Updated… To Backup More Configuration Settings (Version 20090606.002)

Related Posts:

• The Quick Way to Reclaim Disk Space and Backup Your Lightroom Configuration (13)
• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)
• Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web (0)

Update: A newer version of this plugin is now available. 
Please visit the LR Backup plugin page (formerly Config Backup) to download the latest version, and find the latest documentation for the plugin.

It is vital that every Adobe Photoshop Lightroom user backup their catalog and configuration files.  If you don’t and your catalog gets corrupted, the results of all the time and effort you invested retouching your photos disappears.  While you can use the “Automatically write changes into XMP” setting to work around the catalog corruption issue you will suffer a performance penalty for enabling it.  Most find its easier to use Lightroom’s built in capability to regularly backup your catalog.

One obvious downside of backing up is the increased consumption of disk.  For example my backups for a ~10000 photo catalog are around 220Mb each.  Multiply that by 52 backups a year and 11Gb of my laptop’s limited disk capacity is spent on something I’ll hopefully never need to use.  Compressing each backup is an effective way to combat this, and in my experience catalogs zip to approximately 10% of their original size, but it is yet another task you need to undertake to keep disk space under control.

I’ve developed a backup plugin to help speed up and simplify backing up and compressing Lightroom files.  It adds two new menu items to the File menu’s Plug-in Extras sub-menu.

1. Customisable Configuration Backups – Allows you to customise and manually trigger the backup and compression processes
2. 1-Click Configuration Backup – Immediately backs up the Lightroom Preferences File and Catalog backups using your previously configured settings, and optionally displays the results of the backup process.

The Customisable Configuration Backups menu item calls up the dialog shown to the left.  It allows you to specify where preference file backups should be stored, displays summary details of backups currently found at that location, and to request a new backup be created.

The catalog compression section assumes you are using Lightroom’s inbuilt capability to create catalog backups.  You supply the details of where Lightroom stores those backups, choose a location for the compressed version of those backups, and then request the backups be compressed.  All backups will be compressed into separate zip files named after the catalog and date/time of the backup.  You can also choose to move, rather than copy, the backups into the zip files once you are comfortable everything is working properly.

The 1-Click Configuration Backup menu item automatically backs up the preferences file and compresses all catalog backups using the preferences last used in the Customisable Configuration Backups dialog.  It optionally displays the results using a cutdown version of the main dialog.  If you wish to enable or disable the displaying of the results dialog use the “Show Results After 1-Click Backup” option at the bottom of either the Customisable or 1-Click dialogs.

I hope you find this plugin useful and please feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.   A big thank you goes out to Sean over at the Lightroom Blog for testing the plugin to ensure it was Mac compatible.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

The Quick Way to Reclaim Disk Space and Backup Your Lightroom Configuration

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My Export Backup plugin for Lightroom 2 (in Adobe speak, a post-process action) has been updated today.  The new version contains some usability updates:

• Destination folder now has a “Most Recently Used” (MRU) drop down list to help you quickly export files to your favourite folders.  A delete button (the minus sign next to the drop down arrow) helps you clean up folders you no longer want kept in the list.
• A separate subfolder field has been added, similar to that found in the Export to Files Export Service.
• Windows Explorer or Finder can show the backed up files once the export completes.

With this release I now have all of the main features I need for my own purposes.  Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other features that should be added.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: Latest version of Export Backup zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called export-backup.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the File\Plugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the export-backup.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done.

Usage

Next time you export files you will notice an Export Backup entry in the Export dialog’s Post-Process Actions list.  

To use this feature:

1. Select the Export Backup entry, then press the Insert button.  Note: The Insert button will remain inactive if you select the wrong Export Backup entry.  This will add an Export Backup Location section near the end of the Export dialog.
2. Either manually enter or choose the base directory where the rendered files should be copied. 
3. If desired, specify a subfolder to be appended to the folder name.  This is typically used to enter the album/collection name or any other folder name that changes from export to export.
4. Select either Overwrite or Skip option, depending upon how you want to proceed if the same files already exist in the destination directory.
5. Continue with your file export as usual.

When you export your files to Flickr, Gallery 2 or whatever photo hosting service you use, you will now also have a local copy of the rendered output for your own records. 

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003)

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Update: A newer version of this plugin is now available. 
Please visit the Export Backup plugin page to download the latest version, and find the latest documentation for the plugin.

Today I’m publicly releasing my first Lightroom 2 plugin.  Its a simple export post-process action that addresses an oversight in the Lightroom 2 export functionality – that there is no way to backup the images rendered while exporting from Lightroom to a web site.  These images are generated, uploaded then discarded without giving the user any option to intervene and keep these images.

While it is possible to use the “Files on Disk” export service to achieve a similar result, I found this to be a cumbersome workflow. A second export is required to make up for the missing functionality, and this approach is error prone because you may not remember to reapply all of the same settings.  Not to mention the time it takes to run the export and wait for it to re-render the files.

There are many reasons you might want to retain these files. 

• If you have read and follow advice in Peter Krogh’s The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, you will be keeping copies of all derivative files you deliver to your clients. 
• As a Lightroom user you are probably shooting photos using a raw format, and your family members might not be using image viewers that can cope with these formats. 
• If you are anything like me you won’t want people in your household to download your photos from the web when they could quickly and easily copy them from your PC. 

For these and other reasons I decided to write a plugin to fill this gap.

Installation

1. Download the plugin: Latest version of Export Backup zip
2. Copy the file where you want the plugin to permanently reside, then unzip the file.  This should create a sub-directory called export-backup.lrplugin.
3. Open Lightroom 2, then select the FilePlugin Manager menu option.
4. Press the Add button, select the export-backup.lrplugin directory created in step 2, then press OK.
5. The plugin is now installed and enabled.  Press Done..

Usage

Next time you export files you will notice an Export Backup entry in the Export dialog’s Post-Process Actions list. 

To use this feature:

1. Select the Export Backup entry, then press the Insert button.  Note: The Insert button will remain inactive if you select the wrong Export Backup entry.  This will add an Export Backup section near the end of the Export dialog.
2. Either manually enter or choose the directory where the rendered files should be copied.
3. Select either Overwrite or Ignore option, depending upon how you want to proceed if the same files already exist in the destination directory.
4. Continue with your file export as usual.

When you export your files to Flickr, Gallery 2 or whatever photo hosting service you use, you will now also have a local copy of the rendered output for your own records. 

I hope you find this plugin useful and feel free to share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Backup Your Rendered Images When Exporting From Lightroom 2 To The Web

Related Posts:

• Export Backup Plugin for Lightroom 2 Updated (Version 20090208.003) (14)
• New Plugin Brings Lightroom and Photoshop Elements Together At Last (25)
• Config Backup Plugin Updated… To Backup More Configuration Settings (Version 20090606.002) (12)