If you can still see Collections and images inside those, this is not an empty Catalog accidentally opened.   The Folders panel is in effect a dynamic "database report" of what location information is held against every 'imported' file - which merely means, 'registered' - and summarising all of that in the form of a clickable listing.   This listing is I think not continually re-generated afresh, but cached - and updated to follow your actions such as removing or adding images or their folders, or actively updating their location info. If that cached listing has become corrupted in this current Catalog then IMO that may explain the symptoms fully. Proper information is clearly there somehow on each photo, if that listing does successfully rebuild or partly so - within a given session of using the program. But that rebuilt listing is not then 'sticking' for a subsequent session.   I am presuming your storage location is not changing in address - for example, appearing under different assigned drive letters at different moments. If that were the case, this drive letter (or network URL) should first be fixed as constant and persisting.   One tactic for dealing with Catalog corruption that is safe to try: create an entirely new fresh Catalog, empty. Then use "import from another Catalog", selecting your current Catalog as the source for this - in this case including all contents (for other purposes it is possible to be more selective).   This function creates catalog records inside the destination Catalog, each corresponding to a photo present in the source Catalog. So that happens afresh, in a properly indexed and clean way, leaving behind any database structure problems that the old Catalog may have suffered from. If any particular image record was itself not properly readable I believe that image would be simply skipped over, so you would  be left with only all good data.   These records replicate not only all the latest editing but also prior edit history and all the virtual organisation: keywords, stacking, virtual copies, collection membership etc. Matching static Collections and Collection Sets, and Smart Collections, are therefore created.   If importing library into this new Catalog has successfully fixed the issue you can just go forward with that (and discard the old Caatalog). If unsuccessful you can abandon the trial (and discard the new one). There will have been no duplication of the image files themselves and no changes made to the old Catalog that you've merged images in from.   You can expect this fresh Catalog to ask for new Library previews to be generated. But you do not need to wait until that is completed, before you can establish whether everything you want is present.    If this approach has not been successful: corruption in the source Catalog may have extended more deeply and you may have no choice but to fall back on restoring a whole Catalog backup: the most recent available which does not exhibit the bad behaviour. ... View more

If you really do not want to use the Lightroom paradigm (of an accumulated image library) but prefer to treat digital photo files individually, essentially the same image editing tools are available within the Adobe Camera Raw input filter for Photoshop. For example: applying preset looks or manual adjustment, global and localised, with some limited retouching. PS is already configured so that whenever a Raw file is opened, the ACR window pops up and then you can apply parametric editing onto this. This editing is then saved back to the file (unless you Cancel out) by the Done button so that it will still be there when you return to the same image. Alternatively it is saved out plus the image is brought into PS itself, if you click Open.   Optionally PS settings for ACR can be configured so that the same thing will also happen for different image file types besides Raw. ACR provides "snapshots" so that multiple parametric treatments all referring back to the same source file can be named, saved and then later recalled. It's all a bit clunkier and less fluid IMO than the LRc interface but technically the end result can be pretty much the same. Just, be aware that outputting results of editing is likely to be found a lot less efficient.    This environment does lack a lot of the bulk management, virtual organisation, editing and output facilities that (any variant of) Lightroom provides, but if only considering images one-by-one and manually, those things will scarcely apply anyway.    A suitable front-end for navigating and managing images under this workflow, and opening them up for editing, might be Adobe Bridge or some other equivalent. Effectively Adobe offers two paradigms: library based and file based. We need to be clear-eyed about whichever is the best fit for us. Unfamiliarity, though, has little to do with that choice.   Initial experience of Lightroom often involves some - perhaps quite unsettling - UN-learning of rules of thumb that may previously have gone unquestioned. Only then can the value of the library based approach be appreciated and profited from. There is some mental threshold to get over, in other words. But this is not to say everyone must prefer life on the other side of this! This forum is made up of those converts by and large. ... View more

It's a different class of problem, than how detailed the photos are.   Say I have written down a list of items with their exact sizes and colours and weights. And someone asks me, so how much did they all cost on that day? My sheet of paper (considered on its own) cannot provide that information no matter what: if I did not write the prices down at the time, cost information is simply not on there. ... View more

