Editing an Image (in PS) Located in Multiple Collections

Question

When I have an image located in multiple collections (ie. an image that will be in a couple's wedding album AND a print order), if I edit one of them in PS, it doesn't add the edited/psd version to the other collections it resides in. It does populate the edited psd within the main Catalog, but again, only populates the edit/psd in the collection I'm in when the image is edited, not the other collections.

Is there a way to fix this? Even possible? I love that LR edits are applied to the image in all collections and the catalog, just can't seem to figure out why it doesn't work the same way for PS edits. Thanks for any help!!

johnrellis · Accepted Answer

Unfortunately, that's the implemented behavior of LR, and there isn't any way to change it. The stacking behavior of LR is complicated, due to the design of having separate stacks for each folder and collection, with different behavior from editing in external editors, merging photos, creating virtual copies, etc. You could file a feature request in the official Adobe feedback forum: Lightroom Classic CC | Photoshop Family Customer Community . But with the LR Classic team now "refocused on improving performance and enhancing the editing tools", in my opinion it's unlikely Adobe will implement such Library changes, given how little focus there was in the past many years on Library. But filing a feature request could still serve the purpose of showing that customers still care.

richardplondon · Answer

When you edit a photo externally, you get a brand new image within the Lightroom database that was not there before. There is no connection between the two, except that one is derived from the other so far as the metadata which can be passed to Photoshop and then saved into the file which is then reimported to Lightroom.

And membership in one or more collections, is only expressible inside Lightroom - Photoshop can know nothing about that. So the brand new external edit arrives in Lightroom possessing no collection membership as yet (as well as no editing history, etc).

Yet its incidental metadata matches that of the starting image it was derived from - the new thumbnail "knows" that the photo concerned was taken with the right camera, on the right day, etc. And by default it has all the same keywords etc.

Hence if the first image's attributes qualify it to appear in a particular Smart Collection then by the same token, the new image will appear there too... unless the inclusion rules discriminate these two versions somehow (by their file type, by their import date, or some other such gotcha).

That is one way to achieve what you ask for. This may be as simple as starting out applying a particular special keyword which your new edit will then naturally inherit also; and employing a Smart Collection which selects dynamically on that keyword (such that your new edit will naturally show up there too)... rather than putting your starting image manually into a standard, static Collection.

More than one such Smart Collection can be operating in parallel, against all the same photos' various versions.

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