Lightroom processing

I am still learning LR and the way it works. But if I import to LR and process some of the images now and then close LR and come back to finish the rest latter will the adjustments I made be saved in LR? Or do you have to export to save the adjustments?

And I understand none of the changes made in LR effect the RAW image??

LR saves the adjustments. And yes, the adjustments do not affect RAW files. The adjustments are saved in the LR database.

viatorum777 wrote in post #3274940
LR saves the adjustments. And yes, the adjustments do not affect RAW files. The adjustments are saved in the LR database.

Great so matter how much later I come back to finish the adjustments will still be there?

Thanks, which now brings up another question. Since the adjustments are saved in LR database, I must assume this will take up a lot of hard drive space over a period of time?

If so, should one delete items from the Library once all adjustments are made and saved to hard drive to free up usable space?

Lightroom stores all adjustments in the database, so you'll be pleased to know it won't affect your jpegs either!

The Lightroom database is stored in an SQLite format, and being all text, it should stay a fairly reasonable size indefinitely. I've heard of databases reaching 100,000 images and still being manageable, although it can slow up LR by that stage! The only thing which could get a bit too big is the previews, which you can choose to delete every so often, and it will re-render the ones it needs.

Make sure you back up your database from time to time, as the greatest risk it corruption. You could also use Metadata > XMP > Export Metadata to Sidecar files as a good backup mechanism - this will write all of your changes to xmp sidecar files next to the originals (or writes back to the jpegs if not raw).

To add to what Victoria said, if you work on a lot of images in one session you might want to start up LR again right after shutting it down, as it does its backup on startup not on shutdown.

canon shooter wrote in post #3274952
Great so matter how much later I come back to finish the adjustments will still be there?

Thanks, which now brings up another question. Since the adjustments are saved in LR database, I must assume this will take up a lot of hard drive space over a period of time?

If so, should one delete items from the Library once all adjustments are made and saved to hard drive to free up usable space?

1) The "edits" are stored in XMP files. The largest I have is 9 KB, hardly an issue. The only other files I can find are the CR2 (Raw files), the largest of which is about 8,000 KB.

2) I'm not aware of any method of deleting items from the Library, and still having them available. Perhaps someone else can answer this.

I work only in Lightroom, so there are no TIFF, DNG, or PSD files of the same images, which incidentally can be gigantic compared to RAW files.

It seems to me that LR is the most efficient program in terms of storage of images because it doesn't have to convert files to another format - which all other programs must do as far as I know.

EDIT: Just read the comments by Victoria and Rick - very good advice - regular backups, and exiting LR and starting again (I've discovered that trick).

Another way to do it would be to export your settings to DNG files which would allow you to delete the images from your LR library without losing the adjustments. I really haven't played much with it because I can't store full-size previews there yet, but will have the ability in1.1.

Further to Glenn's post, automatic creation of (and synchronisation with) XMP files isn't the default - though I'd recommend it, particularly if you want to share settings with Adobe Camera Raw.

Look on the File Management tab in Preferences - the setting you want is "Automatically write changes into XMP" under Metadata.

David

The ability of LR to make adjustments without changing the originals is a great feature. In addition you can make multiple changes to the same file store all the changes and still never effect the original.

DavidW wrote in post #3275151
Further to Glenn's post, automatic creation of (and synchronisation with) XMP files isn't the default - though I'd recommend it, particularly if you want to share settings with Adobe Camera Raw.

Look on the File Management tab in Preferences - the setting you want is "Automatically write changes into XMP" under Metadata.

David

That's a good point, but be aware that it can slow down LR's performance quite dramatically, as it writes the changes back to disc every time you make a change, and writing to XMP is much slower than writing to the database.

If you are concerned about the speed of LR, you may prefer to leave it turned off, but select all of the files and use Metadata > XMP > Write metadata to sidecar files once you've finished making your changes.

Is there anyway to move the adjustments made in one machine to another machine

I do it all the time. When shooting events I create a directory for the event, then copy all the raw files off the cards into it (you can have LR do this for you if you like) When I start LR I have it create a new database in the event directory.

I fly thru my inital rate and reject of all the images on the laptop in LR, then remove the throwaways. If needed I'll export jpgs or create a slideshow.

When I return to the office, I will copy the event directory to my photo workstation. Since I have the LR database and the photos all under one directory everything stays together. When I start LR on the photo workstation I point it at the database I want to work with at that moment.

I hope that made sense

Just as an example this is what it looks like on disk:

 f:\event
        Backup               <--- Directory created by lightroom
        Lightroom Previews.lrdata  <--- Directory created by LR
        raw               <--- Directory where I copied my *.CR2 raw files to
        Lightroom Database     <--- The LR DB file
        Output               <--- Directory created by me when I exported images 

Thanks you so much, I knew there was a way but I couldn't think of it. Thanx

No problem- glad I could help.

Now I'm just eagerly awaiting the LR 1.1 release that should allow moving objects (pictures/crops/virtur​al copies} between LR databases.