Lightroom Classic 12.0.1 "Recovery" parameter is not being sync'ed

[Till Krueger]

For some of my timelapse sequences (some of them in excess of 5000 files), especially the night ons, I found the "Recovery" parameter to do wonders to recover the highlights of city lights and bright windows.

However, when I sync my grading parameters across all of the images of a folder, the "Recovery" parameter is not being sync'ed, and doen't appear in the "Copy" window, where one can select which parameters get sync'ed, either.

Does anyone know of a way to make that parameter sync? I even tried to do a Photoshop action, but the Camera RAW module doesn't have that option, and since Photoshop can't export as DNG, that wouldn't be an option, anyway.

[richardplondon]

"Recovery" (like "Fill Light") belongs to an earlier process version. Images using that show a completely different Basic panel.

Images under the current process version (applied by default at import) are going to in effect ignore these old-style adjustment parameters. Even for adjustments where the name is the same (e.g. Contrast), the effect differs hence old and new style adjustments are kept distinct from each other in image metadata, in presets, and when you copy-paste. 

IIRC as, e.g. "Contrast" vs "Contrast2012" behind the scenes.

Setting a given image to the same older Process Version that you are syncing from, will activate these same old style adjustments. Its new-style adjustments will still be remembered too, but they will go latent and non-functioning until the image returns to a PV that makes use of these.

[Till Krueger]

In simpler terms, this means that the "Recovery" function was used by an older version of Lightroom Classic, and has now been removed, but is still shown in the Basic panel to allow modification for the selected image only?

As fas as I can tell, there is no function to replace it, either, or is there? "Highlights", alone, certainly does not replace it.

Which older version of Lightroom still supports it, if I want to go back to it, just to process those timelapses which most benefit from it (mostly my nighttime ones)? Or does anyone know of another software package or plugin that has this ability?

[Ian Lyons]

Recovery predates the name change to Lightroom Classic by quite a few years. However, it's still available for use by changing the Process Version of the image(s) to 'Process Version 2'. I've attached a screenshot showing where to find the relevant menu option in the Develop module.

Note that the appearance of the image may change significantly and many of the adjustments will no longer be accessible when you change the image to Process Version 2.

[Till Krueger]

I was gone for 2 days, to a conference...

Very interesting. I had no idea that this is possible. Will have to take a look at that. Thank you!

[JohanElzenga]

What you could try it this: select all the images, go to the develop module and activate 'Auto Sync' by toggling the little switch of the 'Synchronize' button. Change the process version to version 2. This should change the process version of all the selected images. Now it may be possible to synchronize the Fill Light slider, or you could keep 'Auto Sync' active and change the Fill Light slider. That too should synchronize it over all images. Do not forget the turn off Auto Sync again.

[Till Krueger]

Great advice! That will be something I will need to experiment with. Thanks for th instructions!

[Till Krueger]

A follow-up question:

Haven't used LRC in a while, so I may just be a bit daft regarding this...

When I render out my adjustments/grading to DNG files, my adjustments aren't "baked-in"...the resulting files look exactly like the original/un-graded RAW versions, which requires me to take the extra step of then rendering them out to TIFF.

What am I doing wrong, and what setting would I need to use to bake-in my adjustments to the rendered DNG, or is that not possible? I'd like to use DNG, as it greatly simplifies the workflow in another software package that I use, LRTimelapse.

I was under the wrong impression that DNG files retain all of the RAW image data, and can be further graded to the same extremes that RAW files can, but that is obviously not true, and there prob isn't an image format, other than RAW, that can retain all of the original sensor data, correct?

[JohanElzenga]

I'm not sure how you "render out the edits to your DNG files", but using 'Save metadata to files' or 'Export as DNG' does not 'bake in' edits. The raw data inside the DNG file will remain untouched, and the edits are just written to the metadata of the DNG file. If you really want to 'bake in' the edits, meaning changing the pixels of the file, then you must export to an RGB-based file format, such as TIFF.

[Till Krueger]

That makes perfect sense, of course. Thank you, Johan.

[Ian Lyons]

In addition to Johan's comment, you need to use 'Update DNG Previews & Metadata' so that the preview used by Finder, Apple Preview App, etc matches what you're seeing in LrC.

[Till Krueger]

Ah, that's why I didn't see my changes in the Mac Finder previews. Thank you Ian.

So much to learn (again), after years of absence from LRC.