Lightroom and Archive Photos: I was reading one of the recent Lightroom threads extolling the virtues of Lightroom not "corrupting" your original photos. (I searched and couldn't find...

MtnMan Loc: ID

I was reading one of the recent Lightroom threads extolling the virtues of Lightroom not "corrupting" your original photos. (I searched and couldn't find which one so decided to start another.) There was great enthusiasm for this feature.

While I share that enthusiasm there is another point to consider. You can only see the Lightroom adjusted images in Lightroom. Should Lightroom no longer be a viable product all of your work on those images will be lost to posterity.

While you might argue that is also true for any file format and storage media as well, I suspect you are much more likely to enable access to your images once Lightroom has passed on (or simply to someone who doesn't have it) if you use a non-proprietary storage form, such as jpeg or tiff. If you don't do that your grandkids will not be able to look at what you leave behind.

So if you want to do that you need to export your images in one of those formats to some Archive media.

Just an additional thought on the topic.

lightchime Loc: Somewhere Over The Rainbow

"While I share that enthusiasm there is another point to consider. You can only see the Lightroom adjusted images in Lightroom. Should Lightroom no longer be a viable product all of your work on those images will be lost to posterity."

But that clearly does not seem to be the case. I can take a an "adjusted" raw image and send it to ACR in Photoshop and pick up from where I left off. At least that is the way it works on my computers.

Elliern Loc: Myrtle Beach, SC

I am pretty sure when I export it to a folder in "my pictures" it saves it as it was processed. But perhaps I am misunderstanding your post. Or maybe I am wrong and it didn't save them as I thought it did.

MtnMan Loc: ID

lightchime wrote:

"While I share that enthusiasm there is another point to consider. You can only see the Lightroom adjusted images in Lightroom. Should Lightroom no longer be a viable product all of your work on those images will be lost to posterity."

But that clearly does not seem to be the case. I can take a an "adjusted" raw image and send it to ACR in Photoshop and pick up from where I left off. At least that is the way it works on my computers.

Sure for ACR. But try opening the image with a non-Adobe product, e.g. Picasa picture viewer, or any other jpeg or tiff viewer, and see what you get.

ACR uses the same system as Lightroom to interpret the "sidecar" files.

(PS: I'm not sure what you'd get in Elements. I suspect you'd get the edited image if you went to the Elements version of ACR. But you might get the original otherwise.)

MtnMan Loc: ID

Elliern wrote:

I am pretty sure when I export it to a folder in "my pictures" it saves it as it was processed. But perhaps I am misunderstanding your post. Or maybe I am wrong and it didn't save them as I thought it did.

If you use Export it does process the image and apply the changes. But if you do not export it the changes are not made to the original photos.

If you then reimport those images into Lightroom you will not be able to "reset" to the original image. The changes will have been made permanent.

That is the point. You need to Export if you want to Archive so someone else in the future or without Lightroom (or ACR) can see your results.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

There are quite a few applications that can read XMP files and thereby show the edits performed in Lightroom or OPS ACR.

A list of those programs can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform

So even if your LR went down, all is not lost.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

MtnMan wrote:

If you use Export it does process the image and apply the changes. But if you do not export it the changes are not made to the original photos.

That's why I always do the Export. When I export a modified image to a different folder, the original is still in its original state, correct?

MtnMan Loc: ID

jerryc41 wrote:

That's why I always do the Export. When I export a modified image to a different folder, the original is still in its original state, correct?

Yes.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Searcher wrote:

There are quite a few applications that can read XMP files and thereby show the edits performed in Lightroom or OPS ACR.

A list of those programs can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform

So even if your LR went down, all is not lost.

Interesting link. Thank you.

I see the list of tools that will read the files but it isn't evident to me that enables viewing the images with the edits. Have you tried opening a Lightroom edited image in, for example, GIMP, to see if the adjustments are rendered?

Db7423 Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

MtnMan wrote:

I was reading one of the recent Lightroom threads ... (show quote)

Crap! Just when I thought I had everything figured out- something else to consider/workout. I'll be watching this thread. ;)

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

MtnMan wrote:

Interesting link. Thank you.

I see the list of tools that will read the files but it isn't evident to me that enables viewing the images with the edits. Have you tried opening a Lightroom edited image in, for example, GIMP, to see if the adjustments are rendered?

I haven't, but now I will. If someone has Corel Pro as well as Adobe ACR, perhaps they might like to try it as well; maybe we can get a definitive answer from this.

amehta Loc: Boston

MtnMan wrote:

I was reading one of the recent Lightroom threads ... (show quote)

If Adobe decides to change how a particular type of edit is applied, you could also have your processed pictures look different than you first intended. This isn't likely, but it's not impossible.

overholm Loc: Aarhus, Denmark

MtnMan wrote:

Interesting link. Thank you.

I see the list of tools that will read the files but it isn't evident to me that enables viewing the images with the edits.

XMP is the file that contains your edits.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

overholm wrote:

XMP is the file that contains your edits.

Yes, but the real question is do non-Adobe applications both read and apply the xmp data to their renderings?

Keepsake Loc: NC

Would it not work to first export as a PSD file that will save the changes and the export again as a jpg file to be able to share and print it?

MtnMan wrote:

I was reading one of the recent Lightroom threads ... (show quote)