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Question

Library previews do not reliably update after Photoshop edit (but Develop previews do!)

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 17, 2025
3 replies
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My basic issue is that Library previews do not update reliably in Lightroom Classic after work is done on a TIFF file in Photoshop, whether the “edit (original) in Photoshop” command is used, or the file is simply opened from the Finder and edited. It started a few months ago. It’s intermittent: sometimes previews update immediately, perhaps half the time, though it seems to be getting worse. Sometimes I can force Previews to update using one of several methods gleaned from this forum or other research (see below), sometimes nothing will work except re-saving the file in PS, then reimporting it to LR, OR making an (un-needed) adjustment in the Develop module to trigger preview update in Library. The excellent Lightroom Queen web site suggested I try a bug report as they couldn't come up with a solution for me.

After several weeks troubleshooting I’ve learned that making an adjustment to a parameter in Develop, even a very small one, seems to trigger the preview to appear correctly in Library. I use this every time now but it's not convenient. Resetting that adjustment in Develop will cause the preview to stop displaying correctly. See video attached, notice how the preview pops back and forth as I switch from Develop to Library. Then where I make a small Exposure adjustment, the preview updates correctly in Library. Then I removed the Exposure adjustment and it reverts to the wrong preview again. It's not just expanding canvas that doesn't update. I've also seen this when adding a text layer that doesn't appear when it should in the preview.

But again, sometimes in the course of work previews are updating normally when I do an external edit in Photoshop. It’s just that I can’t rely on it. The previews do not update on their own over time either. During troubleshooting, I recently turned on “Automatically write changes into XMP” in Catalog Settings. There were initially 12 hours or so where this process seemed “stuck”, apparently as LR updated many XMP files (I have 390,000 images in my catalog) but since then I’ve seen absolutely no other issues with performance, so I have left that box checked (“Automatically write changes…”). For a short time I thought this solved the issue but now I see it has not.

I updated to LR 14.2 when it came out (did not solve the issue). Photoshop 2025 26.2.0, MacBook Pro M4, 24mb RAM, 2TB internal SSD drive, 8TB SSD drives via Thunderbolt 3. This also occurred while using Photoshop 2023, but I updated to PS 2025 about 6 weeks ago hoping it might resolve the issue. It did not.

Here’s what else I’ve tried but none of these are 100% reliable as the two “hacks” mentioned above are:

Delete 100% preview for the file, then rebuild (as Standard, as 100%, or zoom in to rebuild, or build a Smart Preview.)

-Save metadata from file

-Read metadata from file (Possibly important: this will remove keywords I’ve added to LR while also editing the file in PS…so it seems the PS file is writing keyword info back to the LR file when saved, but not updating the preview when saved? Uncertain if significant and I don’t fully understand this process between “Save” and “Read” with metadata vs. preview creation.)

The problem occurs in my normal workflow which is usually as follows:

Edit imported RAW file in LR, then export as TIFF to PS (using “add to this catalog”). Add 2-3 layers, often including text. Sometimes I expand the canvas, and often unlock or make a layer from the original exported TIFF file. When done (or during ongoing work on the file) I save the TIFF file with the layers intact. I return to LR to add keywords or rank the new file, and then I find that the preview has not updated.

This issue also occurs when I open a TIFF from LR, using “Show in Finder” OR “Process in…” then “Photoshop 2025”, (then select “edit original”.) Of possible interest, I find that “Process in Photoshop” fails to open my TIFF files some (most?) of the time, but that the “date modified” in the Finder changes at that point, to the current time/date. If I select “Process in Photoshop” again, the file will then open.

I hope this wasn’t too much information, that the video is readable, and thank you for any suggestions.

macOS

P

PabloPauloAuthor

Known Participant

I posted about this in the regular forum a couple weeks ago but only received one Adobe employee reply attempting to help. Unfortuantely that didn’t resolve the issue (and was apparently not relevant to my situation). And then another user commented the same odd thing was happening on their system. So I try again now as a bug report using the “template” requested. This is really slowing down my work. I will try to reply promptly to any questions or requests for more information. Thank you.

Lightroom 14.2 and Photoshop 26.2.0 on a MacBook Pro M4, Sequoia 15.1.1.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Edit a Raw file in LR (or open a TIFF file from the LR catalog and skip Step 2).

