XMP (Page 2): It looks like DirtFarmer types faster than do I. Call me truly curious. I didn't try too hard to understand the contents and still wonder if you were to make a virtual...

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

DirtFarmer wrote:

Not so. br br The edits are stored in the Lightro... (show quote)

It looks like DirtFarmer types faster than do I. Call me truly curious. I didn't try too hard to understand the contents and still wonder if you were to make a virtual copy so there are two version of the edits how LR sorts that out.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Jack 13088 wrote:

It looks like DirtFarmer types faster than do I. Call me truly curious. I didn't try too hard to understand the contents and still wonder if you were to make a virtual copy so there are two version of the edits how LR sorts that out.

I believe there one XMP file for an edited file and it contains all the edits for the original file as well as for all the virtual copies of it. The edits are also in the catalog.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Jack 13088 wrote:

Regardless of common belief this statement is misl... (show quote)

The main purpose of the .xmp files is portability. You can use a copy of it and it associated raw file in LR or PS on a different computer and be able to see all the edits. They are also great to have if you catalog becomes corrupted or inadvertently deleted. In that event, think of it as a backup.

MerleP Loc: USA - SW Michigan

I do one back up of my photos to Amazon. It's a free benefit of Prime Membership. However they will not back up the XMP files. So I wind up with a a bunch of orphan XMP files. So, I don't use Lightroom much anymore. They are backed up on my external hard drive though. The nice thing about Amazon Drive is I can see all my photos there on my phone, just like Dropbox or other backup.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

pquiggle wrote:

Also know as sidecar files, these contain all of the edits you made to an image. Lightroom does not change anything in the original image file and instead keeps track of any edits you made in this file. Deleting them will, in essence, delete any edits you made to an image.

In LR, deleting the xmp files does NOT delete edits. These files use data that is written from the catalog, which is where the edits permanently reside. The default in LR is to NOT write metadata to xmp. But I do it anyway, for the reasons MSilvers suggests, because it is a way for me to use other software that can read xmp files, and in the event a catalog becomes irreparably corrupted, I still have my edits.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Gene51 wrote:

In LR, deleting the xmp files does NOT delete edits. These files use data that is written from the catalog, which is where the edits permanently reside. The default in LR is to NOT write metadata to xmp. But I do it anyway, for the reasons MSilvers suggests, because it is a way for me to use other software that can read xmp files, and in the event a catalog becomes irreparably corrupted, I still have my edits.

Of course, one should also consider using the automatic catalog back up option when exiting Lightroom if new edits were made.

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

mwsilvers wrote:

Of course, one should also consider using the automatic catalog back up option when exiting Lightroom if new edits were made.

Ok, so the whole reason this all came up is I updated my Apple computer to the new operating system. When I did that it made my Photoshop Elements 11 quit working.
So, on advice from Apple the only way to go back to the previous operating system is to erase the computer and use my external time machine and reinstall from earlier in
the day. When I did that, Lightroom came back normal with the exception of my 2018 folder. Everything I did in 2018 was not there, everything previous to 2018 was there!

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

mwsilvers wrote:

The main purpose of the .xmp files is portability. You can use a copy of it and it associated raw file in LR or PS on a different computer and be able to see all the edits. They are also great to have if you catalog becomes corrupted or inadvertently deleted. In that event, think of it as a backup.

Yes, those are the best reasons I can think of to justify saving the edits other than in the catalog database.

I am a backup nut who uses LR as the center for all of my photographic processing. And I backup LR with an automated scripted process which is setup assuming the original files are never changed after the import and can be immediately and automatically saved to multiple secure backup archives. That requires turning off LR metadata saving. The preview (.lrdata) files are not routinely backed up because if they are missing LR will recreate them. I backup the catalog file (.lrcat) to Dropbox at every exit after changes are made. The integrity of this file is checked and it is optimized and zip compressed. That gets it offsite. When ever i send a backup disk to my safe deposit box I copy the latest catalog backup to the disk.

Once a quarter I copy the incremental changes to an AWS Glacier account account. So i think I have it covered.

BTW My daughter is a LR user so she can recover my library after I am gone. I will never know if she dies.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Jack 13088 wrote:

...My daughter is a LR user so she can recover my library after I am gone. I will never know if she dies.

If recovery of your library after your death is important to you, you might consider a duplex system. The LR catalog is the primary system. I use meaningful file names as a secondary system. The file names have a brief description of the subject. Makes it possible for people who don't know LR to search for topics.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

Photolady2014 wrote:

What the heck did I do? All of a sudden every time I work on a photo in Lightroom the folder that holds all my photos that I import into Lightroom gets one of these XMP
thumbnails. Has anyone seen this? I have gone in and deleted a bunch of them. What is it? How do I make it stop?

LR saves metadata in one of the two .lrdata data files that it makes when you create a new catalog. The lrdata file is the primary depository for all the metadata from both your camera and LR edits. The .xmp file is an optional file you can enable to allow you to automatically backup the metadata and view the metadata in a text viewer without any other software. The metadata is quite extensive and broad in scope including hundreds of items regarding your camera, flash equipment, settings, serial numbers of equipment, dates, etc. along with your LR and PS edits for each exposure.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

bpulv wrote:

LR saves metadata in one of the two .lrdata data f... (show quote)

The two files are a .lrdata folder that contains the previews and an .lrcat file which is the catalog database that stores everything else.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

DirtFarmer wrote:

If recovery of your library after your death is important to you, you might consider a duplex system. The LR catalog is the primary system. I use meaningful file names as a secondary system. The file names have a brief description of the subject. Makes it possible for people who don't know LR to search for topics.

I our case not only does my daughter manage her photos with LR we also share access to a joint SmugMug account and a Dropbox account. She is aware of my backup/archive scheme. Unfortunately, I haven't convinced her to mimic my system because she is a MacBook user and my system is based around a purpose built desktop PC with multiple hot swappable disks. Recent backup copies of both our catalogs reside in Dropbox and we have used export/import as catalog to collaborate on PP.