How do I save Lightroom image edits in source file?

[Guest]

My experience with the trial version of lightroom is very positive in terms of the convenient and powerful capabilities for editing images and the associated metadata.  But I can't find a way to save the "develop" edits to images into the source file for the photo I am working with.  So far, I am able to save the metadata into the file but not the image editing.  From what I read, I fear this is not possible without silly round about exporting to new files then copying / moving multiple copies around, etc. Without this ability, I am pretty sure I will not purchase lightroom and will miss out on all the powerful features.  Without an OPTION that turns on the equivalent of a SAVE button, managing my photos collection would be a nightmare. 

So my question is: How do I save the edited (i.e., developed) version of a photo back into the same file where the original photo was stored?

Please, please spare me all the reponses telling me how stupid I am for wanting to do this and that the cognisenti and professionals would NEVER do this.    But please just tell me there is a secret place to turn on this option in lightroom.

Thanks in advance.

[Guest]

WW, You wrote:

'You write " but I want the edited version of the image on disk in the original file". The short answer is: Not possible in LR. Period.'

That's what I was afraid of.   But I was hoping there was some well-hidden option that would let me do it.  Thanks for addressing the question I asked.

Very disappointing.  The rest of Lightroom is just what I was looking for.  Looks like I'll have to keep using the mishmash of inferior products I've been using.

On the bright side, it saves me some $$.  

Thanks to everyone for your efforts to save me from myself.

--papaben

[elleranj]

Hello...I'm new to LR too and I understand your thinking as I'm thinking that way too, at least until the penny drops for me to the new way to manage files.

There is a beginners' tutorial Take your first steps with Lightroom and Photoshop | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC tutorials

Lesson 7. Export your image into Photoshop and Save As... I just did a test and it works.

It's your business (and mine) if you want to do things they way you are used to doing things.

I hope this helps. Eventually I may get my head around the new way.

[patyhmx]

Agree.  It is as if you write a text in a word processor, then you print it and delete the processor file.  Then when you want to do an other edit, you photocopy the printed page and correct it.

Or, an other way to see it is like when we (several years ago) wanted to copy music from a LP to a cassette tape.  If you copy music from a cassette to an other cassette tape, its quality would degrade.  I friend of mine, used to play the LP once and copying to a high quality cassette tape.  If he would want an other copy, he would use the *original* LP.

[wcn_dave]

I read this thread with interest, as although it's quite old, it was exactly the same question I have.

I have thousands of photos on a network drive NAS which is accessible via tablet, mobile, TV and computer, for the whole family to browse.

I want to drop new photos into a folder in that structure, prune out rubbish, crop and enhance the rest, and be done.

I love that LR lets me do most of my tweaking (TBH it's usually just auto tone + some vibrance), on the move when I have nothing else to do.  However I really would like to just tell LR to write all my edits out over all my files.  I will never want to re-do them,  and with 10,000+ photos so far, I really don't want copies of originals floating around.

In fact one reason for using light room was to "get organised".  I keep creating copies, then finding picture on SD cards and copying to new folder, then taking some on laptop to "sort out" on a trip, forgetting what I've done, so copying them all to another folder to "sort later", it becomes a massive mess, and I can never find the "final" copy of a picture.

So I'd really like to say "I'm happy with my edits in that collection, write them out to the original files".

Still no go on that?

[alisoncurtis125]

Hi - did you ever solve this issue?  I am thinking about purchasing Lightbox but one of my main requirements is that I can save the edited file as a final over my original.  Would appreciate anything you may have found out.  Thanks

[NathanChilton]

Dear Alison,

Most of us would recommend against what you are asking to do (because you are getting rid of your originals and there is no way to undo your changes).  Lightroom is designed as a non-destructive tool for managing your photo library and for basic edits, so it really isn't the best choice for what you are trying to do.

However, there are a couple of ways to accomplish this.

1) In Lightroom, select all the files that you want to replace with processed versions, export them to the same directory as the originals (telling it to rename the new files to avoid conflicts), and then press X to mark the selected files as rejected.  As soon as the export is complete, delete all rejected files.

2) Use something else.  The free Picasa tool from Google will allow you to make basic changes to your photographs.  It then allows you to save the edited version in place of the original.  Even Picasa will try to protect you from destroying the original file by moving it to a subdirectory called "originals".  If you are sure that you don't want to keep your originals, just delete that subdirectory.

