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FeedbackCommunityMember
Inspiring
July 8, 2010
Open for Voting

P: Ability to lock photos to prevent further editing

  • July 8, 2010
  • 216 replies
  • 9323 views

I'm a relatively newbie to Lightroom and I think it is fantastic.

It does occur to me that pros who have been using Lightroom for a while understand all the issues about selections, settings, copying, pasting, synchronising etc etc.

Like many things in life the people who do things almost as second nature forget what it was like to be a beginner.

The one thing that has surprised me about lightroom is that I cannot find a way of indicating "I am happy with this - I just want to lock it to ensure I don't damage, amend or delete it" through my own incompetence.

    216 replies

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    F
    FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 8, 2011
    In which situations exactly did you run across the problem of accidentally changing photos?

    It only happens to me when I use "Auto Sync" and forget to switch it off after I'm done. Next time when I happen to have multiple photos selected but of course only edit one in the Develop module, I sometimes don't notice the still active "Auto Sync" and then unintentionally apply changes to all selected photos.

    I'm not sure whether I should just discipline myself better or if the Auto Sync button should change colour to make that mode more noticeable or whether there should be some feedback showing that "Auto Syncing" is happening. When the filmstrip is open, there is such feedback, but when it's closed I'm not aware of "Auto Syncing" going on.

    Locking won't help me with this problem because I would not have locked the images I didn't want to have synced.

    If anyone ran into such "Auto Sync" problems as well and thinks it is hard to discipline oneself to always switch it off after having used it then I'd be happy to make a feature request. The simplest solution would be to let "Auto Sync" automatically revert to "off" after a change of image selection but surely some would not regard that as a good idea.
    ratz2
    ratz2
    Participating Frequently
    April 5, 2011

    Mark a photo as the FINAL version.
    A way to differentiate a photo as the final version which is being used in a project.

      J
      J453
      Legend
      April 5, 2011
      Pat, can't you use a custom color or keyword as metadata to do this?
      A
      Anonymous
      April 4, 2011
      Thanks Rob,

      It does go a long way towards what I need but I see why you say native support would be better

      Pete
      areohbee
      areohbee
      Legend
      April 4, 2011
      I went to a huge amount of trouble to implement a locking plugin, but native support would be better.

      Jeffrey's plugin only protects you from deletion - my problem is with inadvertent edits. ChangeManager is my present solution, but it leaves something to be desired.

      The main problem with change manager, is that it can't stop changes from being made, it can only detect that they have been made after the fact.
      Gene McCullagh
      Gene McCullagh
      Known Participant
      April 4, 2011
      Great suggestion!

      In the meantime take a look at Jeffrey Friedl's Photosafe plugin for LR. It will "protect you from yourself" LOL

      http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-good...
      abazizis
      abazizis
      Participating Frequently
      July 8, 2010

      After working with this app for quiet some time now I would like to suggest a function for Adobe to consider...

      1. Lock Photo. After you made changes to your photo and that is the final Image you want to photo to be. To prevent it from accidental editing there should be a function to Lock the photo. You cannot edit the photo but ofcourse you can Export, Publish and Print the photo. You can also move the photo around the database.. the only thing you cannot do is to change the image of the photo. No preset or editing tools are allow to effect the image.

      2. If in later stage you require to change the Image, the user then can Unlock the photo and thus make it availble for further development.

        G
        Greg Barnett
        Participating Frequently
        July 8, 2010

        If you're looking for a solution right now, take a look at this plugin-

        http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/photosafe

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