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surftrestles
surftrestles
Participant
December 28, 2018
Question

Lost previously made adjustments on folder reimport...Can you help?

  • December 28, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 413 views

Hi there,

Thank you in advance for the help.  My issue is when I go to reimport folders containing RAW and XMP files, I'm not seeing any of the previously made corrections and touchups or history to the files.  Many of them had been exported to jpg but show up as the original RAW file.  What am I missing? 

Cameron

Lightroom Classic CC

Sony A7ii

Zeiss Batis 18mm

Sony Gmaster 85mm

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    December 28, 2018

    Re-importing means that Lightroom considers the photos to be new photos it has never seen, and therefore there are no adjustments.

    Thus, re-importing is never a good thing to do.

    Did you actually delete the photos from Lightroom after you made the adjustments? If so, then your edits/adjustments are probably gone forever. If the photos are still in Lightroom, (not counting the re-imported versions, then you have to find them in Lightroom and your edits will still be there.

    surftrestles
    surftrestlesAuthor
    Participant
    December 28, 2018

    dj-paige I never delete the files completely unless I want them gone forever.  I'm simply removing them from LR.  But I just remembered maybe I'm not seeing the history on reimport because I never backup on exit? 

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    December 28, 2018

    You have a number of misconceptions here.

    Deleting the photos from Lightroom causes the edits and edit history and user-provided metadata to be deleted as well. In my opinion, the workflow that deletes original photos from Lightroom after you export them, is a very poor workflow, not only as you have seen, your work is deleted, but because it is extra work compared to leaving the photos in Lightroom.

    This has nothing to do with backups either. But if you are going to follow the advice above and no longer delete photos from Lightroom, then you also need to make backups regularly (in my opinion, this is mandatory).

    So -- bottom line -- if you want to maintain your edits, don't delete the photos from Lightroom, and back up regularly.

    99jon
    99jon
    Legend
    December 28, 2018

    It’s not clear why you need to re-import?

    Develop settings are contained only in the catalog unless (optionally) written to XMP.

    Have you changed catalogs. Do you still have older catalog backups?

    Try from the menu:

    File >> Open Recent

    surftrestles
    surftrestlesAuthor
    Participant
    December 28, 2018

    99jon thanks for the reply.  Doing all my file management in LR I somehow removed a lot of folders and needed to reimport.  I'm still within the same catalog and just figured all the XMP files in the folder had develop history.  Does all the adjustment history disappear when removing the folders?  I'll try the Open Recent now.  

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    December 28, 2018

    I'm still within the same catalog and just figured all the XMP files in the folder had develop history.

    An incorrect assumption. This does not happen by default. You have to specifically tell Lightroom to create XMP files.

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