P: Lightroom: consolidate/flatten/merge history steps

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Give us the option to consolidate/merge history steps.

All the little adjustments with the crop tool (it's often impossible to reach the final crop in a single operation) could be flattened to a single step, all the little stacked basic adjustment tweaks (+5, -7, +3, yada, yada), all the individual brush strokes, etc. could be flattened to a single adjustment.

This would make the history considerably cleaner and simpler - which makes much better use of the limited screen space (scrolling back down through presets and history is a pain).

[Lee_Jay]

There are a number of comments on this, including from an LR team member (Dan Tull) in this thread:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

[areohbee]

Good idea. I'd really like to see edit-history list improved in other ways too.

Its a really great feature already, that could be made really really really great...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Useful, but that could get lost in there (and I certainly wouldn't have found it there)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Useful, but that could get lost in there (and I certainly wouldn't have found it there)

[john beardsworth]

No, history should be just that - an exact history of what's been done.

If you want to fake it, use snapshots or make the feature request for a summarised *display* - but leave the detail in the record.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I wouldn't want to see those extra steps removed completely, but on the other hand, I could imagine disclosure triangles collapsing them down into a combined adjustment when you've adjusted the same slider a number of times in a row.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would suggest that it's selective - it's just about usability and visibility of the changes in the panel (and many are uninteresting noise).

There is complete history (with a lot of noise) and the major events we care about - it's more about summarising the changes (as you suggest, but having summarised them, I really don't care about the noise) - this could still work with snapshots as they are.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would suggest that it's selective - it's just about usability and visibility of the changes in the panel (and many are uninteresting noise).

There is complete history (with a lot of noise) and the major events we care about - it's more about summarising the changes (as you suggest, but having summarised them, I really don't care about the noise) - this could still work with snapshots as they are.

[areohbee]

I think the suggestion is for an option - those who want the gory details wouldn't have to consolidate. Also, I can imagine 2 things:
1. list is viewed in consolidated mode, but no changes are made.
2. Consolidation changes are made permanent - and in this case, I'd like to be able to select steps to consolidate via the context menu, (as well as a global do-all)

[areohbee]

I think the suggestion is for an option - those who want the gory details wouldn't have to consolidate. Also, I can imagine 2 things:
1. list is viewed in consolidated mode, but no changes are made.
2. Consolidation changes are made permanent - and in this case, I'd like to be able to select steps to consolidate via the context menu, (as well as a global do-all)

[areohbee]

John - It sounds like your objection is on philosophical grounds.

But practically, for many of us, there is no value to a sequence of intermediate crop adjustments whose net affect is one crop. Unless of course you may want to revisit those intermediate crops. But consolidation would only be done, on demand, once the settings are satisfactory.

[areohbee]

John - It sounds like your objection is on philosophical grounds.

But practically, for many of us, there is no value to a sequence of intermediate crop adjustments whose net affect is one crop. Unless of course you may want to revisit those intermediate crops. But consolidation would only be done, on demand, once the settings are satisfactory.

[john beardsworth]

Philosophical but practical too. Summarised displays would certainly be beneficial, but purging the underlying detail will just result in lots of "I want to purge this, not that" or "Lightroom wrecked my history" nonsense.

Without the detail, how can the summaries be flexible? It's not simply the adjustment slider that provides value. For example, I'd often like to summarise by when work was done - by session, by day, between exports/prints. Alternatively, I also recently supervised some assistants, one of whom made 50 minor adjustments where the other used 2 or 3. I wouldn't want cover ups.

And again it comes down to a kind of triage. What would I want more - faking the history or making history searchable by smart collections, for example. Easy choice.

[john beardsworth]

Philosophical but practical too. Summarised displays would certainly be beneficial, but purging the underlying detail will just result in lots of "I want to purge this, not that" or "Lightroom wrecked my history" nonsense.

Without the detail, how can the summaries be flexible? It's not simply the adjustment slider that provides value. For example, I'd often like to summarise by when work was done - by session, by day, between exports/prints. Alternatively, I also recently supervised some assistants, one of whom made 50 minor adjustments where the other used 2 or 3. I wouldn't want cover ups.

And again it comes down to a kind of triage. What would I want more - faking the history or making history searchable by smart collections, for example. Easy choice.

[areohbee]

Barrie,

It may be possible to consolidate history steps directly in the database using SQL. I know everyone (who wants this) would prefer Adobe integrate it into Lightroom proper, but other workarounds may yet emerge...

Rob

[areohbee]

The biggest part of the problem is detecting which instructions could be consolidated. Once that's whipped, and there is a UI to condense them on the display, then I think it would be easy enough to also allow the user to rip 'em out for good, if desired. Does anyone really care whether other users leave them in or take them out?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

But John, the history isn't a record of every operation (since it doesn't record undos)

If I make 6 tweaks to a slider to get my desired result, wind back to the starting point and then type in the numeric final value the end result is exactly the same and there is no record of the incremental changes (which is my point in that sort of consolidation is what most people care about).

Unless you actually watch your assistants, you don't actually know how they create the images ... and most would ask, should you care? And if you have time to spend watching them, why do you need assistants?

It's the end result that most people will care about - the macro-adjustments, not the micro-adjustments/management.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

But John, the history isn't a record of every operation (since it doesn't record undos)

If I make 6 tweaks to a slider to get my desired result, wind back to the starting point and then type in the numeric final value the end result is exactly the same and there is no record of the incremental changes (which is my point in that sort of consolidation is what most people care about).

Unless you actually watch your assistants, you don't actually know how they create the images ... and most would ask, should you care? And if you have time to spend watching them, why do you need assistants?

It's the end result that most people will care about - the macro-adjustments, not the micro-adjustments/management.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'd not go near hacking the database - it needs to be easy and simple.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'd not go near hacking the database - it needs to be easy and simple.

[john beardsworth]

Sure history doesn't include undos (and I don't think it's worth adding them), but minor incompleteness doesn't invalidate the value of what's left.

Pedantic, I know, but I did say "supervise". That means being responsible for running the PP guys. Had the history been faked, how would a training need be identified?

If people only care about the end result, they can do without history entirely, can't they? That ability is there already. If you need a simpler display, ask for that - don't mess with the underlying data.

[john beardsworth]

Sure history doesn't include undos (and I don't think it's worth adding them), but minor incompleteness doesn't invalidate the value of what's left.

Pedantic, I know, but I did say "supervise". That means being responsible for running the PP guys. Had the history been faked, how would a training need be identified?

If people only care about the end result, they can do without history entirely, can't they? That ability is there already. If you need a simpler display, ask for that - don't mess with the underlying data.

[areohbee]

I too would prefer a well designed native interface.

But, I *may* also be willing to use an app/plugin that implements a database solution. I prefer the term "reverse engineered" to "hack", since the former sounds professional whereas the latter sounds "iffy".

Hopefully it won't come to this...

[areohbee]

I too would prefer a well designed native interface.

But, I *may* also be willing to use an app/plugin that implements a database solution. I prefer the term "reverse engineered" to "hack", since the former sounds professional whereas the latter sounds "iffy".

Hopefully it won't come to this...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

But by your terms, I fake my history.

If I make an adjustment and don't want to keep it I'll probably undo it (rather than making a subsequent adjustment to negate it).

If I make a sequence of micro adjustments, I might roll back to the starting point and apply my final settings as a single set (because I might want to treat another image the same way and I don't like the magic of sync settings).

The last thing I want to do is discard the visibility of the changes to the image, but I really want to see the changes necessary to deliver the end result (including presets), not the individual steps. Maybe that's not history and we're debating different things.

Do we need an alternative panel?