Question about "Unsaved Metadata"

[djkopman]

Greetings. I am relatively new to Lightroom CC and apologize in advance if this is a topic that has been covered before. Briefly, I recently turned on the display unsaved metadata option in the grid view display and was amazed to discover that thousands of images in my catalog (literally every image that I have developed, add keywords to, etc) are now marked with an icon that apparently notifies me that these photos contain unsaved metadata. When I click on the icon a dialog box appears that says, "The metadata for this photo has been changed in Lightroom. Save Changes to disk?"  I would prefer at present to avoid generating thousands of .xmp files but am concerned that if I don't tell lightroom to save the changes to the disk I am at risk of losing all the edits I have made to these images.  Currently, my catalog is set up so that Lightroom does not automatically save changes in metadata to and .xmp file.  I was under the impression that all my changes were somehow automatically saved in the LR catalog. So, I guess I am asking: 1) What happens if I choose NOT to save the changes to the metadata and 2) what happens if I do make the changes. I am very confused and a bit concerned about this issue. I have spent scores of hours getting my catalog together and really, really don't want to screw it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

David

[Just Shoot Me]

All the edits are saved in the Catalog file.

1) Nothing. LR will continue to save all edits and the like to the catalog file.

2)Do you mean what happens if you do save edits to the metadata? It saves it to the metadata in a XMP file for proprietary RAW files or to the image file itself with DNG, JPG, TIFF and PSD in a special place.

Note it also gets saved to the catalog whether or not you have that option checked or Use Ctrl/Command + s.

[djkopman]

Just Shoot Me...Thanks for the response. Are you saying that the changes to metadata are saved to the catalog whether or not I do anything? That would be greatly reassuring if true. I guess I am a bit confused as to why all my photos (at least all the ones that I have added keywords, locations, etc. to) flash an icon telling me that my metadata needs to be saved. Is that simply to tell me that if I want to open these images in some other program (Photoshop, Bridge, etc) I will first have to save the changes I've made to metadata as an .xmp file?

Again, thanks very much.

David

[Just Shoot Me · Accepted solution]

Yes the edits and all metadata changes are saved to the catalog file always.

That is because you have turned something on to show you that.

Personally I have the option to Auto write changes to XMP turned on. So I never see that message unless I edit a RAW file in ACR.

You can open the files in any program you like. But if you want the edits you have made to the file in LR to show in another Adobe RAW image editor, ACR, then you will need to do a Ctrl + s to save the edits to the metadata.

[djkopman]

Thanks so much for your help. You have alleviated much anxiety! 

David