Lightroom not keeping RAW processing settings

[Brizzol]

Hi

I use Lightroom 6 to process my RAW files, now once I have processed them I generally dont come back to the RAW files but I always keep them.

My last batch of photos I processed upon looking over them I have decided that quite a few of them seem a bit too dark.

Now my thinking was that I could just open the raw file and my previous settings for each image would be saved so all i would need to do was tweak the exposure tab until I was happy with it.

But when I open the raw file all the changes I made previously are gone and the sliders are all back in the middle so I would have to start each one from scratch again!

Is there a way of retrieving my previous settings for each file? Or is it a setting when im exporting them that i need to change?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can offer me...

[JP Hess]

When using Lightroom, any adjustments that are made to your images are stored in the catalog. If you use the same catalog those adjustments will remain associated with those images and will be displayed whenever those images are selected in Lightroom. Did you open the images in a new catalog, or were the images reset?

[Brizzol]

Ok my workflow ( which will probably seem like a weird way of doing it )

I import raw files into Lightroom, process them and export them as JPEG's, then remove the files from Lightroom.

[dj_paige]

This is a poor workflow. Leave the files in Lightroom, and then your initial problem won't happen either.

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

brizzol  wrote

Ok my workflow ( which will probably seem like a weird way of doing it )

I import raw files into Lightroom, process them and export them as JPEG's, then remove the files from Lightroom.

That answers the question then. The changes that you make to the raw images are not applied to the image file. They are only stored in the catalog. You make the changes and then export the JPEG images. The JPEG images have the changes. Then you remove the raw files from the catalog and all the changes that were made to the raw images are discarded. All you have now are the original raw images as they were as they were downloaded from the camera. Your workflow is not a very good one for working with Lightroom. It's much better to import the raw images, modify the raw images, export copies when they are needed for other purposes. Keep the raw images as your master files and delete the copies after they have been used for whatever they were made for.

There is a way around this if you want to deal with it. You can modify the Lightroom preferences to tell Lightroom to write changes to XMP files. That means that every raw file will then have its own XMP sidecar file that will have the adjustments that were made using Lightroom. And you will have to make sure that those files are saved alongside the raw files. Lightroom will have to load the raw file and the sidecar file in the future in order to pick up the adjustments that were made using Lightroom previously. I have preferred not to use this option, I like depending on the catalog to retain all of the adjustments. But the choice is yours.

[dj_paige]

The problem with relying on XMP files is that not everything is written to XMP files. Your edit history won't show in there, and neither will collections, virtual copies, and a few other things that I can't remember now.

So I would advise to leave the photos in the LR catalog, instead of removing them.

[JP Hess]

I offered XMP files as an alternative considering the workflow the OP is using. But I think the workflow is seriously flawed as you and I have both pointed out.

[kentdesign]

@brizzol

You might review some of the "workflow" suggestions and consider changing your steps from now on.

Lynda.com has a great one albeit from 2012, with Chris Orwig, who is a great instructor.

The workflow recommendations have not really changed since that date.

You can also search for some tutorials by Julianne Kost

and

try this one to start:

General Lightroom workflow | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC tutorials

[Brizzol]

Ok thanks for all the advice and input.

I have read up a little bit about the Lightroom catalog and I understand it a bit better and I understand why i'm having this issue.

I don't do a huge amount of work with Lightroom so the workaround using XMP files will work great as a temporary solution.

Thanks again.

[JP Hess]

Take a little time to think about it. I think you will come to the conclusion that the better option is to keep the raw files in Lightroom as your master images. There really isn't any advantage to converting to JPEG and getting rid of the raw images. You lose a lot of your processing power in that conversion.