I need some help. I'm planning to reformat my PC soon because I recently got some viruses, and no matter what I do, I just can't seem to get rid of them all. And I figure it'd be a good time to clean out my computer.....hopefully it'll run a little faster afterwards.

The thing is, I am in the middle of editing several weddings/shoots in Lightroom. LR is running slower than normal, making it difficult and tedious for me to complete and export them. And I figure there has to be a better way.

How do I save all the develop settings on all of my pictures so that when I reinstall Lightroom and import the pictures again, I can just pick up from where I left off? This may have been mentioned here before, but I'm not fully understanding all the steps and terminology. Can you break it down for me?

Also, you know how when you start up Lightroom it asks if you want to backup the library? What does that do?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance.

I think I would export my images in TIFF or PSD (not jpeg) and back up on an external drive or cd. I would do the same thing with my presets so you can load them back in after re-installinbg LR. I'm not sure if that's the most efficient way but it'll work and keep your processed images the way they are for now.

hmmm....well i think there should be a way to either export the xmp files or save an archive of the folders.....but i'm not exactly sure how or which I should do.

You can save the xmp files in the same location as the originals....

(while on the Library tab)

Metadata --> XMP --> Export XMP Metadata to files

If you ever need to unarchive something, use 'Import Metadata"



There is also a preference to always have the xmp file written whenever you work on a photo. The changes will automatically be saved that way.