Save / Move images to LaCie Rugged-hard drive

[tzerca]

I have edited around 3-4 images in RAW. The images are stored on my LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt-hard drive, and I have copied the images so I can edit them in Lightroom, but after I have edited these 3-4 RAW-images, I noticed that the images are just copied to my "Photos"-folder on my MacBook Air, and they are stored locally on my MacBook Air. I'm using a LaCie-hard drive because I want to store these RAW-files on the hard drive.

How can I safely and securely, use the images in Lightroom, but don't make any copies or store anything locally, but rather store it on the hard drive, instead of storing it locally? I think that I have to move the folders that is sorted by different dates from the "Photos"-folder directly over to the hard drive, but maybe that is wrong?

Do you have any advice or help?

I want to keep the edit on all these images, and keep all quality.

Best Regards,

Gerhard Øpsen

[dj_paige]

COuld you clear up your terminology? You talk about "hard drive", "storing it locally", "LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt-hard drive", "MacBook Air" and I don't really think I am grasping your terminology. Where are the photos now? Where do you want them to be??

[tzerca]

Hi! Thank you for quick answer!

Right now, my photos are stored on my hard drive, but when I'm importing the images, Lightroom is copying them to "Photos"-folder on Mac, and it's sorting them in different dates (check screenshot).

Here you can see it on my Mac.

I want to store all images on my hard drive, and not locally, as you can see here. I'm wondering if it's safe to just mark these folders and drag it over to the hard drive, or if I need to tell Lightroom that it should store the images on the hard drive? Or do I have to tell Lightroom about this under import? I already have around 3 images in RAW that it's fully edited in Lightroom and it's stored locally. How can I move them over to my hard drive without destroying them, or without creating a lot of mess in Lightroom? I want to move them safely and securely. And do I have to create a new folder on my hard drive when the existing edited images are being moved over to my hard drive? Where can I change store destination in Lightroom? Where I can I tell Lightroom to stop storing images locally, and rather storing them on my hard drive?

In future images that I should edit (RAW) in Lightroom, I'm considering using the "add-feature".

What do you think about that, and what will you recommend me to do in this situation?

Best Regards,

Gerhard Øpsen

[ManiacJoe · Accepted solution]

If your images are already on the external hard drive, and that is where you want to keep them, then the correct import option is "add" so that the images stay where you have them. The copy and move options do exactly that to your images during the import process.