Clear History items individually

[b&wnight]

After making a few adjustments I quit Lightroom 2. Restarting I cannot undo some of these History items. I do not want to Clear all. How can I get rid of the last few History items without getting rid of then all?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Click on the last one you were happy with, to go back to that point, and anything you do after that will overwrite the following steps.

[F. McLion]

No, unfortunately not.

@Victoria: It's about deleting one dev step item from the list and keep the older as well as the newer.

I'd love to have that too!

Franz

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

F. McLion wrote:

@Victoria: It's about deleting one dev step item from the list and keep the older as well as the newer.

Franz, can you explain how that would help your workflow?

[F. McLion]

Victoria,

I first came across this when I wanted to delete a dev step earlier in the history - back in LR1. Intuitively, I marked that step and right-clicked it to get something like a 'delete this dev step' ... oops ... not existing.

Of course, there are workarounds to not have to redo all of correct steps after returning to an earlier state. However, I came across this many times because IMHO this would be the easiest and fastest way to correct/remove a single earlier dev step.

This would be very nice to have.

Franz

[b&wnight]

Thanks Victoria. I did want to clear the last few items, so that works for most of what I want to do.

As indicated, it would be useful to be able to clear individual History items from anywhere in the sequence.

[Butch_M]

Yes ... individual deletion of select history states would be desirable ... however the OP asked ...

b&wnight wrote:

How can I get rid of the last few History items without getting rid of then all?

[F. McLion]

Ooops .. must have kinda projected my wishes into this ... or simply was not reading well.

Sorry

[john beardsworth]

Remember history steps are simply a log of what you have done. Think of them as a glorified Undo list - not a cumulative set of actions as Photoshop. What matters is the slider values.

[F. McLion]

I do know all that ... how its working and how to revert a single step ... and and and ...

Nevertheless, IMHO this would be a nice feature.

[john beardsworth]

It would be a waste of coding time. Plenty of better things to do!

[F. McLion]

No offense, but hey, everybody  has his opinion and I completely disagree with you.

That's why there is a IHMO

Nevertheless, IMHO this would be a nice feature.

I'm not the OP so I can not mark this thread as closed. However, for me there is no further discussion needed in this thread.

[David Ayars]

F. McLion wrote:

No offense, but hey, everybody  has his opinion and I completely disagree with you.

That's why there is a IHMO

Nevertheless, IMHO this would be a nice feature.

I'm not the OP so I can not mark this thread as closed. However, for me there is no further discussion needed in this thread.

HaHa! In IMHO there's still room for discussion! Actually, I think I know why you assumed OP wanted what you want (being able to remove just one edit from the middle of the edit history while leaving all other edits in place)... I thought he was asking for the same thing, at first... it's the subject of the thread ("Clear History items individually") which is really a different feature than asked for in the original post.  There are photo editing software apps that do exactly what you're asking for:  Paint Shop Pro has had that feature for years and several generations.  And it is quite useful and can save a lot of work.

But you're more likely to find it in editing apps that perform destructive edits.  It may (or may not, I dunno) be quite a difficult thing to program in software such as LR which edits nondestructively.  And as pointed out above, there are likely higher priorities, because as John Beardy said, all you have to in LR is readjust the slider to remove the one edit you want taken out.

[b&wnight]

I believe my question has been answered: I can certainly go back a step or a few steps and start over-and there is no feature that allows removal of steps in the middle of a history.

Your replies do raise more questions for me though-if you don't mind.

"Of course, there are workarounds to not have to redo all of correct steps after returning to an earlier state." Other than making note of them, and re-applying them, is there something else?

"What matters is the slider values."

I assume you mean the final slider values-the History may record 3 changes of exposure but this is summarized by the final slider value.

Thank you all.

Bob

[john beardsworth]

Yes, the final values - how they are now. If you erased all the history, or just removed one or two steps, your images would look precisely the same. History is simply a log recording what you did in the order you did it.

It just has handy features like  when you switch to Before-After view - the Y key - you can drag history steps from the History panel and drop them onto the Before side. That's great for fine tuning.

John

[David Ayars]

The key to your new questions is understanding the difference between destructive-edit software and the unique way Lightroom records editing changes.

Say you opened your front door, snapped a shot, imported it into Lightroom, and then in LR Library mode, adjusted the Exposure +0.50, adjusted the Color Temp slider from As Shot 5500 to Custom 7000, adjusted the Exposure to -1.00, and then adjusted Exposure to -0.50.  The only Exposure adjustment that really counts is the last one--that change nullified or in effect removed from your History the first two Exposure changes.

In a program like PSP, if you made those same four changes, and then punched out the second Exposure change from the list, your exposure would look different than it looked in Lightroom, because those changes relate to one another in the sequence they were made rather than to your original image.

In LR Library mode, changing Exposure +0.50, then -1.00, then +0.50 gives a final exposure change of +0.50 from the original image.  (Only your most recent adjustment of any one slider is reflected in what appears to you as an edited image--remember, LR isn't really changing your original image, it's only recording the changes you want made.  This is why it's considered nondestructive.  If you opened your original image outside of LR, it would appear unedited.  What LR is doing is compiling a list of slider settings that it reapplies to the image each time you reopen LR. If you want those changes saved concretely in a way that can be seen outside of LR, you use LR to Export or Print the image with those slider settings in effect.)

In PSP, changing Exposure +0.50, then -1.00, then +0.50 gives a final exposure change of 0.00 from the original image. The changes relate to one another and take effect cumulatively.  Punch out just the -1.00 change from the history, and the first and third adjustments of +.50 and +.50 still remain in effect. So you now would have a net change of +1.00 in exposure in PSP--not +.50 as in LR.

In either approach to editing, you can revert the edits to one earlier state in the middle of the history and in effect remove all the subsequent edits.

[Guest]

It´s a shame LR2 doesn´t have this feature it makes logical sence for it to exist and would help alot in saving time.

[Guest]

It doesn't really matter what order the history is in.  It isn't like the Lr engine is going to follow that order. It will do it's own thing and even revisit a control more than once if it has to. As said else-thread, it's about the values on the parametric controls, not the order.