Gallimaufry Loc: Denver, CO

Not quite a basic question seeking answer: I've noticed that when I send a picture in Lightroom classic (hereinafter LR) in Windows, edit it, click save and look at the edited picture back in LR, and look at my History for this picture, I only see a notation that it has been edited in photoshop. My previous editing history in LR is nowhere to be found. Is that normal (standard), or do I have an incorrect preference setting somewhere? If so, what specifically is that setting, where is it to be found, and what is the correct setting?

Is there a particular Youtube video covering this, or an answer on some other forum or website?

I've searched for an answer to this and have only found information how to get a picture from LR into photoshop and back again, but nothing that has addressed my question.

Hopefully somebody on this UH forum knows the answer.

Thanks in advance.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

I wonder if the version returned from PS is stacked with your original. There is a setting somewhere that selects just that behavior. I am sheltering in place on my couch but I will look later. Might be in the settings for opening in PS.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Jack has it exactly. Say you have IMG001. If you send an edited copy or just a copy to PS, LR creates a new file, both on disk and in the catalog, say as IMG001-edit (or whatever name you specify in the interface definition to PS). The new file 'IMG001-edit' should be stacked with the original IMG001 and the history of IMG001-edit will resume in LR upon return from PS.

Gallimaufry Loc: Denver, CO

Thanks to you both, but . . . . After seeing your responses, I opened an untouched full moon photo in LR, just changed the temperature and exposure, put it into photoshop, made a building red, saved it, went back to LR, found (it shows up as a separate picture, with a notation that it is part of a stack), with a new filename of _1490770-Edit.psd (as you said it would), went to history, and it simply says "Edited in Adobe Photoshop), with no LR history below that entry.

So maybe there is setting somewhere I have to change, but, as I said before, I don't know what it is or where it is.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

No, it's not a bug, it's a feature. Editing in PS and saving creates a new file with the new file name. So you would not have your existing LR history as part of the new file.

Gallimaufry Loc: Denver, CO

Thanks rg. I understand what you are saying, and I was afraid that that would be the ultimate answer, but it sounds like a silly feature to me. Clearly not a useful one. Oh, well.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The 'Lightroom history' of the edited file resumes (aka starts) when the edited file (PSD / TIFF / DNG) returns to LR. Not sure how / why it could be otherwise. If you retain the layers in the PSD, you have the layer-based history if you take the PSD back to PS. If the PS work was the 'finishing', you'll just have a catalog entry in LR for the new file and then any subsequent exports, etc.

The history doesn't 'span' new versions of the file. The history doesn't even come over to a Virtual Copy entirely within LR, just the current snapshot of the edit settings, starting a new history of the new file.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

As long as you send a copy with LR edits to PS then you will have a copy of the image as it was sent in LR and the LR edit history is attached to that copy. When you save from PS back to LR it makes a new copy so you now have two copies of the image side by side, unless you have LR set to stack all copies of an image.

To unstack them if they are. In LR, in Library mode - high light the image or all the images in that folder - go to Photo on the top menu bar and under Photo go down to Stacking and in the side menu that opens click "unstack". If the copies of the image are stacked this will unstack them.

One way to tell if you need to unstack is look at the image count (tiny letters above the strip of thumbnails at the bottom) if it shows a number larger than you are seeing - say it says 12 but in the strip you only see 6 thumbnails that tells you there are 6 more images hidden because some are stacked.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

True confession - I rarely, if at all, look at the history. I don’t know why. But here is why the behavior you describe makes sense.

Suppose you have edited in the Develop module a raw file named FILE.dng (dng is nondenominational). When you sent that file to PS it is converted (exported) to likely a TIFF you never see but probably named FILE.tif. At this point the edits you made in LR are frozen and the history no longer make sense. So when you further edit in PS it will return a PSD named FILE-edited.psd which is imported as a file new to LR so the history notes that source. You cannot go back to before the new file was born so no history. Anything you do to the new file will appear in the history. Make sense?

Now the original file can be sent to PS as a smart object that can be further edited by ACR in PS. I have never tried that so don’t know exactly how that works.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

History for me is important, but that importance is based on the context. The edit history more important when I revisit an image after a long period of time with an eye toward redoing the edit. I may simply drop back to the original import and start over with a current develop preset. Or, I may want to understand a specific aspect of how the current edit differs from what I'd expect to see.

Another important use of history is when I refresh the metadata of an image. I shoot with legacy manual focus lenses where sometimes I add EXIF data to the image after LR editing. Re-importing the image will add the new lens data, but reverts the edits. I can step back one step in the history and recover the edits along with the updated EXIF.

These are somewhat unique usages, but hopefully show some real-life usefulness of the LR history.

Still another use is sometimes to walk back a few steps in the history and make a Virtual Copy of the image at that history step. I then might advance the current image back to the current / latest edit history and then take the VC forward with some new ideas. If I like the new ideas better on a 1:1 compare, I just sync those edits over the original and discard the VC.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

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traderjohn Loc: New York City

"Is there a particular Youtube video covering this"
What did your search of Youtube come up with??

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I don't stack images that are processed in PS

Gallimaufry Loc: Denver, CO

My search of Youtube came up with several videos showing how to take a picture from LR to photoshop and edit it photoshop and then take the picture back into LR.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lightroom+to+photoshop+back+to+lightroom

Gallimaufry Loc: Denver, CO

Yes, I understand all of that, Jack 13088, and all who wrote back about stacking, thanks.

My original question has been adequately answered by rg above, towards the top of this string.

Thanks to all who responded to my query.