Lightroom Classic edits appear in Bridge and Photoshop

[MCTCanada]

I am Windows 1 based and use LRClassic, Bridge and Photoshop, mainly LRC.  However, when i open a file in Bridge or Ps after editing in LRC, i get the edited version rather than the original one.  Is there a way to fix this so i get the original version in Bridge and Ps? thanks

[KR Seals]

It sounds like you might have "Automatically write to XMP" in Catalog Settings -> Metadata tab. That creates XMP files with the processing information that Bridge will read and show you the processed version. Try turning that off and see how any newly processed images look in Bridge. 

[MCTCanada]

Thank you KR Seals. I did as you suggested and that works going forward
with images that I had not yet processed in LrC, but I was wondering if
there is also a way to remove the LrC develop settings from my previously
developed images. The reason I want to do this is because I am fairly new
to LrC and Ps and am experimenting with which one I would prefer to start
from scratch so I want to compare the edits made in Lr with those made in
Ps (via Bridge and Camera Raw). Thanks, MC

[richardplondon]

The edits made in Lightroom Classic and the edits made in Camera Raw are identical, given contemporary versions of both. The editing metadata of Lightroom (cloud based) and Mobile are largely compatible with ACR but not quite 100% 

Each time either ACR or LrC is updated with some new adjustment features or a new Process Version (processing engine) the other one is also updated the same. This allows ACR to sit between PS and LrC identically to how it sits between PS and Bridge, and it allows XMP edits to be saved to file or read from file by either one, always with 100% identical results.

Only the interface, the organisational principles and some of the working methods are different between Lightroom and Bridge, and THOSE (not editing features) are what separate these products and justify their separate existence. So those matters will govern your choice of which to use. How do you want to regard your photos - as a whole lot of folders and files on disk with the focus on managing these 'physically', or as an integrated image library with the focus on what 'virtual' possibilities that enables.

To take a concrete example, if using Bridge you want to work on one, or several, photos at a given time you will first need to go and find them in their folder, and open them up explicitly for editing, and then when you are finished, close those again (or else cancel the changes you have just made without saving them back). Lightroom makes all images equally available all of the time for live editing, singly or in the batch, including virtual-copy alternative image versions (which behave within that environment just as if they were 'real' images).

Also Lightroom offers many fluid virtual ways to, in parallel: search, group, present and manage images on the fly - where the payback for your discipline, is the maximally rich participation of these images in this. Bridge is IMO far more about planning and using some single overarching organisational scheme - whereby the payback for your discipline, is that departures from this have been minimised. 

If you like maintaining control by designing rules for yourself and then following them, Bridge is more for you. With Bridge, efficiency is EARNED.

If you have a more exploratory mindset, and provided you are content to let go of that "ritualised" control attitude to some extent - such as, simply not caring what particular folder a given photo may live in, if that is simply not relevant to your immediate task - Lightroom can be very liberating and enjoyable. With Lightroom, efficiency just EMERGES.

[MCTCanada]

Thank you richardplondon for your reply.  I realize that ARC and LrC edits are almost identical but I wanted to use PS to make these adjustments rather than ARC. MCT 

[richardplondon]

Using PS to make which changes, in what way, instead of how much adjustment happens in ACR - yes that is important to evaluate and to develop one's own working preferences.

But all the same considerations will apply whether it's Bridge and ACR involved, or Lightroom Classic instead.

The two are functionally identical so far as what you then get inside Photoshop. After applying adjustments in PS, and saving the results back as a new file (PSD or TIFF format, assuming you want to preserve as further editable, the layers by which you have achieved these adjustments), either you will now see an additional image inside Bridge showing these edits - or you will now see an additional image inside Lightroom showing these edits.

Or if using both approaches, you will see both: but personally I would strongly advise, settle on one option you are using and then adopt that fully and exclusively. Equally so with the two flavours of Lightroom (Classic and cloud based), there's more clarity and robustness in deciding on one OR the other.

Lightroom encourages and enables some kinds of operations (that can only be virtually achieved and thus only ever seen from within a Catalog) that are simply not going to be apparent when your photos are looked at as files, from within Bridge.

And Bridge encourages and enables easy physical reorganisation of the images considered as files, which is then bound to (silently) confuse and disrupt any importation of those same affected image files, and their folders, into Lightroom Classic.

It's impactical and inefficient to try to combine these two IMO: you will just experience the downsides of both.

[KR Seals]

@MCTCanada You need to understand that all the adjustments you make to images in Lightroom Classic are stored in the catalog. If the sidecar XMP files are also created, they are just duplicates of some of the processing information for a specific image. If and ONLY If you have no need for the XMP files, you can delete the files in a folder that end in .XMP ONLY. 

One way to see the comparison between the processed image and the original in Lightroom Classic in the Develop module is to press and hold the back slash "\" key. That will show you the original unadjusted image except for the crop.

Another way to compare a Lightroom Classic processed image to one from Photoshop is: In Lightroom Classic, create a Virtual Copy. Then send that one to PS from Lightroom Classic. At this point you will have the choice to open the original file in Photoshop or with Lightroom Classic adjusment. Make the Photoshop adjustments you want, then SAVE the file. You can then see the Photoshop adjusted version in Lightroom Classic right next to the original processed version. What you describe with Bridge is a lot of extra work.

[MCTCanada]

Thank you Kenneth.  Your suggestions sounds like a good solution for me.  I have been editing some of my LrC adjusted images in PS but will edit with the original image and SAVE it back to LrC to compare the two.   My PS mentor suggested I use Bridge as a means to open the image in PS, make a basic AUTO adjustment and profile correction in ACR before I open in PS. All my images are initially organized with Windows File Explorer date and place.  MCT

[Jao vdL]

That seems a lot of extra work for no benefit. If you want to accomplish what your mentor suggests you can just ignore bridge and simply create a virtual copy in Lightroom Classic, reset its development, and apply the basic auto and profile correction. Then directly open it in Photoshop from Lightroom. The raw file will be (invisble to you) rendered by camera raw using the auto and profile corrections and be opened in Photoshop. After editing in Photoshop and saving (don't fuddle with the name, just hit save), it saves next to the raw file and comes right back into Lightroom so you can immediately compare. The raw rendering code in Lightroom and that in ACR are exactly the same so no need to open it outside of Lightroom manually.

[JohanElzenga]

If your images are raw files, then all you need to do to reset them in Bridge is delete the .xmp sidecar file.

[MCTCanada]

Thanks for all the comments.  I found that the easiest way to do this without deleting anything is to move the image that was previously processed in Lightroom, which I want to process in Photoshop without the Lightroom develop adjustments, is to move the image into another folder (without XMP sidecar) and process the image from that new folder.  That way only the original raw image is processed.  Very simple and uncomplicated.

MCTCanada

[JohanElzenga]

So now your image is "missing" in Lightroom. That does not sound simple and uncomplicated to me.

[MCTCanada]

Thank you for your rely.  I meant  move a COPY of my image to a new folder and then process the image from the new folder direcly in Photoshop or indirectly from Bridge.  I ADD my images to Lightroom so the catalogue would remain even if i had moved the image to a new folder and then move it back again.  Alternatively, I could have made a virtual copy in Lightroom, then Reset my develop adjustments on the copy and send that to Photoshop.  All i was wanting to do was to compare the adjustment process from scratch in Lightroom.  My findings were that I prefer my Lightroom adjustsments, especially now that masking is much easier with the new select the subject or sky options in version 11.0.   MCTCanada