How to Create/Locate Offline Photographs, Revisited

Question

I hope this updated procedure may be useful to others:  I believe that I have evolved a viable scheme (in Lightroom 2.4 under Windows XP), both for importing old photographs that had been burned onto CD/DVD, and for burning and moving offline new photographs that have been imported directly from a camera onto the hard drive in LR.  The goal is to get ALL photos into the online LR catalog while keeping the most recent image files online only until enough inactive ones have accumulated to fill a new CD/DVD.  If anyone still archiving to CD/DVD has the patience to read through this long post, any corrections or improvements would be greatly appreciated!  (In any case, it's been helpful to me to write it up.)
0) Background:  My old photo CDs (ISO 9669 Mode 1 Level II) each contain a parent directory named according camera/photographer (e.g., "MY_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS") and numerous sub-directories named either by capture date or by import date, according to the proprietary software that was originally used to import them.  These CDs also have hand-written disk names (e.g., "My Canon Photographs III") by which they can be manually identified.  (I didn't bother giving the CDs unique electronic names, nor does it appear that it would have helped much if I had.  Am I wrong here?)  One of my goals is to keep this disk labeling and directory structure as consistent as possible going forward, burning new disks with third-party software that features a verify-after-burn cycle (and using high-quality media, of course) for data security.  Minor differences in date format of the old, proprietarily generated folder names also makes it convenient to keep them segregated under separate parent directories in LR, as on the CDs themselves (see section 2 below).
1) To import pre-existing photographs from CD/DVD into a LR catalog WITHOUT moving the image files to the HD (the easy part):  Insert the CD and click "File/Import Photos from Disk..."  Select the parent directory on the CD.  (This parent should be reflected in a parent folder within the LR catalog.  If not, right-click on any of the new dated sub-folders and select "Add Parent Folder.")  Click "Import All Photos in Selected Folder," and wait for "Computing dates..." to complete.  Under File Handling select "Add photos to catalog without moving."  Under Keywords, add the name written on the CD/DVD (e.g., "CD-My_Canon_Photographs_III"), along with any other desired keywords.  (This keywording is the step that allows the offline source of individual catalogued photos to be manually identified.)  Click Import.  Note that keywords should not contain spaces; substitute hyphens, underscores, or similar.  The LR Text filter -- the only facility that allows a "Don't Contain," or logical NOT, option -- does not currently allow searches on phrases containing spaces.  (The familiar Windows quote marks don't work.)
2) To import new photos from a camera to HD in LR (also easy):  Connect the camera and click "File/Import Photos from Device..."  Under File Handling retain "Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog."  Under Copy to, choose an exsiting, or create a new, parent directory, as appropriate (e.g., "...\My Pictures\Lightroom\MY_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS" -- this to maintain consistency with existing CD structure).  Under Organize choose "By date: YYYY-MM-DD" (according to your preference), and leave File Naming as "Filename" or change as desired.  (Note that in my case there are slight differences in date format in LR as compared to the old proprietary software used for earlier CDs, e.g., hypens in place of underscores.  If these will create folder-sequencing problems in the catalog later on, it is best to use a different parent directory for the LR-imported pictures -- e.g., "LR_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS.")  Under Keywords, add something like "NOT_YET_ARCHIVED" (as a reminder) along with any other desired keywords.  Click Import.  If at the end of the process you don't see the parent folder in the LR catalog, right-click on any of the new dated sub-folders and select "Add Parent Folder."
3) To burn new photos to CD/DVD and delete them from the HD (the tricky part):
      a) First, use LR's "Library/New Folder" to create a unique new parent directory on the HD (e.g., "Photo DVD II" -- this may as well become the name hand-written on the optical disk for later manual identification), in my case under "...\My Pictures\Lightroom\," to contain the entire directory structure that you want to burn to a SINGLE optical disk.  In my case this structure consists of a sequence of dated subdirectories under one or more existing parent directories like "LR_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS."  Then, still in LR, drag and drop these existing parent directories onto the new parent, one by one.  These steps are important, as they will greatly simplify the process of redirecting the LR catalog to point to the new offline files -- see step 3.c below.  Finally, select all of the photos in this directory structure and (in the Grid view!) add a keyword (e.g., "DVD-Photo_DVD_II"), to be sure that you will know which offline media to load when you want access to these photographs in the future.
