Move and Copy History in Lr

[OrvilleSpence]

I am not sure if it's something can already be done and I missed the tutorial on it but..

1. Can I copy one 'History step' and paste that step on another image without copying everythig I have done to the first image? I know there's 'Previous' which a blanket copy and 'Sync' but I don't like messing with my Sync settings for just one simple task. Example: Copy a crop from one image to the next but without any saturation/contrast/temp changes I already made.

2. I have deduced in 'History', one change is independent of the others and does not rely on the previous change (step) before it to make a difference on the image manipulated, so why aren't the steps in 'History' interchangable? Why can't I move the last step to be the first which will allow me to keep that step but delete the others?

If any of these can be done, please let me know cause I have search the forum to no avail. I hope what I wrote is understandable.

[dj_paige]

Item 1 is a feature of Lightroom Classic called Sync Metadata, but then you have decided not to use it saying "I don't like messing with my Sync settings for just one simple task".

Item 2 is not possible in Lightroom Classic.

[richardplondon]

LrC's History panel can be best considered IMO as a chronological list of entire image states. Not so much as a list of particular operations in themselves, even though those are what move one state on to another.

Even if the interface might appear similar, and even if a sequence of edits might accumulate similarly, History works radically unlike the functional stack of cumulative operations seen in some other software. 

So no, you cannot copy a particular History step in the sense of an editing action, onto another image.

But you can view one image / image virtual version / earlier History state of an image; Copy; set in the Copy dialog which particular aspects (such as, just the crop) you want to transfer; go to another image / virtual version / History state; Paste just those selected adjustment settings in - leaving all other processing unaltered. This can be done working from any image state subsequent to the particular one where that crop was first applied.

[OrvilleSpence]

Hi Richard, this would make a lot more sense if this was Ps since one step is dependent on the step before it. However if we take something as simple like applying a crop before I apply a preset. The colorization of that preset is applied to the entire image incluing the cropped areas, should I decide later to reset the crop. So cronalogical steps isn't really enforced in LrC and thus being able to simply copy and paste a step/change (ctrl+c, ctrl-v) shouldn't be a hard thing to do.

[richardplondon]

My point was: it is not necessary to dig through the History and find the particular prior step where some processing was first applied, which you now want to transfer onto another image.

All subsequent image states continue to exhibit that same processing (crop, say) until you further change that. Any one of those therefore serves equally well, as a source to copy it from. And including several other parametric settings in the same operation, by the way, is trivially easy. No need to go back separately to locate each one of those other steps in the History.

IOW to make one image look like another in certain respects, you just do that directly.

History is only relevant to that task if you want to click back and view some earlier image state which exhibits prior processing which will now serve better. Remembering to afterwards roll that source image forward again, to show its latest editing once more.