P: Delete all edits/changes made to a group of photo with Masking (Batch Reset)

[Team Castle]

I am looking to select about 1,000 photos, all of which have edits, flags, ratings, and colors. I will be putting them into a new collection and I want to start over from scratch with these 1,000 photos. I have tried to select all of the photos in Develop Mode and "Clear History" but that doesn't do it.

How do I erase all of all of the edits made to each photo, and any flags, ratings, or colors to be removed?

I would prefer not to go one by one. Thank you!

[JP Hess]

Highlight all of the images, turn on auto-sync, and click on the reset button. That will reset all images to the default setting that was applied when the images were imported. With all of the images still selected, press 0  to remove all Star ratings. Then you will have to go to the menu to choose "None" to remove all color labels.

[Team Castle]

Thank you! Saved me plenty of time.

[Rob_Cullen]

In the Library Grid view, there is no Auto-sync, but you can still select all and do a develop reset in the Quick Develop panel.

And then change stars & color labels.

[MarkJS]

---Back Out All Settings

     --In Develop Module | Settings | Reset all settings (top option in vrs. 6)

     --Then in Develop Module | Develop | Clear History   

That's it......

[bob frost]

Jim, Does that actually delete the history, or just put a reset command on top of the existing history? I thought it was the latter.

Bob Frost

[JP Hess]

You are right, the reset button DOES NOT clear the history. But you can use the reset button and then use the Clear History option in the menu if you wish to clear everything out.

[weisis86317999]

Can you not do the batch reset for multiple photos with the new version anymore? There's no auto sync anymore, there's no reset button anymore. Or can anyone show me how to do it? Thank you! 

[johnrellis]

Are you running Lightroom Classic (the traditional desktop-focused program) or Lightroom (the cloud-focused app)?  Lightroom Classic's icon is "LrC" while Lightroom's icon is "Lr" -- or do the menu command Help > System Info and look at the first line.

[weisis86317999]

My apologies. I realized after posting that it was Lightroom instead of Lightroom Classic. I didn't know there were two versions. Is it not possible to do the batch reset in Lightroom? Thank you for your help!

[johnrellis]

Thank Adobe marketers for the confusing naming.  Best to post your query in the Lightroom Cloud forum, where you'll get better answers (and others with the same question will find those answers in the future):

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based/ct-p/ct-lightroom?page=1&sort=latest_...

[Rob_Cullen]

Possible to some degree in Lightroom-

1) Edit one photo and neutralize all settings (make a Preset for future use. Call it "Reset").

2) Copy the Settings [Ctrl+C]

3) View photos in Grid view (an Album or all photos)

4) Select all [Ctrl+A], or randome select by [Ctrl+Enter]

5) Pase Edit settings [Ctrl+V]

Apparently using Grid view is the one way to 'batch' edit settings to multiple photos.

And there is no 'History' in Lightroom! Only the current view as edited.

[weisis86317999]

Lol I literally thought "Classic" means an older/original version of Lightroom 😅. Thank you for trying to clarify! I'll post the question to the other forum.

[weisis86317999]

Oh that's a smart idea. I figured out the copy and paste editing in the grid view, but never thought of using the neutral edit as a preset. How slow am I lol Thank you very much for the good idea! 👍

There IS NO 'History' in Lightroom! But there seems to be a similar function called 'Version' instead, which I appreciate because you can save a version you may wanna go back to later or it automatically saves different versions for you. That's nice,

[Jim Wilde]

Possible to some degree in Lightroom-

1) Edit one photo and neutralize all settings (make a Preset for future use. Call it "Reset").

2) Copy the Settings [Ctrl+C]

3) View photos in Grid view (an Album or all photos)

4) Select all [Ctrl+A], or randome select by [Ctrl+Enter]

5) Pase Edit settings [Ctrl+V]

@Rob_Cullen 

Rob, have you tested that process with images that have Masks added? In my testing, when using this procedure to reset multiple images back to the original unedited state, it fails to reset any Masks that may have been applied to any of the target images. All other settings are correctly reset, just not the Masks. It would be useful to have confirmation of that.

Trying to use the "Choose Edit Settings to Copy" won't work, as the "Masking" option is greyed out, so cannot be selected.

Trying the "create a Reset preset" method from a fully reset image doesn't work either, as there'll be no option to include "Masking" in the preset (unless the image already has a Mask applied, in which case the preset would ADD the Mask to the target images).

In fact, if the images to be reset contain Masks, the only way I can see to reset them completely is using the Reset Edits option one by one ("Reset Edits" in the Photo Menu when multiple images are selected is greyed out, so isn't an option).

[Jim Wilde]

@Rob_Cullen 

Rob, it's been confirmed by Adobe in another thread (https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based-discussions/apply-preset-to-multiple-...) that there is no Batch Reset function in Lightroom Desktop yet. Furthermore, the preset idea won't work when masks are involved (but will work for other edits) because it's impossible to fashion a preset that would reset existing masks.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

moved to Ideas