Can I salvage my photos?

[Debra_Shawver]

I had over 700 pictures from a trip to Iceland, and I put them into lightroom 4. I deleted the originals from my computer and the camera's SD card. I can still access the photos in light room, but it won't let me export. Is there any way that I can get my photos from lightroom into a folder on my computer?

[Debra_Shawver]

Also it wont let me print because the source files have been deleted

[Per Berntsen · Accepted solution]

Your photos were never "in" Lightroom.

When you do an import, the photos are referenced by the Lightroom catalog (which is a database), and no new copies of the files are created. (unless you used the "Make a second copy to" option when importing).

So when you deleted the originals, they are gone, except if they are still in the Recycle bin/Trash, in which case you can restore them.

All the work you do in Lightroom is done with previews, and the previews from the Library Module can be extracted.

Unless you chose to create 1:1 previews, they will have smaller pixel dimensions than the originals.

See Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “Extract Cached Image Previews” Lightroom Plugin

[Todd Shaner]

You may be able to restore the files. Look in the Recycle bin on Windows or Trash on a Mac system.

[Debra_Shawver]

The pictures are from a long time ago, and I must have emptied the recycle bin, because the pictures are not there.

[dj_paige]

Restore the photos from your backups.