      b) It may be wise at this point to select the relevant directory structure and click "Metadata/Save Metadata to Files," to make sure that all of your metadata work will be saved in the image files on CD/DVD.  Then close LR and use third-party burning software (with verify!) to burn the above directory structure, INCLUDING the newly created parent directory, onto the CD/DVD.  Don't forget to hand-write a name on the disk (in this case, "Photo DVD II") by which it can be manually identified later.
      c) Restart LR, right-click on the newly created parent folder (in this example, "Photo DVD II"), and select "Update Folder Location..."  Navigate to the corresponding parent (now root) directory on the new CD/DVD, and click OK.  This procedure should re-link all the sub-folders and photographs in the newly burned part of the LR catalog to the corresponding directories/image files on the optical disk.  You will see these sub-folders disappear from under the HD heading and re-appear in the newly created parent folder under the optical-drive heading.  (Again, if you don't see this parent folder in the LR catalog, right-click on any of the newly burned, second-level folders and select "Add Parent Folder.")
      d) Only after you are completely satisfied that the CD/DVD burn was successful and your photographs are safe, close LR and (using the Windows Explorer, or whatever) delete the newly burned directory structure from the HD.  Back in LR, the thumbnails and metadata for the now-moved photographs will still be accessible in the appropriate folders under the optical drive.  If the CD/DVD is removed, the directory structure will be "grayed out," with question marks to indicate "missing" folders; but browsing, keywording, etc. can still be done.  If you want to "Develop" or otherwise work with the actual images, you have only to identify the correct optical media and re-insert it into the drive.  If you want to do extensive work on, or otherwise re-catalog, these photographs, however, you can always (outside LR) copy the entire directory tree from the optical drive back onto the HD and then reverse the process described in 3.c above to re-link the catalog to the on-line copy.
      e) Finally, delete the "NOT YET ARCHIVED" keyword on all of the burned photographs, now in the CD/DVD folder.  (Don't forget to Select All in the Grid view!)
      f) Just one more thought.  Some evidently feel that DVDs are not reliable long-term storage.  My current solution to this potential problem is to burn the original photographs onto CD-R's, structured similarly to the old CDs described in Section 0 above, as soon as they are imported, before any work is done on them in LR.  These CDs can be stored offsite, just in case the DVDs fail.  Personally, however, I don't want to maintain a RAID system of external hard drives, and I trust DVD+R's more than I trust the HD in my laptop.
Thanks in advance for any comments. -- JClarkW

Answer 1

I hope this updated procedure may be useful to others:  I believe that I have evolved a viable scheme (in Lightroom 2.4 under Windows XP), both for importing old photographs that had been burned onto CD/DVD, and for burning and moving offline new photographs that have been imported directly from a camera onto the hard drive in LR.  The goal is to get ALL photos into the online LR catalog while keeping the most recent image files online only until enough inactive ones have accumulated to fill a new CD/DVD.  If anyone still archiving to CD/DVD has the patience to read through this long post, any corrections or improvements would be greatly appreciated!  (In any case, it's been helpful to me to write it up.)
0) Background:  My old photo CDs (ISO 9669 Mode 1 Level II) each contain a parent directory named according camera/photographer (e.g., "MY_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS") and numerous sub-directories named either by capture date or by import date, according to the proprietary software that was originally used to import them.  These CDs also have hand-written disk names (e.g., "My Canon Photographs III") by which they can be manually identified.  (I didn't bother giving the CDs unique electronic names, nor does it appear that it would have helped much if I had.  Am I wrong here?)  One of my goals is to keep this disk labeling and directory structure as consistent as possible going forward, burning new disks with third-party software that features a verify-after-burn cycle (and using high-quality media, of course) for data security.  Minor differences in date format of the old, proprietarily generated folder names also makes it convenient to keep them segregated under separate parent directories in LR, as on the CDs themselves (see section 2 below).
1) To import pre-existing photographs from CD/DVD into a LR catalog WITHOUT moving the image files to the HD (the easy part):  Insert the CD and click "File/Import Photos from Disk..."  Select the parent directory on the CD.  (This parent should be reflected in a parent folder within the LR catalog.  If not, right-click on any of the new dated sub-folders and select "Add Parent Folder.")  Click "Import All Photos in Selected Folder," and wait for "Computing dates..." to complete.  Under File Handling select "Add photos to catalog without moving."  Under Keywords, add the name written on the CD/DVD (e.g., "CD-My_Canon_Photographs_III"), along with any other desired keywords.  (This keywording is the step that allows the offline source of individual catalogued photos to be manually identified.)  Click Import.  Note that keywords should not contain spaces; substitute hyphens, underscores, or similar.  The LR Text filter -- the only facility that allows a "Don't Contain," or logical NOT, option -- does not currently allow searches on phrases containing spaces.  (The familiar Windows quote marks don't work.)