2. Export the Raw file to Photoshop as a TIFF, using “add to this catalog”, and “Open in Adobe Photoshop 2025”.

3. In Photoshop, add layers or text and often expand the canvas of the TIFF file.

4. Save the TIFF file in Photoshop. Close it (or not).

5. View the new TIFF file in LR.

6. Note: This TIFF file is not synced with LR Online or other services. It’s on a local drive within Lightroom Classic.

Expected result:

Upon return to Lightroom’s Library module, see that the new TIFF file preview now looks like the version just edited and saved in PS. If not, zoom to 100% to force the preview to update, or perhaps rebuild the preview if zooming doesn’t work to update the preview.

Actual result:

Preview does not update in Library after editing in PS. (Occasionally or rarely it will do so automatically, in hundreds of recent edits.) The following steps do not force a Library preview update when it is “stuck” : Discarding/rebuilding the 1:1 preview; zooming to 100%; saving metadata; reading metadata from the file; restarting LR. “Automatically write changes into XMP” in Catalog Settings was off when this problem appeared weeks ago, but it continues with that box checked (turned on), as it currently is.

What DOES work to update the preview:

(See video attached which illustrates the following comments.)

The preview is not displaying correctly in Library. Go to the Develop module. The preview shows correctly in Develop. Go back to Library…now the preview is not showing correctly. Go back to Develop and make a slight (or large) adjustment. Go back to Library. Now the preview is correctly updated in Library. If the Develop adjustment is then removed (reset), the preview reverts back to the wrong version in Library, but displays correctly in Develop.

Not shown in the video: Occasionally after this process and further editing and saving the file in PS, the new preview will then show correctly in Library but NOT correctly in Develop. It's difficult to reproduce this, but I've seen it.

Daviduk

Inspiring

I've got this problem, it started last week, I'm on LR Classic 14.2. I followed your tip about the develop module, as soon as I went into develop, the edited image changed to what I saved in PS, but switching back to library it displayed the pre-edited image. I had to change a slider in develop in order to make the edited image display in the library. Most annoying.

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PabloPauloAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for posting! Sorry for the trouble but it's good to know I'm not the only one. I haven't found a solution and am not sure how to get Adobe's attention with this for a possible solution or to provide more information to them about our systems. Making a change in the Develop module, after I've completed editing the file in Photoshop, is the only reliable way to get the preview to update in Library. Occasionally I'll see a distorted file preview, as if LR is "trying" to show the correct preview but usually it snaps back to the wrong version, as shown here (distorted and correct versions.)

Rikk Flohr_Photography

This sounds suspiciously like another post on the forum.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-tif-amp-psd-synced-from-classic-has-cloud-rendition-become-stale-after-multiple-round-trips-to-ps/idc-p/15181217#M60104
Look at the workaround here and see:

Is your file still in the same metadata state as this image? ("!" in the grid Cell)
If so, does the [Cmd/Ctrl] + [ S ] issue rectify your Library Preview?

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

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PabloPauloAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for your reply. Much of that other post seems to reference syncing to the Cloud and related preview issues, which I am not doing here (syncing to LR Cloud) if that's important. I do use Sync in a couple of smaller folders in my catalog, but not for the work I've been having the preview issue with.

To answer your questions:

1. If I make a change in PS, save the file, then go to LR, I have seen "!" in the grid or Library view but sometimes it's the "up arrow" or "down arrow". Depends on if I also make a change in Develop (I think). Clicking that gives the messages in 3 photos attached (note metadata badge in each example). If I import from disk, keywords I've added in LR (and saved by hitting Cmd-S) seem to disappear. Sometimes the image I'm working on disappears as I've sorted for that keyword and now it doesn't have it.

I have to admit this part of LR confuses me (metadata updates with the up/down arrow or the "!") even after years of use. I don't understand however why the preview doesn't simply update to the current state of the Photoshop file after I have saved that file and have turned on "automatic update" in the LR preferences. It used to do so more reliably.

2. Cmd-S will make the "!" disappear, but the preview does NOT update in Library. It continues to look correct (updated) in Develop. Depending on what action I take, there may be a dialog box asking about importing data from the file or using LR's version as shown in screenshots here. I'm sorry to say I'm confused about what happens depending on which option I select as I can't always replicate the situation later to make a conclusion.

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