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

Reads original poster's name and thinks, "Ah, this must be a joke". 🙂

Seriously though, why, when there are many apps that work the way you want, would you specifically choose one that doesn't and expect it to be changed to suit your very different requirements?

I'm not seeing the downside...yet. Is there one? You could keep things safe and status quo with new defaults. My guess is Adobe made this choice to increase sales of Photoshop, and learning Photoshop is something I've had to do occasionally. And having both programs running at once is very sluggish.

It's hard enough learning Lightroom, let alone adding in other software just to make permanent changes to the original. And you really have to be careful in LR or very weird things can happen that may go unnoticed. Which of course means you have to know LR well...it's got to be one of your main interests in life, the kind that attracts people to a monthly payment, or reading tons of posts.

I'm wondering if there's a better way to make "destructive edits" in Lightroom 6 than my list? I would love to hear your thoughts:

 1. export, with careful attention to naming and location, and metadata
 2. delete original
 3. locate export
 4. move export
 5. synchronize
 6. check metadata

I assume your image library consists of jpeg files, not raw files. There is no way you can save changes to a raw file. Use a destructive editor for your files if that is what your workflow requires. Obviously, Lightroom isn't the right editor for you. It is a non-destructive editor that works best for raw files and it should stay that way.

My thought is to make it an option, not a requirement. So you wouldn't have to make any changes to the way you work if you don't want to... 🙂 Maybe not using Ctrl-S then...

So the rest of us should change the way we work because one person wants to? I find this request insultingly selfish. Adobe, don’t.