P: Allow to paste/sync and Merge Healing

A million thanks @johnrellis for implementing Merge Healing in Copy Settings.

The Copy Settings plugin can now merge as well as replace copied Healing.

@DdeGannes 

Yes I know but thee is a fatal flow in the system.

If two VC have different healing they can't be synced AND merged

Suppose have original and VC 1

Do healing and masking on Original

Do different Healing and Masking on VC 1

Now sync masking....we are allowed to merge and we get both Mask

IF we sync Healing from the Original to VC 1 we only can replace it and can't merge it.

Healing done in VC 1 is lost.

All individual healing also have an ID and that could be used to merge it,..it is already like this that ACR merges masking.

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See also the snapshot feature for more options in Lightroom Classic.

https://jkost.com/blog/2019/09/working-with-snapshots-in-lightroom-classic.html

@C.Cella , just some thoughts,

VC “(virtual copy)” is virtual information stored in the LrC Catalog file, it is not an actual image or a copy of the image. This allows the user to do edits to the VC going forward any future edits you do will remains specific to the VC and does not affect the original image or assignments in multiple Collections.

You can have an original assigned to multiple Collections if you do edits on the original image or in any of the Collections it will sync to all images.

I do not use save to xmp in my workflow but I do not believe that edits done on a VC will be saved to the file.

Bringing this back.

Without the ability to merge healing is extremely frustrating to work.

I was editing a photo in one of my Collections and did healing on it...I discovered too late that other VC already had healing.

Result one VC has 50% of Healing, the others have the other 50% BUT they can't be merged.

This time I used Content Aware and I don't know exactly how to merge it manually editing the XMP (which anyway I should not be forced to do) so I had to re-do all healing in the VC that already had 50% of it, wasting considerable time.

Please implement the ability to merge healing.

You will allow suers total flexibility and not punish them if they forget to do healing all in one place.

There is possible workaround to merge Healing.

User must:

1) Open the XMP of fhe source photo using a text editor.

2) Copy the healing.

3) In LrC set the destination photo with the same aspect ratio/crop of the source photo. Save XMP.

I am not sure this step is necessary but usually when the crop/aspect ratio differs there are problems with Healing in LrC with different crop/aspect rations and rotation.

@johnrellis has detailed all these issues and fixed them in his Copy Settings plug-in

4) Open the XMP of the destination photo and paste the healing AT the correct location.

For convenience put it at the top inthe "Retouch Areas".

4) Back in LrC in the destination photo one must "Import metadata form Disk"

At this point Helaing is successfuly merged.

For virtual copies more steps are required and the user should save each VC as a Snapshot and then copy and paste the healing from the source state to the destination Snapshot.

This entire workaround is beyond complex, I don't think any user should be forced to go to this length to simply Merge Healing.

I did it becase I have the" know how" and because I was in desperate need to merge Healing done in one image to another one (not the example provided)

Please implement Merge Healing.

All Healing are all given an ID number and it can be used to trigger a merge or a replace just like we have for Masking so it's perfectly doable.

P.S

For Heal and Clone this workaround is relatively straightforward.

On the other hand merging Content Aware using this workaround is more complex as one must omit/erase certain parts of the Content Aware and they will have to be re-computed in the destination photo.

I will, not even go in detail on how to do it for Contet Aware as it's really madness to think that any user should learn this to obtain Merge Healing.

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