Preserving keywording in Lightroom when burning to DVD

My hard drive is filling up and I want to archive images to DVD. The images on my hard drive have

been imported into Lightroom, and I have keyworded a lot of them. I note that when I burn DVDs,

the keywords don't go with the images (which makes sense, because I'm moving the images

around, not the Lightroom library). My question: how can I get Lightroom to realize the images have

moved, and where they have moved to? I would think there would be some straightforward way to

cause the database to reflect the new location of the images, and to not lose all the effort I have

made entering keywords for the files.

You need to make a collection of the photos you want on a given DVD, and then export the collection as a catalog. Then burn the catalog to a DVD. The catalog is the database that contains all the metadata that Lightroom associates with the photos.

Instead of creating a collection, it is possible to export to a catalog from a folder. Just right click on any folder and select the "export as catalog option". Be certain to "include negative files". In Lightroom speak, that means Lightroom will make copies of all the original RAW and other files in the folder and place the copies into the folder that contains the new catalog.

 

Once complete, burn the DVD from the entire folder hierarchy that contains the catalog and the copies of the image files. Once the DVD backup copy is complete, you can delete the copy of the catalog that is on the hard drive, since it is safely stored on the DVD.

 

This is how I make backup copies of each and all of my projects on a regular basis. For large projects, good DVD burning software has an option to build multiple DVD sets. Once available, it may be helpful to have a Blu-Ray burner drive so that it will be possible to create even larger discs. The new Blu-Ray burners can create discs up 25GB and 50GB depending on format.

 

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/05/27/lacie.doubles.drive.speed/

That sounds like it would work. Thank you; I'll try it.