About Virtual Copy...

[patrickl32183333]

Is Virtual Copy making a copy of the original photos or is it making a copy with Lightroom adjustments previously made? And if it's making copy with the adjustments (what I think), is there a simple way to make a virtual copy without those adjustments (so make a virtual copy of the original photo)?

Thanks for your help

[GoldingD]

Yes and yes.

The virtual copy will include all develop edits already in the file you copied.

Yes, you can undo all the edits in the virtual copy.

No, you are not presented with an option to ignore previous edits when you make the virtual copy.

However, on the image to be copied, in the history panel, click on the first state (or whatever state you want) then make the virtual copy.

hmm, that from gray matter, not at a computer to double check.

[ManiacJoe · Accepted solution]

The starting point of the virtual copy is the selected point in the edit history when the "create copy" command is issued, often but not always the top of the edit stack.

To start the virtual copy at the original import state, select the entry at the bottom of the edit history before creating the copy.

[Theresa J]

You can simply click the Reset button on the virtual copy to clear the edits.

[Abambo]

Just to get you into the concept of the virtual copy:

A virtual copy is what it claims to be: the original image file does not get duplicated but there will be only a second (or third...) entry in the LR catalog (database) with the developement parameters to be applied, when the asset is exported.

For nearly all operations, a virtual copy is the same as the initial physical copy. As Lr does non-destructive editing, all editing steps done since the import can be undone.

I use the virtual copy in 2 cases:

1. When I want doing editing variants, I will need to branch at a specific editing point and apply the differing edits.
2. When I need to change the crop of a finally edited picture (landscape to portrait eg). There I do my edits and branch at the very last modification and apply the differing crop. Very often, however, I need to return, to change this or that parameter. In that case, I need to copy my edits from one asset to the other, obviously letting out the cropping.

[DdeGannes]

Quote "Is Virtual Copy making a copy of the original photos"

To  be clear Virtual copies are not actual image files like jpeg's or tiff's its information stored in the LR Catalog file.

You would have to export the virtual copy from lightroom and save to a location of your choice to create a copy.