Lightroom problem. Help?!?

lukeod

Hi all,

I have a trial version of Lightroom 2.1, which I've been pretty impressed with, and have enjoyed using it.

Had a problem though - I had a folder with three photos, two of which I had cropped, turned to greyscale, and added a few grad filters and things. The other I had just adjusted the saturation a bit, and added a grad filter. So nothing crazy on the enhancement front.

When I exported the photos though (to the folder they were in, replacing the originals), and then went to view the photos, they had been cropped further (far too much) and saturation, exposure and things had been messed all over the place.

Tried resetting the images, but of course that didn't work, so photos are gone gone gone. Not the end of the world, but very wary now.

This happen to anyone else?

Have McAfee with regular scans by the way, so don't think its a virus.

Cheers

nilhg

My understanding is that it shouldn't be possible to replace the originals, at the very least you would have had to accept a prompt asking you did you want to overwrite the originals. Are you sure that LR hasn't just stacked the edited versions on top of the originals

lukeod

Yes when you export you can choose to export to the same folder, and "Overwrite without warning", so the originals are gone. This was deliberate - I just wasn't expecting the problem I had...

I've done it the same way a few times no bother...

nilhg

lukeod wrote: »

Yes when you export you can choose to export to the same folder, and "Overwrite without warning", so the originals are gone. This was deliberate - I just wasn't expecting the problem I had...

I've done it the same way a few times no bother...

The whole rationale behind LR is non destructive editing, and I suppose you have just proved why.;)

lukeod

Not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that the programme was "punishing" me for replacing my originals with edits?!?

I'm trying to find out if there's a problem other people may have had with the programme...

nilhg

Of course I'm not suggesting that a programme would punish you, that would be silly, but the fact is that by choosing to overwrite your originals you also seem to have destroyed the metadata associated with them which would have shown you what editing steps was applied and in what sequence.

I don't suppose you have a backup of your catalogue?


I'm sure the OP knows this now, but for the benefit of others the reccommended way to use LR is to treat your original files as negatives and to export edited copies for various uses.

ThOnda

I bet that the LR made the correction that you had asked for. And saved the files - overwritten the files. And applied the correction again, because the names of the files were the same.
The same name of files and even the same location - it is only asking for destructive disaster.

Paulw

I'd have to agree with Thonda.

You overwrote the image file, but left the same xmp or adjustment details for Lightroom to re-apply to your "new" image file.

So, in effect, you double processed the image file.

It's always better and safer to not over-write/remove the original until you are 100% happy with the end result. In this case, I guess you didn't fully realise the end result.

CabanSail

AFAIK you cannot really edit a RAW file. It is just the Data from the sensor & when you edit you are only altering how that data is represented.


I am assuming here that you have a RAW file. If your system doesn't have RAW then treat the original download as a Negative & only work on copies of that & never the original.

Paulw

CabanSail wrote: »

I am assuming here that you have a RAW file.

I would have actually assumed the OP was using jpg and not raw.

Could be wrong though.

lukeod

Cheers for the replies!

ThOnda wrote: »

I bet that the LR made the correction that you had asked for. And saved the files - overwritten the files. And applied the correction again, because the names of the files were the same.
The same name of files and even the same location - it is only asking for destructive disaster.

Seems like a reasonable explanation, but if it applied the correction after having been exported, surely I would have to export again, and overwrite the files again before the changes that came about by the second correction are not reversible simply with the reset button??

By the way - I'm well aware of the "destruction" I'm carrying out when overwriting existing files. If I've made minor changes to an image which doesn't carry any particular importance, I think its reasonable to expect the programme not to add its own opinion to the image when I export it.

I look at this function as merely saving me having to go and delete the original file after the edited one is created...

Shiny

Perhaps maybe keep the originals in future?

ie treat them as if they were RAW files ?