Recover edit from LR Mobile

[JPBROCHU]

I need help.

I was working on a big project when my external hard drive with all my photos and LR library/catalog failed. Sent to a recovery company and my disk in unrecoverable. Fortunately for me, I had a backup from the month before.

The problem is that I don't have all the edits I have done to my photos in the past weeks because I lost my LR catalog.

But lot of my pictures were synch with Lightroom mobile, so the edits are still there, online. The problem is that, even if my backup has the same catalog name than the one synched with LR Mobile, I didn't not synch (that specific collection) at the time of that backup.

My question : is there any way I could get back what was synced on LR Mobile so I could recover the edit I've done and linked them back to my RAW files that are in my library?

I'm not sure If I'm clear... Thank you for your help.

[cmgap]

What is the use of these images... is it high end printing, online media posting, a printed book, slide show...? You may already know that you can download the latest version of an image as a jpg. from Lr mobile which will have the edits that you made in Lr Mobile.  That may suffice in the short term.

Have you restored your catalog from the backup yet? Did you recreate the same collection yet? The edits made while using Lr Mobile will sync to your local Lr catalog when you are next logged in if nothing else has changed. Lr mobile won't know that you've recreated the collection it will try to sync to it as it always does.

[JPBROCHU]

Thank you for your help,

Yes, I need more resolution than just the JPG from LR Mobile.

So, if I understand correctly, I could recreate the collection using the same name and same pictures and by synching it with LR Mobile I would get my edits back? And not the other way around? I was under the impression that the desktop version would replace the LR Mobile edits because, in a sense, they would be the last to have been "modified".

Thank you very much

[cmgap · Accepted solution]

My question : is there any way I could get back what was synced on LR Mobile so I could recover the edit I've done and linked them back to my RAW files that are in my library?

The only thing that you can retrieve from Lr mobile are jpgs of the smart previews made from the desktop version.

I misread your post. If the last edits you made are not included in your most recent Lighroom backup you will have to edit them again. The Lr mobile files will be for reference only at this point.

[JPBROCHU]

Ok thank you very much for taking the time to help me.

One last thought. If I would recreate the collection using the same name and pictures on my desktop while "offline". Then, log in lightroom mobile with my computer browser and do a minor correction on each photo (let’s say add 1% sharpen on all of them) to make the LR Mobile the latest edit version and after that synch my library. Do you think that could work...? I mean, if I can make correction on my iPad, and open my desktop library after that and see the changes, there must be some system that tells LR to use the most recent edits somehow....

[cmgap]

Sorry that won't work. Your Lr mobile collections are tied to the smart previews that were made when the collection was first synced. When you restore from your backup Lr won't have those smart previews from that synced collection. If you try further editing on that collection, you will get an error that says something along the lines of trying again later. Not a very useful message but it can't write the edits to a file that doesn't exist anymore.

The only thing you can do is download the lo-res files for reference.

Also - Lr mobile does not have the ability to sharpen images at this time.

[selondon]

If you log in to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and upload your originals to the relevant location it replaces the Smart Previews in the Cloud, as it knows they are the same, but I'm guessing it doesn't honour the edits then? Is it worth a test on one at least?

[cmgap]

I did test this and consulted with a colleague. The good news is the original images were not lost. The lesson learned is to create relevant backups on a consistent schedule. If you've done a good amount of work on a major project - back it up.