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Author Topic: Recovering Edit History  (Read 925 times)

Robert Boire

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Recovering Edit History
« on: July 13, 2019, 01:03:12 pm »

Hi,

I like to keep my edit history so I can see the before and after effect of various edits.

So I'm fooling around with some edits to an image and I realize I probably have inadvertently erased part of my edit history. I'm assuming, well I can probably restore a previous xmp file and recover all my history. I recover a backup of the xmp file to the same folder as the source image...nothing happens. I see the same history as before the recovery. As an experiment, I make a change and then replace the current xmp file (ie the one that came from the backup) with the original xmp file from the recyle bin (ie before I recover the backup). I see my most recent change even though the file was siting in the recycle bin...hmm

So either the xmp file does not contain the history as I thought or it needs to be installed, not just copied? Which is it and if it needs to be installed, how? Is there a way of recovering the edit history? Can I do a selective restore from the LR catalog backup?

Thanks

R

john beardsworth

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Re: Recovering Edit History
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2019, 01:19:47 pm »

History steps are never saved to the XMP - they exist purely in a catalogue.

What you can do is restore a backup of the catalogue. If you've not done much else, you could simply restore it in the place of the existing catalogue.

But assuming only one image is affected, and you've edited other images, first create a backup of your current catalogue - if something goes wrong, you can get back to this point. Now restore the backup catalogue to another folder. To make things easy later, you could open that catalogue and remove (not delete) all the other photos. Back in your main catalogue, do File > Import from Another Catalog and import only the photo that you want. Choose the Add option under File Handling, Existing Photos should be set to import Develop settings, and don't enable virtual copies. I'm pretty sure that will then import that image's History steps. But before you start, ask if it's really worth it.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Recovering Edit History
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2019, 07:32:59 am »

History steps are never saved to the XMP - they exist purely in a catalogue.

there is a checkbox in the Catalog Settings window that allows one to save the edits into the XMP file.  My understanding is that this is needed if one is sending an edited image to someone else.  Both the image file and the XMP file need to be sent.  this applies only to RAW files and not DNGs (I think).
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john beardsworth

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Re: Recovering Edit History
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2019, 10:27:55 am »

there is a checkbox in the Catalog Settings window that allows one to save the edits into the XMP file.  My understanding is that this is needed if one is sending an edited image to someone else.  Both the image file and the XMP file need to be sent.  this applies only to RAW files and not DNGs (I think).

But it doesn't save the History steps, Alan, which is what Robert appears to want.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Recovering Edit History
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2019, 01:17:41 pm »

If you make a copy whenever you want to try experiments, then the original and the copy will have separate histories, both kept in the LR catalog.
Having spent many years doing only darkroom B&W, now in the digital era I very often process a new image to get a reasonable color version, and then make a copy which I convert to B&W and process further.

I also label each color version Yellow and each B&W version Blue, so I can easily select all of one or the other type in a collection.
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

Lustrous

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Re: Recovering Edit History
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2019, 07:38:52 pm »

History can be lost if you select a history step in the list and continue editing.
eg. Do edit steps- a,b,c,d,e,f,g ('g' is the last step at the top of the list)
Select step 'c' to view the image at that stage,
Continue editing, and steps d,e,f,g, are lost (you are now seeing history- a,b,c....h,i,j)

So to experiment with editing versions it is best to either create Snapshots (History is preserved), or create Virtual Copies which have no History until you add edit steps (the 'Original' image retains all History)

Recovering History is as stated by John B, from a backup catalog.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/partial-restore-backup-catalog/
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