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Author Topic: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?  (Read 4155 times)

dreed

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Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« on: May 23, 2011, 03:26:05 am »

Often when I'm travelling, I'll import photos into LR at the end of the day and do some basic edits/tags.

When I'm back home, I do an "import from catalogue".

However, when I do that, it would appear that all edit history is lost and the first item is "Import (date)".

There are two consequences of that:
1) I no longer know what I did, if anything, to the picture whilst I was on the road
2) I don't appear to be able to undo anything prior to the import, because there is no "reset to raw image data"
... or am I missing something?

Well, there is the big "Reset" button under "Develop", but all that does is take things back to the "Import(date)" settings, whatever they were. Or so it seems.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2011, 03:28:12 am by dreed »
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keithrsmith

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2011, 04:38:57 am »

in deveop, hold control and you get reset pn each tab.  I believe this resets to ACR defaults,.

You could of course delete the XMP files.

keith
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Hans Kruse

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2011, 06:49:40 am »

Often when I'm travelling, I'll import photos into LR at the end of the day and do some basic edits/tags.

When I'm back home, I do an "import from catalogue".

However, when I do that, it would appear that all edit history is lost and the first item is "Import (date)".

There are two consequences of that:
1) I no longer know what I did, if anything, to the picture whilst I was on the road
2) I don't appear to be able to undo anything prior to the import, because there is no "reset to raw image data"
... or am I missing something?

Well, there is the big "Reset" button under "Develop", but all that does is take things back to the "Import(date)" settings, whatever they were. Or so it seems.

If you have the RAW files and the Lightroom catalog on a laptop and want to move them to a desktop and maintain history you must export as catalog on your laptop and then import from catalog on your desktop and that maintains all history.

If you want to reset a number of pictures to the Lightroom default valaues you select all images you want to reset and either

1) right click and select develop settings and select reset.
2) Ctrl-shift-R on the PC or cmd-shift-R on the Mac.

Your history will then include a 'reset settings' event. You can still go back to earlier history states even if you have done the reset.

dreed

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2011, 01:28:42 am »

in deveop, hold control and you get reset pn each tab.  I believe this resets to ACR defaults,.

You could of course delete the XMP files.

Once a photo is imported to LR, I don't believe that the XMP files serve any purpose to LR, so deleting them post-import will do nothing.
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dreed

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2011, 01:38:50 am »

If you have the RAW files and the Lightroom catalog on a laptop and want to move them to a desktop and maintain history you must export as catalog on your laptop and then import from catalog on your desktop and that maintains all history.

I'll try this next time. I usually skip the explicit "export catalogue" step and just do an "Import".

Quote
If you want to reset a number of pictures to the Lightroom default valaues you select all images you want to reset and either

1) right click and select develop settings and select reset.
2) Ctrl-shift-R on the PC or cmd-shift-R on the Mac.

Your history will then include a 'reset settings' event. You can still go back to earlier history states even if you have done the reset.

I've actually used reset like this but because the "history" has only shown the most recent "import", I've never been confident that it was doing a reset back to the original raw settings.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2011, 08:03:10 am »

I'll try this next time. I usually skip the explicit "export catalogue" step and just do an "Import".

I've actually used reset like this but because the "history" has only shown the most recent "import", I've never been confident that it was doing a reset back to the original raw settings.

Regarding skipping the export step I have not tested this to see if it is the same as doing just doing an import. Maybe it is.

When you have done a reset the history should look like this


And when the 'Reset Settings' are shown all Lightroom settings are the defaults of Lightroom. These are not the settings I use when importing and I have a preset that is applied when importing and also a metadata preset.

dreed

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2011, 12:20:20 am »

I can further add to this that doing an "Import" just using the .XMP files as created with a  "Save Metadata to Files" (CTRL-S), tags and so forth are pulled in but other information, such as any edits, flags, etc, are not.

Further, it seems that a "Synchronize Folder" and "Scan for metadata updates" is required to pull in some of the develop settings that were actually saved as part of the "Save Metadata to files" action but were ignored on import.

Additionally, there is no history in LR beyond the most recent import :(

I'm slowly becoming of the opinion that it seems like one of the explicit export options (Export as catalog?) is required to make the import work properly (I'll test this next). This is last on my list because my hazy memories of this are that it is also the longest :(
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Scott Hargis

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2011, 10:25:14 am »

I'll be interested to hear more on this. What I've been doing is to export to DNG, then importing those into my tower at the office. It works, but it's time-consuming in the field. Generally, when I'm finished shooting, the first thing I do is start getting the day's images backed up to an external drive -- as I said, by Exporting to DNG. Often it takes a good twenty minutes longer to perform that task than it does for me to strike the entire set and load the car! Last thing I want is to be hanging around location waiting for my DNGs.

dreed

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2011, 04:57:57 pm »

After much experimenting, it turns out that the *only* way to take photos from one catalogue into another and not lose any information, be it flags, original import date, etc, is to do "Export as catalogue" on the selected photos and then import those photographs. Saving meta data out to XML files and importing those files results in lost information (develop steps, original import date, etc.)

I'm a bit disappointed at that because using a "live backdup" (or duplicate) copy of your "on-the-road" catalogue as the import source would seem perfect. But alas, you need to create a second copy of the catalogue and import that instead.
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Adele

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2011, 09:54:07 pm »

I regularly travel on the road, create "travel" catalogs and then combine them with my master catalog when I get home.  The way to do this is to highlight all your images, select "Export as Catalog" making sure to check "export negative files" (i.e. the RAW files) and if you want to export the previews as well, check "include available previews."  Then name your export and go to your master catalog and click "Import from Catalog"

Exporting as Catalog is crucial, as not all information is stored in the xmp files.  Specifically, the following data is stored only in the catalog and not in xmp files:  develop history (although the current settings are in xmp), collection information, virtual copies, stacks, and a few other things which are relatively specialized.   

By exporting as a catalog and checking export negative files you will capture all the information about your images and also make sure that both original RAW files and the related xmp files are moved into the new catalog.  Once you get into it, it's very easy, and saves moving  files by hand and possibly missing something.

This is also why it is important to back up both your catalog and your images, whether you push data to xmp files or not. 
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dreed

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2011, 02:19:56 am »

I regularly travel on the road, create "travel" catalogs and then combine them with my master catalog when I get home.  The way to do this is to highlight all your images, select "Export as Catalog" making sure to check "export negative files" (i.e. the RAW files) and if you want to export the previews as well, check "include available previews."  Then name your export and go to your master catalog and click "Import from Catalog"

The question I have is why is this even necessary?

If I've got a laptop and an active copy of my catalog on an external hard drive, why can't I import directly from that?

Why do I need to create another copy of my catalog?


Quote
Exporting as Catalog is crucial, as not all information is stored in the xmp files.  Specifically, the following data is stored only in the catalog and not in xmp files:  develop history (although the current settings are in xmp), collection information, virtual copies, stacks, and a few other things which are relatively specialized.   

What I found missing from XMP files that was quite important was the flags. Otherwise, yup!
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Adele

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Re: Can I do a complete unwind/reset after an import?
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2011, 11:47:29 pm »

I have always "Exported as Catalog" and the "Imported from Catalog" and it's worked well.  However, I did a test, and imported directly from a catalog and it worked fine - everything came through, including the develop history, flags, etc.  Exactly how are you doing it and what choices are you making at the various dialog boxes?  This may shed some light on why all the info is not coming through. 
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