Edits in lightroom not showing in original file

[tombadog99]

Recently, any edits made in lightroom no longer show in original files despite xmp being created. This is for all file types. Canon RAW, jpg and dng. Any suggestions?

[Per Berntsen]

Are you talking about exported images?

If you have chosen Original under Image Format in the export dialog, the original unedited file will be exported.

Choose jpg, psd or tiff, and the edits will be included.

[elie_dinur]

Recently, any edits made in lightroom no longer show in original files despite xmp being created.

Absolutely. Always has been that way. LR never changes original files. That is why the edits are saved in the catalog database and, optionally, in xmps. Only an application that can read and implement the xmp data will apply the edits, so that means primarily Adobe products. To obtain image files that have been rendered with the edits, you have to export a whole new file.

[tombadog99]

Surely if the include develop settings in metadata inside JPEG,TIFF<PNG and PSD files and by writing changes into XMP this is editing the metadata of the original file. I could swear it was behaving as mentioned unitl a few weeks ago.

[dj_paige]

Technically, the statement by Elie_Di

LR never changes original files.

is not correct. The correct statement is that Lightroom never changes the image portion of your original files. So your original pixels are never modified. It does change the metadata portion of the files, if you instruct LR to do so (it does not do this by default).

[tombadog99]

Yes that was my understanding too. But for the last few weeks no other program can read the metadata (and thus the changes) made in lightroom.

[dj_paige]

Specifically, what other program?

Unless you are talking about Adobe software, other programs don't recognize the edit XMP in the file anyway (other programs hsould recognize keywords and captions and GPS in XMP)

[tombadog99]

Firstly, programs I've tried are the default Windows 10 photo app and Zoner photo studio. Secondly, the suspicious thing is that they aren't even reading edits made to jpg or dng files which seems odd. Thirdly, I'm almost certain that they were reading XMP before and they were definitely reading jpg and dng file changes from metadata. 

[dj_paige]

jamesa99259763  wrote

Firstly, programs I've tried are the default Windows 10 photo app and Zoner photo studio. Secondly, the suspicious thing is that they aren't even reading edits made to jpg or dng files which seems odd. Thirdly, I'm almost certain that they were reading XMP before and they were definitely reading jpg and dng file changes from metadata. 

I find this difficult to follow.

When you talk about how these programs are "not even reading edits made to jpg or dng files", are these exported photos? Or the originals?

Also, what exactly does "reading" mean?  Are you expecting to visually see the edited photo (so for example if you change exposure by -2, you will see a much much darker image)? Or does "reading" mean reading the metadata as text?

[tombadog99]

So an edit is made in lightroom to an image, then by my understanding those changes are written into the metadata of the original file. Then I open the original file at its source expecting to see the original image with the changes made by lightroom.

[dj_paige]

jamesa99259763  wrote

So an edit is made in lightroom to an image, then by my understanding those changes are written into the metadata of the original file. 

This is not the default operation of Lightroom. The edits are written into the metadata of the original file only if you specifically tell LR to do so, by either selecting the photo(s) and then Ctrl-S; or by turning on the option to automatically write changes into XMP, which according to your screen capture above it is turned on.

Then I open the original file at its source expecting to see the original image with the changes made by lightroom.

Again, I urge greater specificity here ... "open the original file at its source" meaning what? What software, what steps, how are you looking for the "changes", what do you see or not see??

Is it possible there are two different copies of a photo on your hard disk(s), and you are opening one copy while Lightroom is writing to the other copy? Please, before you tell me that this can't happen, do a search for one of these files by file name, use your operating system's search feature to search all hard disk(s) by file name.

[tombadog99]

yes, as indicated in the screen shot the options to automatically write to xmp and include develop settings inside metadata are turned on. What I mean by the source, is that I open the file from at the location referenced in Lightroom in the file explorer. I then open that file with a different program to lightroom but none of the changes saved in the metadata can be seen. I have searched the whole pc (two drives) for multiple copies of various photos and it always results in the one copy that lightroom references.

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

jamesa99259763  wrote

So an edit is made in lightroom to an image, then by my understanding those changes are written into the metadata of the original file. Then I open the original file at its source expecting to see the original image with the changes made by lightroom.

Changes may or may not get written automatically out to the metadata of the original file, as each new edit happens - this depends on how LR is configured. They are NOT, by initial as-installed default.

Even if that's not happening automatically, you can manually tell LR - on demand - to write latest changes out to the metadata of the original file, for specific image(s).

None of that applies though, if the image in question is a virtual copy. But regardless, the Catalog remembers all this metadata.

The metadata that is written out consists partly of Library module stuff (keywords, copyright, title etc) and partly of Develop module stuff.

By and large the Library module stuff is readable by other non-Adobe programs - but the Develop module stuff is either not understood by non-Adobe programs and therefore ignored - or if used, will not reliably display the same results that it would have done within Adobe software.

When Adobe software opens an image and detects that Develop type metadata had previously been written to that, it will generally speaking then interpret that metadata and display an image which transforms the original image data into your chosen edited appearance, according to those saved instructions.

So that would happen if you opened a Raw file (for example) which had previously been edited in LR, and had the edits saved to file as metadata, into Photoshop via ACR.

Or (if PS is set to do that, which is not necessarily the case) the same thing might happen on opening a JPG into Photoshop which had previously been edited in LR and then had those edits saved to file as metadata. If PS is set not to interpret XMP develop data when opening a JPG, you will just see the original image without the LR edits. A little like, if you sent an image from LR to PS and chose the option "Edit Orginal" rather than "Edit a Copy with LR Adjustments".

But the vast majority of image viewing programs and non-Adobe editors or Raw converters etc, will simply pay no attention to the Develop (image adjustments) aspect, of previously saved metadata from Lightroom.

[tombadog99]

Many thanks for the clarification. However, the only thing that is strange is that until a few weeks ago (I am unable to pinpoint whether it coincided with a Lr update) these programs were reading the changes made by lightroom

[richardplondon]

One situation where you might externally see changes made by Lightroom, is where a viewing program is extracting the preview image from a DNG, rather than fully converting that preview from scratch out of the Raw data inside the DNG.

Lightroom can optionally update and later re-update this preview image in respect of the editing adjustments made to the image.

But that's a DNG specific deal: it does not happen for a camera JPG or for a Raw. In both those cases, any embedded preview image has been put there by the camera in the first instance.

And if the in-camera JPG settings are such as to generate an embedded preview image which is similarly processed, to how you are going to independently want to edit the image inside LR - and this applies to Raw files too - it might be possible to mistake that for the results of LR editing per se.

[tombadog99]

Many thanks for your help. It is also 100% possible that I was imagining it.

[elie_dinur]

Image data is different from metadata. Lr will not change image data in the original file, but it can change metadata in a jpg, tiff or dng. Metadata is contained in a separate part of the file and a change of metadata cannot in itself cause a change in the image data. The metadata contains several subdivisions such as EXIF. Maker Notes, Color Profile, XMP, etc. At most, if the change to metadata involves the embedding of an editing xmp written by LR, other Adobe software which uses Camera Raw (as does LR) will understand that the xmp contains editing adjustments for it to use when displaying or rendering the image, but the image data in the file on your hard drive will not be itself changed until you overwrite it or write a new file.