P: Please let us make "destructive" changes to our images

Go on about LR's built-in deletion capability as much as you want. It just isn't relevant to whether one should facilitate a destructive editing workflow.

So if deleting files is bad practice...LR already allows that..permanent, irrevocable (not even going to recycle bin) deletion of raw files. Is LR immoral?

And there are other plugins that delete files under user direction.

Yes, it is a question of "morality" or judgement. I suspect most plugin authors want to enhance Lightroom's capabilities, not circumvent important safeguards or facilitate bad practice.

"Responsible thing"...wow..this isn't a morality issue.

LR allows me to permanently delete files...they seem like a fine upstanding company so i guess it is a responsible thing to do 🙂

From what I know of the plugin system, I am pretty sure a plugin could indeed implement this idea. The problem might be finding a plugin author who judges it a responsible thing to do.

As said before, I completely support the current non-destructive system and it should continue to work flawlessly and with no chance of error for all users.   But I still support the option of destructive editing.

(1) The idea of a plugin to accomplish this is interesting; is it possible?

(2) Loss of resolution with multiple jpeg saves:  Yes, this can be an issue, but you have to consider how most of us non-professionals (perhaps the majority of LR users?) view photos.  My photos are viewed at FHD (1920x1080) or less, which is lower resolution than even my phone camera.   Yes, after cropping it can be an issue.  I expect to move to UHD (3840x2160) screens in the future,  but expect my cameras to stay ahead of this.   If I think I'm going to re-edit in Photoshop I save the psd file, otherwise save in jpeg.   Have I ever regretted overwriting the original - yes, a couple of time.  Have I ever noticed a loss of resolution - never (except in some experiments with 10 edit-save iterations).

(3) Steve Crane mentioned saving edited versions in a subfolder.  If I remember correctly, several photo editing programs, eg ACDSee Ultimate, save the originals (with redoable editing?) in a separate subfolder.   This seems like a good scheme.

(4) Lockin.   If I use Lightroom for editing, I've pretty much got to use it all the time.  Eg, if I want to use Photoshop, I first have to go thru LIghtroom so that those edits are applied.  What if I decided to use another program for both database and editing.   How do I get all those LR edits applied, yet save the originals perhaps in a subfolder.   Is there a way or am I locked in, as Adobe surely wants me to be?

Now if the medical profession only had non-destructive surgery!  

Happy New Year to all,  Fred

I was also a bit surprised by the level of "OMG you can't do that" responses. A lot more useful would be (and has been based on some respones) "why do you need it" to see if there was some alternative in the current capability. Or more speculative "how might this work".

From the it's first version (I started with V2) LR propose a specific workflow but leave the user choose it's own. To do so, every LR user know that, one can call other applications using the "plugin" feature. This is what I do since then. My workflow is not as simple as it could be using only LR proposal. But, I am satisfied and every thing is completely safe. 

Adding to LR the Steve's proposal would, to my point of view, bring to serious misunderstanding and create a messy situation.

Deciding to erase (kill) the RAW or any original file format could be done for instance at the same time LR create/export the JPEG. This type of action generate a critical situation. 

May be, this may satisfy several users like Steve.
But, this creates a no return situation. So:
 - Impossible to go back in case the correction made by LR does'nt give satisfaction.
 - Can not redo processing with a new version of LR .

Assuming that the choice of RAW suppression would be determined by a user-manipulated "swich", one could arrive at situations such as:
- Forgetting to change the swich when changing the way of working.
- If this type of function is introduced, it should "secure" the use of this swich. Which from then on would not be of a friendly use.

 - Among other solutions, there is a very simple (but as risky) to use in LR as the deletion of RAW at once by sorting the photos by file type and then selecting them in a group to delete them.

Personally I only delete RAW after a very tight sort and before any correction. For those who (like sports reporters) only work in JPEG, the question could indeed arise. But to mix originals and corrected copies remains to me a major management error.

"Something else I think nobody has mentioned in this thread is the loss of quality with repeated saves of a JPEG file." I mentioned that three days ago already.

I think it is because Lightroom was developed from the very beginning around the principle of non-destructive editing, and so we are surprised that someone would choose to use it, then request a change around the core principle; particularly as there are many other apps available with that behaviour.

Something else I think nobody has mentioned in this thread is the loss of quality with repeated saves of a JPEG file. I know that I have gone back and re-processed many of my images, as new versions of the processing engine have become better and as my own processing skills and eye for processing have improved. Had I been saving previous edits to JPEG files over the originals there would have been some small amount of degradation each time. Perhaps re-processing is not something that Steve Martin ever does, but this potential degradation is worth bearing in mind, even using a manual overwrite procedure as he does.

If I might make a suggestion for a different workflow, perhaps consider making a sub-folder called Processed beneath the original folder and exporting edited versions to it. This can then be imported back into Lightroom initially and synchronised if further exports are done to it. This would allow the original JPEG (with more information) to be kept in the original folder while still having the exported version within Lightroom. Perhaps not as easy a workflow as being able to over-write the original JPEG but easier than manually moving files outside of Lightroom and still retaining the original best quality JPEG that future re-processing could be done against.