Exporting Images

[realdereal]

How long does it take to export 200 images from Lightroom to your external hard drive? It took soooo long to export like 40 and am cringing thinking about larger upcoming sessions.

[revi]

How long is a piece of string?...

Sorry, but that's impossible to say from just the information you provide. It depends on image size, file format, quality settings (if applicable), computer, disk type, connection, ...
Rule of thumb would be that 200 images take 5× as long as 40. If you describe exactly what you do, some might be able to give you tips on how to speed up the transfer. Otherwise, what I try to do is transfer everything in one go at the end of a session, while I'm doing something else.

[Shadowman]

I always export immediately after editing, one at a time-meaning I'll start the second edit while the first completed edit is being exported. Are you keeping 200 or so images open during the editing stage? That would mean you'd need sufficient RAM just to hold these files in limbo.

If you already saved these files to your internal drive and are transferring to another drive then it's usually about one minute per file, depending on what adjustments (resizing) you've made.

[realdereal]

Umk. So shooting in RAW. importing the session using Lightroom into an external drive. Developing in Lightroom, selecting all, then exporting the entire session as JPEGs about 10-11 MB each back to the external drive. Zthat help?

[RustBeltRaw]

Not really. Potential bottlenecks include RAM capacity and speed, central processor speed, graphics processor speed and available RAM, and external drive write speed. If a process takes a while, I recommend just running it before you go to bed. Lightroom, Photoshop, and even Bridge include some pretty good tools for automating large batches of post work. How long did the 40 shots take?

[Shadowman]

Umk. So shooting in RAW. importing the session using Lightroom into an external drive. Developing in Lightroom, selecting all, then exporting the entire session as JPEGs about 10-11 MB each back to the external drive. Zthat help?

It sounds like you are developing in LR and storing on the internal drive then exporting. Otherwise, you're risking the loss of a lot of data. Either that or you are batch processing all of your imported files in the same manner then exporting, either way as Lex says, you are dependent on all of the components of your system moving and writing to the external disk.

[realdereal]

How long did the 40 shots take?

About 10-20 minutes

[proseak]

Umk. So shooting in RAW. importing the session using Lightroom into an external drive. Developing in Lightroom, selecting all, then exporting the entire session as JPEGs about 10-11 MB each back to the external drive. Zthat help?

I think the problem is that you're reading from an external, and writing back... to the same external. Externals tend to be slower in any case.

Try copying over to an internal, developing &exporting there and copy/move when finished.

HTH

Peter