Why does History Log disappear and reset when I open project back up.

[heatherr90867130]

Every time I work on a project, I like to keep a big log of my history available to view so I can go back and make changes if needed. Everytime I save a project and reopen, my history log resets and I only see the word "Open" and then a new history log starts. It's very frustrating to not be able to see my past history. I have made sure that my performance preferences have a History State of 350, but that doesn't seem to fix the issue.

[Derek Cross]

That's the way it works, you lose the History states when you close the file. Maybe take a screenshot of the states. Having so many states – 350 – may slow your system.

[heatherr90867130]

My frustration is that before the recent updates, I was able to open an old project and see the history states so i could make changes on things I did in the past. I now have a problem with big projects that had a lot of compositing done and cannot go back to the state that I want to restart due to layers being merged when project was closed. Should I be doing something else to be able to do that? Based on prompts, I was told to increase the history states to a larger number so I could see the log. Now the log auto disappears. I'm at a loss on what to do so I don't have to reinvent the wheel each time I work on a composite.

[jane-e]

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@heatherr90867130 wrote:

Why does History Log disappear and reset when I open project back up.

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Hi Heather,

You clearly asked about the History "Log" and the answers coming in are about History "States", which are two different things.

https://photoshoptrainingchannel.com/photoshop-history-log/

If you mean "History Log", please check Preferences > History Log to see if it is enabled and tell us what the settings are.

History States have never been available after the file is closed, but you can store a text file of the History Log.

~ Jane

[Barbara Ash]

History states are essentially undos and redoes. As in all applications, once you close a file you lose any undos and redos.

[johnb85879550]

Lightroom remembers history. 

[Barbara Ash]

While you will surely lose undos and redos when you close a file, Photoshop does allow you to keep a record of your steps in Preferences > History Log. If you choose metadata and save the file before closing it, Photoshop stores the history in File > File Info > Photoshop. You can also save a text file of your steps.

[JJMack]

You could not do that in the past.  Once you close a document in Photoshop it is no longer in Photoshop its history states are returned as free scratch space that Photoshop will reuse.  You can have Photoshop log a files edit history but that is  not something that can be used like the History palette. Is does have saved versions of the document it just a log of the steps you did.