Accepting each folder needs to have the files needed - can the team members not browse to, and carry out needed tasks with, that folder and those files directly? This is AFAICT why we export: to create derived image versions, themselves unsuitable for further editing work or changes of management, that will be accessible from outside the Catalog.   On the subject of fast export but slow re-import: is it possible these exports are merely fast to submit for queued processing? If they are then proceeding in the background, that would result in a delay before each file is made and then a re-import of that becomes possible. So this may accordingly present as fast export but slow import.   The way to be sure would be to separate export and import, and to verify in the file system how long it does take before exported files are completed. Then the import speed could be directly checked also. Also computer resources may be fully taken up with queued export processing, likely more computation-intensive than import would be. ... View more

  Unless the photo was originally taken with special equipment - it is not feasible to determine temperature from a photograph.    Heat information in photos (such as, false-colour images showing the places where most heat is leaving a building) are taken using purpose-designed equipment. This works by the camera 'seeing' non human visible infra-red radiation, and only that, coming from the subject.   Standard cameras work by seeing a different band of frequencies and include an Infra-Red Filter which blocks off this "heat" radiation from also being captured. The lens would focus that differently adding blur, also the intention of camera designers is usually to mimic the response of the human eye: and the human eye does not "see" temperature.   Some cameras have this IR filter specially removed, because the pictorial effect of capturing some infre-red is desired. In this case a different filter may be fitted which largely blocks visible light while still letting IR light through. This contrived system is still less exact at evaluatiing subject temperatures, than a purpose-made thermal camera would be. A night-vision device, too, often does reflect differences of subject temperature but again not in a calibrated way. There would still need to be some interpretation - no reading off a number directly. ... View more

Of course is not necessary to click the mouse button 95 times to change the selection status of 95 images. As a suggestion, how about:   Check all - so that no vignetting is seen. Highlight all - click first image, shift-click last image. Now hold Command / Control key down while you work through from start to finish clicking on each image you DO want (to de-select it), adding Shift key when you want to do this for a contiguous range of images (that you DO want). When you reach the end all the images you do NOT want still remain highlighted. On one of those, click on the checkmark to remove the checked status from all of the images you do NOT want. This leaves just the images you DO want checked. If you want to import 5 out of 100, you have first shift-clicked on 2 images (first and last) and then Ctrl+clicked on these 5.   But - and I can agree that this manoeuvre should not have been necessary - this has at least happened without vignetting preventing you from seeing what you are doing. ... View more

You could not select them again because the Catalog still had some kind of persisting record of those images. That does not happen when an import fails, at least not in my experience. So it is worth identifying what this "error" was - and what situation it left behind. Very often the images are in fact there to be found, but not in the location expected within the Folders panel.    If they are present, to import a second instance of each: not a good idea IMO. You then have a tidy-up job to get rid of duplicates, also the problem of: to which instance should new editing attach, and on which instance does previously done editing persist. ... View more

If you change the setting at the top to "specific folder" then that will be reliably remembered for the next time.   More flexibly, if there is a relatively small number of destination folders that you use, you can define each destination explicitly into a suitably named export preset. This would use "specific folder" not "choose folder later" at the top.   Then when exporting, you can (for example) click on the name of a different preset to retrieve all its settings into the main panel (this is not the same thing as checking the box next to the export preset). Doing it this way, you can now customise this export: for example typing a particular subfolder of that retrieved destination, different from the last time, that you want created for this current export batch to go into.   But if you then click onto a different preset, that is a potentially different 'starting' destination recalled - as well as whatever other settings may vary. ... View more