[smart_fr]

I had the same requirement to save in JPEGs files all non-metadata edits performed in Lightroom, in order to share modified pictures without duplicating files. By the way, I think it’s going to be more and more required by casual Lightroom users, as people get used to instant photo sharing in many situations where quantity matters more than quality

Here’s a nearly automatic (at least, scalable) solution that works, although it slightly lowers the quality by re-compressing the original pictures.

1. Once for all:

• Download and install the wonderful Lightroom plugin “jf Run Any Command”, provided as donationware by Jeffrey Friedl here: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/run-any-command. This “export filter” plugin allows you to run a command of your choice with each exported file, as part of the export while it’s going on. (You may also browse Jeffrey’s blog to find many other useful and beautiful things.)
• In Lightroom, pre-define an export settings as follows:
  • Export to the hard drive, to the original picture folder, without adding the exported file to the catalog
  • Name the exported file “EXPORTED-{Filename}” (or anything different from the original file name)
  • JPEG format, 76% quality (see An Analysis of Lightroom JPEG Export Quality Settings at http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality)
  • Keep all metadata
  • Here’s the interesting part, the Run Any Command settings:
    • Command to execute for each exported picture: copy "{FILE}" "{Path}\{LIBRARYFILENAME}" (this replaces the original file with a copy of the exported file)
    • Command to execute upon export completion: del {FILES} (this deletes all exported files).

NB: One could wonder why not directly export with the original file name and silently replace the original files (I believe Lightroom would allow this). It’s just a matter of error handling: in case the export goes wrong, no original file is changed at all.

2. The easy part: each time you want to save edits:

• In Lightroom, select the pictures to save, and export them with the pre-defined settings. You're almost done. The JPEG files are ok, but inside Lightroom you see the modification effects doubled, as their specifications remain in the catalog database and they apply on modified JPEG instead of the original files.
• While the entire set of "saved" pictures is still selected, in the Develop module switch Autosync on and click Reinit to erase all modification specifications from the catalog for all pictures, then press CTRL-S to write down to disk any metadata updated by Lightroom -and accept if required to confirm that Lightroom values should replace externally set values.

Stephane

PS: Papa Ben, I'm curious about the decision you  finally made

[Guest]

Thanks for the carefully thought out suggestion, Stephane. 

I did buy LR3 and worked with it for a month or so -- trying a few different "workflows" to keep track of all the copies of photos.  Strangely I was finding myself struggling to make the sophisticated and powerful "developing" tools lighten shadows and darken highlights -- a frequent need of mine -- to my satisfaction.   So I upgraded to LR4 because the relevant "slider bars" had supposedly been upgraded to be more effective.   After a couple months with LR4, I found myself thinking I really had been doing better with the simple sliders in Photoshop Elements.   So I picked out a batch of photos with strange backlighting, etc.  and gave it my best shot with both programs on several photos.  I found myself spending many minutes with all the sophisticated LR tools and I could not do as well as I could in a few seconds with Photoshop Elements.   I also do a lot of cropping.   Here again, LR has it's own bass-ackwards approach which I'd eventually get used to, but I tend to use different tools on different computers to get my work done so this is another nuisance.  And the thing I do for almost every photo is enter a caption/title and (for scanned photos) change the "date taken."   This I can now easily do in Windows Explorer.

I began wondering why I really need a "workflow" at all for my modest photo editing needs.   I'm just an old man racing to get our huge  collection of digital and print photos digitized, documented with metadata, "developed" in very simple ways (crop, straighten, lighten shadows, darken highlights for the most part).   Do I really want to spend my time reading books about (and then trying to remember) how to set up a proper lightroom workflow and manage the overwhelming number of powerful tools or do I want to get on with the work?

Bottom line is that my workflow for the last 6 weeks is as follows:

• Windows Explorer for adding and editing metadata
• Picasa (fast and fun to use) if I only have to straighten and crop photos
• Photoshop Elements (clunky but effective) if I need to lighten shadows and darken highlights

It's interesting that Picasa keeps a copy of the original when I save my edited file.  But it does let me save the file in place and stores the original in a handy, but out of the way, subdirectory in case I need to go back to it.  Very nice.

