I keep on loosig edited files from LR

Forum|Forum|23 days ago
June 9, 2026
2 replies
51 views

after recent edited files they are getting lost and files cannot be found even though original file exists in LR classic

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Sounds like you may misunderstand how Lightroom works. If you can find the original files, then you have found what Lightroom uses. Lightroom edits those files “non-destructively”. That means that the edits are not applied to the pixels of those files, but stored in the catalog as a kind of ‘to do list’. Consequently, if you open the file in another application, you won’t see the edits. If you want to have an edited file outside of Lightroom, then you must use ‘Export’ to export an edited copy. You can choose different file formats, such as tiff or jpeg.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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irriesAuthor

Participating Frequently

Usually I start editing in LR. Then goes to edit in PS through LR. After editing in PS I save back to LR. I new TIFF file opens in LR which have the PS edits. Sometimes I go back and forth a couple of times. The RAW original file is in LR still but those edited files are not there and tells me to find them on my PC files. It is something to do with the XMP file update

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AxelMatt

Community Expert

Unfortunately you haven't given us any detailed infos about your issue and about your system. Therefore, all proposed solutions are a look into the crystal ball

Please describe more detailed what you’re doing and what happened.

Do you get error messages?

Do you work with the correct catalog?

It can be a corrupt catalog. Try to restore the catalog from the recent backup. Or try to create a new catalog and try the functionality with several images.If it’s work you can import the images from the “old catalog”.

Please provide a copy of your 'System Info'. This can be get from the Lightroom menu item Help > System Info. There's a copy button in the System Info dialog. Press this button and paste the info into a text file and attach it to your next forum post.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

I

irriesAuthor

Participating Frequently

Usually I start editing in LR. Then goes to edit in PS through LR. After editing in PS I save back to LR. I new TIFF file opens in LR which have the PS edits. Sometimes I go back and forth a couple of times. The RAW original file is in LR still but those edited files are not there and tells me to find them on my PC files. It is something to do with the XMP file update

A

AxelMatt

Community Expert

...The RAW original file is in LR still but those edited files are not there and tells me to find them on my PC files. It is something to do with the XMP file update

Do I understand this right? The TIFF is in the catalog, but it has an excalmation mark and Lightroom say it’s missing. In this case do you find the TIFF on your PC?

I don’t think that has to do with the XMP. do you have enable creating XMPs automaticallsy in LR? Normally it’s disable. If yes try to disable this option. Now no XMPs should be created. Check if it’s help.

Try to create a new empty catalog, import several images and check this behavior.

You can also try to reset the preferences of LrC: How to reset Lightroom Classic preferences (adobe.com)

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

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