Participating Frequently

Question

Edits & Masks not saved in DNG format

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
December 28, 2021
3 replies
1848 views

I recently returned from an African trip with 20,000 images imported into LR v.10.x. All had import presets, "core" keywords added, and conversion to DNG. I did some minor deletions, cropping, and luminance edits and had everything backed up on an external hard drive.

As per my usual workflow, I copied all of the images from the external drive into my home PC LR catalog. All was fine and I started my detailed editing and culling of images. LR v.11 came out so I updated and LOVED the new masking features. I up-dated to v.11.0.1 and v.11.1 when available. By then I had hundreds of hours in editing, using the new masking, and adding detailed key words.

Then, I copied the DNG images and LR catalog to a second external hard drive for off-site storage. To my shock, NONE of the v.11 image edits or new key words were in the copied DNG images. I tried creating a new catalog, exporting as a catalog, importing from the original catalog but none of the edits or key words are present in the copied DNG files. If I export the images (very, very slow process) all of the edits and key words are in both DNG files and JPEGs.

Today Adobe said "Oops, we have a problem."

Any ideas on how to have a safe back-up until Adobe correct the issue in the next version update???

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

dj_paige

Legend

By default, Lightroom Classic does not write your edits to DNG.

Any ideas on how to have a safe back-up until Adobe correct the issue in the next version update???

So, not a bug, working as designed, not going to be "fixed" — the user has to turn on an option to write edits to DNG.

Also, XMP is not a backup.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

>Then, I copied the DNG images and LR catalog to a second external hard drive for off-site storage. To my shock, NONE of the v.11 image edits or new key words were in the copied DNG images.

You need to save the metadata and edits to DNG (Save Metadata to files found in Library Metadata menu) or have Auto Save to XMP enabled in Catalog Settings.

Creating a new catalog from the images doesn't help because the missing masks are stored in a supplementary catalog file ending '.lrcat-data' stored alongside the original catalog file.

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lorendnAuthor

Participating Frequently

For many years I have turned this function off to improve performance as suggested by Adobe. The DNG format has always had all of the edit info and metadata. Is this something different with V.11?

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

@lorendn wrote:

For many years I have turned this function off to improve performance as suggested by Adobe. The DNG format has always had all of the edit info and metadata. Is this something different with V.11?

I think you simply remember this wrong. If you turn off 'Automatically write metadata to files' in the preferences, and you also don't do that manually via the 'Metadata - Save metadata to files' menu, then the metadata will not be saved in the DNG files. This has always been that way and has not changed in version 11.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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lorendnAuthor

Participating Frequently

I recently returned from an African trip with 20,000 images imported into LR v.10.x. All had import presets, "core" keywords added, and conversion to DNG. I did some minor deletions, cropping, and luminance edits and had everything backed up on an external hard drive.

As per my usual workflow, I copied all of the images from the external drive into my home PC LR catalog. All was fine and I started my detailed editing and culling of images. LR v.11 came out so I updated and LOVED the new masking features. I up-dated to v.11.0.1 and v.11.1 when available. By then I had hundreds of hours in editing, using the new masking, and adding detailed key words.

Then, I copied the DNG images and LR catalog to a second external hard drive for off-site storage. To my shock, NONE of the v.11 image edits or new key words were in the copied DNG images. I tried creating a new catalog, exporting as a catalog, importing from the original catalog but none of the edits or key words are present in the copied DNG files. If I export the images (very, very slow process) all of the edits and key words are in both DNG files and JPEGs.

Why do the DNG edits not show outside of LR?

KR Seals

Community Expert

Did you also transfer the previews folder along with the catalog file. If not, perhaps LrC is rebuilding the previews on the second machine.

Also, did you do a "Save" on the files in the first machine LrC? That would put all the metadata and processing information in the DNG files.

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

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lorendnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes and yes - but the metadata and edits are not in the copied DNGs as they have always been in the past.

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