Thelonius Monk summed it up: "Simple ain't easy."   Adobe does more than most companies to prove Thelonius right.

Thanks again,

-- Papa Ben

[smart_fr]

I understand, Papa Ben.

I'm new to Lightroom, and still under the magic of discovery, but really enjoying its superior ability to dynamically select pictures according to pre- and user-defined criteria, as well as to automate publishing (with one ore two plugins installed). I don't use 10% of the Develop tools, but found the ones I use pretty well designed. The big flaw is this missing Save button for casual users like us...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Have a nice and long race!

Stephane

[Guest]

Maybe what Lightroom needs is a "burn to JPEG" command which makes a JPEG copy of a photo with all adjustments and metadata written to it, and stacks it with the original. A kind of hard copy. It could have a special icon badge to visually differentiate it.

[NathanChilton]

Another easy option would be to just select all the files that you want to replace with processed versions, export them to the same directory as the originals (and telling it to rename the new files to avoid conflicts), and then mark the selected files as rejected.  As soon as the export is complete, delete all rejected files.

I do this all the time with my 0-star photos.  If they don't make the cut, but I'm afraid I might want to keep them -- just in case -- I'll select my 0-star photographs, export to same directory (as JPGs or now as 2mp lossy compressed DNGs), and mark as rejected.  I then delete the rejects after the export is completed.  In this manner, I am essentially replacing the original files with the processed versions (though the filename has an extra number on the end).  It's quick and easy.

[D Fosse]

From time to time you see this argument that "there is no one single right way" to do things. Well, sometimes there is. Saving over your originals is plain wrong, and it shouldn't be encouraged. If the Lr engineers provided such an option it would go against the whole idea of Lightroom, and so it can safely be established once and for all that it will never happen.

Now, what people do on their own time is their own business. If they want to hold a match to their negatives they can do so. But this is a forum dedicated to best practices, and so people would be advised to do this to a copy, not the original.

[richardplondon]

Saving over your originals is plain wrong, and it shouldn't be encouraged.

But, that was not the proposal here. It relates just to images that you do not value enough to preserve as large source images on disk, as well as in terms of LR's edits.

By definition: images that you currently regard as a waste of space, as they stand. Normally we will simply delete such, both from disk, and from Lightroom.

This idea first re-imports an exported JPG version, reflecting the edits (as a separate version, not overwriting anything), and then avoids deleting that when the main version IS deleted. So this about retaining a limited-purpose version, instead of nothing at all.

Personally, my only objection to this notion, is that if one values a particular image so little that one does not even want to retain full editability... then one probably should be decisive-minded enough, to just get rid of it altogether

[areohbee]

twenty_one wrote:

Saving over your originals is plain wrong, and it shouldn't be encouraged.

I don't think anybody is encouraging anybody to save over their originals.

twenty_one wrote:

this is a forum dedicated to best practices

This is also a forum dedicated to figuring out how to use the Lr hammer for more than pounding in nails in best-practice fashion - sometimes you need it to crack a nut too .

If anybody is interested in the absolute easiest way to delete originals after exporting files, download/install/insert Exportant and in advanced settings,

change

_t.enableDeleteOriginalsAfterExport = false

to

_t.enableDeleteOriginalsAfterExport = true

and optionally, change

_t.splatDeleteOk = false

to

_t.splatDeleteOk = true

then a new checkbox will appear:

There are actually some other hoops to jump through too, but if you persist, eventually you'll be able to delete originals after export. One person I know is eternally grateful for this feature, probably very few others use it.

To be clear: Normally one keeps originals after export, but for the few odd cases when user really wants an optimized workflow which includes deleting originals after export, that's what this option is for.

And I agree w/21: doubtful Adobe will be adding such an option to Lr native.

Rob

[john beardsworth]

twenty_one wrote:

From time to time you see this argument that "there is no one single right way" to do things. Well, sometimes there is. Saving over your originals is plain wrong, and it shouldn't be encouraged. If the Lr engineers provided such an option it would go against the whole idea of Lightroom, and so it can safely be established once and for all that it will never happen.

Now, what people do on their own time is their own business. If they want to hold a match to their negatives they can do so. But this is a forum dedicated to best practices, and so people would be advised to do this to a copy, not the original.