"Import photos and videos" will - if so set - carry out a file operation as well as a metadata operation. This might be moving the file, or copying, or copying and converting to DNG.   But "import from another catalog" does not do any of that. It looks at whatever file location reference there is for a given photo within catalog "source", and makes a duplicate reference pointing to that same file location, within catalog "destination", as well as a copy of all the metadata alongside: editing History, virtual copies, collection membership etc as well as latest edits.     The only way I can think of whereby files may be duplicated in this workflow: the Export as Catalog command. Say you have catalog "source" open, and select a certain number of photos. Then you Export as Catalog and choose to include selected images only, and make a new temporary transfer catalog "intermediate", Then you Import from Another Catalog to merge the contents of "intermediate" into "destination". If when you created "intermediate" you had checked the option Include Originals, that will have duplicated the source files for those selected photos. So it is best not to do that, under this workflow. So there will only be one instance of each file on disk. These catalogs merely deal in editing etc metadata, associated with (shared) references that all point to this same single file. ... View more

What I do: take a screen-grab and paste that directly into the text being typed. Anyone reading the text therefore also views this image directly (as re-presented by the webpage). Far easier than first saving PNG or a JPG, and then inserting. A file attachment won't be viewed unless trusted, and then deliberately opened, by the reader - who may be simply reluctant to do this, or even fully blocked. ... View more

It seems Shadow Tint refers to something Raw-specific. As a non-Mac user I can't confiirm whether your chosen workflow is importing something containing native sensor-Raw data or not - sounds like not, to me.   However much LrC tries to treat Raw and non-Raw similarly in practice, there must be some differences in adjustability underneath the hood (otherwise we'd never bother with Raw!)   The most characteristic place to see this, is that the Basic panel's White Balance Temperature slider shows (absolute) degrees Kelvin when dealing with true Raw data, but a (relative) warmer-cooler scale otherwise. What does yours show, for these photos? ... View more

Shadows Tint seems to be consistently greyed-out for camera JPGs, and available for Raw. Could that be it?   Not quite identical in behaviour I think, but there is a global Shadows hue control always available regardless of underlying file type (and Midtones and Highlights) within the Color Grading panel: also Tone Curve panel adjustment can 'shape' hue response in all sorts of ways.   A further option is a Mask which selects the shadow areas just by tonal range, and applies a Tint adjustment. ... View more

You can set your own default (non-zero) adjustments for masks (for zeroed adjustments, you can use the checkbox).   The sequence is important here. Select to create a new mask of a type that requires further action from you, for example a Brush mask. There is now an in-between moment before starting to brush, wherein any changed adjustments get remembered not only for this mask, but also for future ones (of whatever type).   However if adjustments are changed after starting to brush, or after choosing an AI subject selection, or whatever - those changes only affect this current mask. They are not remembered otherwise. ... View more

Windows user here: on my PC this item presents as a subfolder.   it's found in the same location as [Catalogname].lrcat - the Catalog itself - and named  "[Catalogname] Sync.lrdata". ... View more

just to direct you to a relevant point within the linked page: 20GB Plan is "no longer available for new subscriptions".  ... View more

It sounds as if your desired page layout is of a different design when an image is portrait, from when it is landscape. You would like an identity plate to sit parallel to the long side in one case, parallel to the short side in the other, and associated to a different corner of the image. Furthermore, we may often have different (aesthetic) requirements for image position in these two cases. This suggests two different saved page setups, and outputting a selected sub-batch of images with each. LrC can filter down a set of images on portrait / landscape, to help you with this. Or you can semi-automate the filtering through Smart Collection rules / make a saved Print Collection for repeatability which associates the relevant page setup with the suitable image selection.    As an alternative, it may be possible to instead Export to JPG (as an intermediate file) using Watermarking to impose a custom text. This provides some more dynamic placement options, and a different underlying handling of the whole issue of orientation. ... View more

When multiple presets show a checkmark at the left of the export settings window, then multiple variations of the export batch will duly happen (by design). Just as a thought - the screenshot does not currently show presets checked.   Also, as a suggestion, you may want to review whether the option "Add to this Catalog" is desirable? IMO it is not the best role of the Catalog, to track and manage derivative output files. ... View more

