Computer crushed and backups are gone... possible to restore?

Question

Hello everyone, I am very frustrated right now... my PC was forced to do a factory restore recently. Meaning my LR backups are all gone!
All I have are the original photos (non-edited) and the edited photos. I have imported those original photos to LR4 already, but is there any method to correspond them with the edited photos? I don't want to edit all of my photos once again... and they won't be the same as my previous edit anyways
(p.s. tried to import edited photos but it doesn't show any "edited information" like clarity / saturation / crops etc.)
big help needed, thanks a million in advance!

Answer 1

sunnychik wrote:
(and I guess my facebook photos wouldn't be able to do the same thing right? as they weren't uploaded as HQ...)
The resolution of the exported image does not matter, as the technique only takes the develop info out of the exported image and embeds it into the original. So as long as you have the originals of your facebook photos, and facebook did not strip the XMP data from your uploads, they'll be fine.
may I know how exactly you did this through Exif tools ?
This is the technique that can be used:
(I'm assuming that you have a file "xxxx - LR.jpg" as export, along with a file xxxx.jpg as original for all images you want to recover)
1) Download and install ExifTool
Download the "Windows Executable" ZIP file from this page:http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
Open the ZIP file and extract the file exiftool(-k).exe to some folder on your harddisk, then rename the file to exiftool.exe
(let's assume you extract the file to folder C:\ExifTool, and I'll use this directory in future references)
2) Create some folders
Create a folder to contain the images to be worked on, i.e. C:\Temp, with subfolders "Originals" and "Exports"
3) Open Command Windows for Originals / Exports
In Windows Explorer, Shift+RightClick on folder C:\Temp\Originals and choose "Open Command Window Here"
The resulting command window will look like this:
In Windows Explorer, Shift+RightClick on folder C:\Temp\Exports and choose "Open Command Window Here"
The resulting command window will look like this:
These two command windows will be called "cmd-Originals" and "cmd-Exports" in furhter references
Perform this procedure for each folder of Originals/Exported images:
Please make sure you enter the command exactly as written here. You can copy them from here using Ctrl-C and insert them into a command window using Right-Click+Insert (Ctrl-V will not work in a command window).
4) Copy Originals to folder Originals
Using Windows Explorer, copy all originals of one specific folder into C:\Temp\Originals
5) Copy Exported JPEGs to folder Exports
Using Windows Explorer, copy all exported derivates of these originals into C:\Temp\Exports
6) Extract XMP Files from Exported JPEGs
In command window cmd-Exports, enter the following command to extract XMP files from your exported JPEGs, whereby cutting the last 5 characters from the filename, hence making "xxxx.xmp" out of "xxxx - LR.jpg":
C:\ExifTool\exiftool -o %d%-.5f.xmp "* - LR.jpg"
This will result in as many *.xmp files as there were "xxxx - LR.jpg" files in the directory (the confirmation will say "nn image files created").
7) Modify XMP files to AlreadyApplied=False
In command window cmd-Exports, enter the following command to change the value of the tag "AlreadApplied" in all XMP files to "False":
C:\ExifTool\exiftool -xmp:AlreadyApplied="False" -overwrite_original *.xmp
(the confirmation will say "nn image files updated")
8) Move XMP files to folder Originals
Using Windows Explorer, move all the files with extension *.xmp from folder C:\Temp\Exports to C:\Temp\Originals
The XMP files should now carry the same base name as your originals in the folder C:\Temp\Originals
9) Embed the XMP files into the Originals
In command window cmd-Originals, enter the following command to embed the content of all *.xmp files into the existing JPEG originals with the same base name:
C:\ExifTool\exiftool -ext jpg -tagsfromfile %d%f.xmp -overwrite_original *
(the confirmation will say "nn image files updated")
10) Move Originals back to where they came from
Using Windows Explorer, move all the files (*.jpg+*.xmp) from folder C:\Temp\Originals into a subfolder of the folder you originally copied your originals from in step 4). (i.e. "Recovered_Originals")
11) Delete content of folder Exports
Using Windows Explorer, delete all files from folder C:\Temp\Exports
(both Exports and Originals should be empty by now)
12) Import Originals into LR
Import the files from "Recovered_Originals" into LR and see if the result is what you were looking for.
13) Back to Step 4 with the next set of Originals/Exports
I would recommend to practice this procedure with a few images to start with, and check if everything runs to your satisfaction. Then go ahead and do the bulk part.
Beat
P.S: Come back here if you get stuck or anything does not behave as described. I'll be out of town for a few days though, so a possible answer will have to wait till the end of the week.
Message was edited by: b_gossweiler