Well said.

[marianwhit]

The customer is never "wrong".  Different customers have different needs.  But as someone who took a huge amount of my life from Photoshop and LR 1.0 to learn Adobe, I have found it to be less and less interested in the customer, and it is astounding that Picasa still does some things better than LR or PS. As an online seller, I have to be able to work with 300-400 photos in a sitting, so every added click, every slowdown is taking something away from me...my life.  My time is worth a lot more than my money.

I keep coming back and trying, just in case.  It is kind of like having a house full of junk.  I would give my eyeteeth for things like the ability to crop raw and only keep the cropped raw data.  I would love a catalogue that does not hate that I move stuff in other programs (Bridge is more forgiving).  I would love to be able to crop 100 photos and hit save (destructively, because whatever insecurities many, many photographers have, I know if I want sky, and as a bird photographer 50% or more of every raw is crap.  Managing unwanted files takes time...backing up files takes time.  Having the LR catalogue get ticked at me takes time. 

FWIW I would love to have detail views like offered in Fast Raw, and I would love to have an option that says NO I DON'T want anything in the cloud, please stop trying to cadjole and force me into paying monthly to access my own work!   I want to buy a version and have it be the same thing for 5 years for one price, and be left alone to be comfortable with the tools, because as an aging person, the constant updates and changes I no longer can plan for as I am trying to run a business and know what my time costs are shoves me into frustration and irrelevancy.  But that is not the way businesses run any more...it is not about the customer, is it?  It is no wonder so many people these days feel frustrated and out of control, especially when cameras now shoot many times a second and a shoot is 600 photos not a roll of thirty six, lol.   I will keep struggling with it, but honestly, I would have thought for having been around this long there would be a market for people like me and some others here. I am NOT a programmer, and should not have to be.  The provision of prompt, human service, and honoring of the time of one's busy customers is a lost art.  

That said, thank you for those who have responded and are trying to help/make suggestions, you are appreciated, except when you act like we don't know what we want, lol.  I have/had over 500,000 photos, that I am whittling down any way I can, because my work requires me to have access to them on a laptop. YES, time and fast ability to do destructive edits are important to me, lol.  

[NathanChilton]

Mark Alan Thomas wrote:

Maybe what Lightroom needs is a "burn to JPEG" command which makes a JPEG copy of a photo with all adjustments and metadata written to it, and stacks it with the original. A kind of hard copy. It could have a special icon badge to visually differentiate it.

Hi Mark,

Lightroom already has this option.  In the Export dialog, you can choose to export a JPEG to the "Same folder as original photo", "Add to This Catalog", and "Add to Stack" (either above or below the original).  It doesn't have a "burned to JPEG" badge, exactly, but it does give it a badge to show that it is part of a stack, and if this is the only way you create stacks, then that badge might suffice. 

[rudytheelder]

Interesting discussion.  My situation is that I'm using InDesign to make two versions of a book, one version with color illos, and one with grayscale versions of the same illos.  I need to have the "burned" JPG versions of both sets of illos so I can copy one or the other set into the directory from which I "place" the illos into my InDesign doc---and then saving off the color or the grayscale PDF of the book as separate files.

My solution is to have five versions of the files!

(1 Archive) My highest quality archival large-size TIFFs,

(2 Scaled color for placing) a smaller-sized set of the images in color, sized to fit the graphics frames in my book, I make this from (1) with a Lightroom export.

(3 Scaled grayscale source) a copy of the scaled color images  which I tweak in Lightroom to appear as grayscale images in Lightroom.  This is a direct copy of the files in (2).

(4 Burned scaled grayscale for placing ) an exported set of the scaled grayscale source JPGs, I export these with Lightroom.

(5) The "place source" directory that the InDesign doc links to, and in this dir, I alternately copy the color files from (2) or the grayscale files from (4).

[beng63798078]

This is a fine answer, but the problem the user asks is very real. I've dealt with other programs

(picasa, for instance), that store meta data elsewhere. It becomes a mess when you want to

(almost inevitably) switch programs. I have no reason to believe that Lightroom, great as it is,

will be around forever, or be my preferred program.  Of course, there could be problems with reading the file format as well, but JPEG (IMHO) is more likely to be readable than adobe's lightroom database format!