Until a preview gets created 'from scratch' within the Catalog, what you see in Library is extracted from the imported file and this has come about in response to in-camera menu settings.    The preview shown by Lrc comes from inside the particular imported camera file (be it JPG, proprietary Raw or DNG). When it comes to a proprietary Raw or DNG, LrC is working only from that - and not making any use of a 'sidecar' camera JPG, if one is present.     The moment this gets replaced by a LrC generated preview, what is seen hereafter depends on LrC settings and not on in-camera settings. But there is no way to get to this point except by a replacement preview being generated by LrC.   Of course, if the in-camera menu had not been set to a B&W mode, the in-camera preview would itself have been embedded in full colour accordingly. ... View more

There is another option for you: after completing LrC editing from your Raw file, export the results to JPG in the normal way, defining the output settings (destination folder, naming, metadata inclusion, JPG compression, resizing, colourspace etc) as part of that. Then in those same Export settings you can check on the PostProcessing section and in there, browse to and select the program executable for whatever version of Photoshop you are using.   Now each image is encoded to JPG, but opened into Photoshop for any further manual processing there. PS can further update the exported JPG when you Save. The advantage (if you consider it so) is that no separate external-edited version becomes visible in LrC: the PS editing has occurred onto this output only.    Depending on what particular postprocessing you want to apply, it may be possible to streamline this e.g. invoking a dedicated utility such as Mogrify instead of full PS. That works for (say) a standardised imposition of a border. Alternatively a PS action doing [whatever] standardised steps can be encoded into a "droplet" (with a Save step included). Then this Droplet can be invoked in the PostProcessing panel of export settings. The relevant PS Action is then carried out programmatically onto each image passing through the workflow. No manual interaction with each image by you, in that case.    Or IMHO to the extent it is possible to eliminate postprocessing by another application, so much the better. Some lateral thinking may help, for example one can lay out a series of variable aspect images, with a suitable border, onto a common sized, coloured 'background' in the Print module - and then directly "Print" output JPGs from there. Just a thought! ... View more

Say a certain setting was applied onto a proprietary Raw within Catalog A (say '40' for sharpening, along with other stuff). Makes no difference whether this happened through a preset or by moving sliders around manually. And this was all written out to an XMP sidecar file alongside the Raw, by Catalog A.  Then the Raw file is newly imported into Catalog B. Catalog B notices the XMP alongside and loads up those same settings as a starting point. You may have chosen some default import settings (a preset) to be automatically used whenever no prior adjustments are found - that will not apply in this case since there are prior adjustments found - because of the XMP.   All of this is then overridden by any preset you actively choose to be applied during import - noting the end result is no different, than if you later apply a preset after import or if you make the same changes manually.   Let's say your further preset happening on top of the imported prior adjustments, sets sharpening strength '35' but nothing else. The end result will be the other adjustments remaining as they were, but the sharpeniing strength that was previously '40' is now '35'.    Rather than double-applying, or being cumulative, it makes more sense to think of the Raw conversion parameters being sequentially changed around to different values. However they were all last left, is what governs the appearance of the Raw file as it is currently (provisionally, dynamically) previewed. Sharpening can be reduced as well as increased because it has not actually happened yet. You are just varying what it will be when it eventually does get implemented for real - either at export / print, or when settings are hard written into a new separate file for external editing. ... View more

that blog entry is dated January 2024, and things have since changed - the 20GB plan was increasingly hard to find in Adobe's site but has now gone, and in confirmation see the specific statement in screenshot below, accessed from Manage Plan I suppose it is still possible existing customers could continue a running plan, even though one could not be started - but that would be contradicted by the notification message which has been reported e.g. by CescoP   Just for completeness, a monthly billed Photography plan has never been offered in my region (UK) AFAICT: but for other products which have offered a monthly option, that has come at 150% monthly cost compared with annual renewing. ... View more

This is why we do not disable lens correction!   When you are "looking" at the Raw you are not seeing these dark corners which sit outside the intended image frame (nor are you seeing other aberrations). This is because the camera had at time of exposure immediately done a generic Raw conversion INCLUDING lens corrections. And saved that as the embedded preview within the CR3 file. And that preview is most likely IMO what you are judging this comparison by. ... View more