2) To import new photos from a camera to HD in LR (also easy):  Connect the camera and click "File/Import Photos from Device..."  Under File Handling retain "Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog."  Under Copy to, choose an exsiting, or create a new, parent directory, as appropriate (e.g., "...\My Pictures\Lightroom\MY_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS" -- this to maintain consistency with existing CD structure).  Under Organize choose "By date: YYYY-MM-DD" (according to your preference), and leave File Naming as "Filename" or change as desired.  (Note that in my case there are slight differences in date format in LR as compared to the old proprietary software used for earlier CDs, e.g., hypens in place of underscores.  If these will create folder-sequencing problems in the catalog later on, it is best to use a different parent directory for the LR-imported pictures -- e.g., "LR_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS.")  Under Keywords, add something like "NOT_YET_ARCHIVED" (as a reminder) along with any other desired keywords.  Click Import.  If at the end of the process you don't see the parent folder in the LR catalog, right-click on any of the new dated sub-folders and select "Add Parent Folder."
3) To burn new photos to CD/DVD and delete them from the HD (the tricky part):
      a) First, use LR's "Library/New Folder" to create a unique new parent directory on the HD (e.g., "Photo DVD II" -- this may as well become the name hand-written on the optical disk for later manual identification), in my case under "...\My Pictures\Lightroom\," to contain the entire directory structure that you want to burn to a SINGLE optical disk.  In my case this structure consists of a sequence of dated subdirectories under one or more existing parent directories like "LR_CANON_PHOTOGRAPHS."  Then, still in LR, drag and drop these existing parent directories onto the new parent, one by one.  These steps are important, as they will greatly simplify the process of redirecting the LR catalog to point to the new offline files -- see step 3.c below.  Finally, select all of the photos in this directory structure and (in the Grid view!) add a keyword (e.g., "DVD-Photo_DVD_II"), to be sure that you will know which offline media to load when you want access to these photographs in the future.
      b) It may be wise at this point to select the relevant directory structure and click "Metadata/Save Metadata to Files," to make sure that all of your metadata work will be saved in the image files on CD/DVD.  Then close LR and use third-party burning software (with verify!) to burn the above directory structure, INCLUDING the newly created parent directory, onto the CD/DVD.  Don't forget to hand-write a name on the disk (in this case, "Photo DVD II") by which it can be manually identified later.
      c) Restart LR, right-click on the newly created parent folder (in this example, "Photo DVD II"), and select "Update Folder Location..."  Navigate to the corresponding parent (now root) directory on the new CD/DVD, and click OK.  This procedure should re-link all the sub-folders and photographs in the newly burned part of the LR catalog to the corresponding directories/image files on the optical disk.  You will see these sub-folders disappear from under the HD heading and re-appear in the newly created parent folder under the optical-drive heading.  (Again, if you don't see this parent folder in the LR catalog, right-click on any of the newly burned, second-level folders and select "Add Parent Folder.")
      d) Only after you are completely satisfied that the CD/DVD burn was successful and your photographs are safe, close LR and (using the Windows Explorer, or whatever) delete the newly burned directory structure from the HD.  Back in LR, the thumbnails and metadata for the now-moved photographs will still be accessible in the appropriate folders under the optical drive.  If the CD/DVD is removed, the directory structure will be "grayed out," with question marks to indicate "missing" folders; but browsing, keywording, etc. can still be done.  If you want to "Develop" or otherwise work with the actual images, you have only to identify the correct optical media and re-insert it into the drive.  If you want to do extensive work on, or otherwise re-catalog, these photographs, however, you can always (outside LR) copy the entire directory tree from the optical drive back onto the HD and then reverse the process described in 3.c above to re-link the catalog to the on-line copy.
      e) Finally, delete the "NOT YET ARCHIVED" keyword on all of the burned photographs, now in the CD/DVD folder.  (Don't forget to Select All in the Grid view!)
      f) Just one more thought.  Some evidently feel that DVDs are not reliable long-term storage.  My current solution to this potential problem is to burn the original photographs onto CD-R's, structured similarly to the old CDs described in Section 0 above, as soon as they are imported, before any work is done on them in LR.  These CDs can be stored offsite, just in case the DVDs fail.  Personally, however, I don't want to maintain a RAID system of external hard drives, and I trust DVD+R's more than I trust the HD in my laptop.
Thanks in advance for any comments. -- JClarkW