I really want to be able to easily recreate my set from a simple directory structure and set of

files. Ideally, if there is a simple workflow to 'export' an image after it is edited (a keyboard shortcut perhaps) - that would be adequate....

[NickHark]

I cannot resist replying to this old thread. My inner self is screaming at the Adobe’s and other “fanboy” responses, “you are not listening to your customers.”

I too am an old guy, in my mid-seventies, having dabbled with computers since 1975. I have been using photo and video software since they were first created. I started with Lightroom at ver 4, and I have asked this question, and followed Adobe over the years, looking for a way to save my changes to the original photo. Adobe always stamps its foot and says, “Yes we understand, but that’s not how it’s designed.” Thus, Adobe steadfastly refuses to give its customers what they want.

My needs are simple. I have a photo library of 30,000 photos and growing. I am adding numerous photos using my new Epson FastFoto FF-380W scanner. When I am satisfied with my photos after processing them, I upload them to my Netgear ReadyNAS. Since I have a Plex Media Server on my ReadyNAS, my wife and I can view them on our TV using ROKU on which is a Plex app.

Because of Adobe’s steadfast resistance, I am forced to edit the original photo files (jpg) using lightroom’s “edit in Photoshop” link for each photo. Of course, I edit the original because I have long since learned not to rely on any photo that lightroom displays without verifying that it is the original. I thus can share any of my 30,000 photos with my friends using my Plex app on my OnePlus 7 Pro smartphone.

I love the way lightroom is designed, except for the foregoing, since my photos, going back more than 40 years, can be massaged on my Windows 10 PC. I keep the library on my PC and Lightroom interacts with that. I run a cloning batch file to synchronize my PC photos and Lightroom catalog with the ReadyNAS.

I came to Adobe today thinking that the ability to save changes to a jpg might have been added by Adobe, but “No’, they must maintain the original design. I’m just a typical sucker because I have paid for Lightroom over the years because I don’t have the time to go try to find something as robust for me. Adobe seems to dare someone to come up with a replacement.

[cyds6819614]

hi, I tried your method of exportin the file as original. At first it worked but now for some reason when I export s file as original or dng it doesn't export with the edits I've made to the image. Any ideas what is happening.

Thanks

[Just Shoot Me]

Export as original will do just that, Export the original file without any adjustment. I've never test exporting as DNG but IIRC it should include the edits but they are only viewable in LR.

[am11038611]

I appreciate this is an old thread, but there are recent comments.

I have been using photoshop for about a year, but have scarcely opened Lightroom. I prefer to use the OS for sorting, backing up etc files and find Windows Explorer fine for my needs. So it's probable earlier versions of LR lacked the obvious solution to the OP question which I found after about a minute in the Classic CC version I have.

I had a folder with 235 files, all taken with the wrong white balance. I imported the folder, corrected the WB, synced the change to all 235 images, then with all selected, went to File Export. This opens a dialog, in which I selected

Export to: Same folder as original photo.

Existing Files: Overwrite without warning.

I unchecked all other boxes, except File Settings: JPEG Quality: 100% Color Space: sRGB

Then clicked EXPORT.

In Windows, hit F5, then opened the original folder. The few original jpgs have been overwritten. The original raw files are untouched.

This appears to be the requested "Burn to JPEG , but don't come whining afterwards" option and seems most usable.

[sandra4785]

I'm using Lightroom to straighten tilted horizons automatically. I care about straight horizons, but I don't care about image quality, so I shoot jpg and want to override my files. 

Lightroom is forcing you to use a certain workflow and you just have to accept this if you want to use it. That's just part of the deal. No need to fight it, just go with the flow.

That's what I do:

Lightroom - export the changed images:

Export dialog: Rename to "Filename - Sequence". Start sequence with 1.

Windows Explorer: 

Sort the images by filename. Then delete every second image. These should be all images that don't end with a 1.

Or use a tool like Fast Picture Viewer and mark every image with a tilted horizon for deletion.

This gives you a way to quickly delete all original images.

[pete_gabriel]

Thanks - this is helpful. I was about to abandon Lightroom after free trial based on this thread. Glad I read to the end, as this workflow would work okay for me. Would rather just have a "Save Original" option, but I could make this work.