Using Lightroom apps on Apple be careful

[davidedric]

https://petapixel.com/2020/08/20/lig...t-recoverable/

[Manfred M]

It's unfortunate to see that Adobe does it again.

I had earlier versions of Lightroom lose all of my edits on two different occasions years ago, so I steer clear of anything to do with the product. The monolithic catalogue structure is the issue.

[DanK]

It's unfortunate to see that Adobe does it again.

I had earlier versions of Lightroom lose all of my edits on two different occasions years ago, so I steer clear of anything to do with the product. The monolithic catalogue structure is the issue.

I have no interest in trying to persuade you to use LR, but for the people who may not know what its pros and cons are, I think it's important to point out that if one follows two guidelines, it is virtually impossible to lose LR edits.

The first is to set LR to store edits in XML sidecar files. If the software is set that way, all edits are stored externally in these files, not in the catalog. The second is to have a reasonable backup, which one should do anyway.

If you do both of these things and your LR catalog gets screwed up (which has happened to me only once in many years of using it)--and if the most recent catalog backup is either too old or corrupted, you can simply throw out the catalog and import the files into a new one. All of your edits will be reflected in the new one. The only thing you lose is the history panel, but if the alternative is ACR, it doesn't offer that panel anyway.

I have had only one catalog corrupted, which was many years ago. I don't recall the details of how it happened.

However, I have on rare occasions damaged the catalog myself. I did it yesterday, in fact. I was importing files from another catalog, the one I have on my laptop when traveling. I messed up the location of the new files, and when I went to move them, I realized--when the wrong photos started appearing in the destination subfolder--that I had dragged the wrong folder, or the right folder to the wrong place. The moral of the story wasn't that LR was flawed, but that I messed up because I was far too hot and tired after a long drive to fuss with this.

Fixing this problem took a few minutes. I simply synced my backup (actually, a mirror image) of the parent directory in question, putting everything back where it was and removing the new photos. I then told LR to sync that parent directory, which put everything within LR exactly as it had been. Finally, I re-imported the new photos, paying more attention this time.

[LenR]

As a LR user since "version 2" I have not encountered any of the issues alluded to.

[Manfred M]

I have no interest in trying to persuade you to use LR, but for the people who may not know what its pros and cons are, I think it's important to point out that if one follows two guidelines, it is virtually impossible to lose LR edits

Now that Adobe has changed the Adobe Camera Raw user interface to match that of Lightroom, there is no reason to use LR unless one uses some of the other Lightroom features, like the catalog, Print Module, Maps, etc.

Just to clarify, the issues with the iOS versions impact Lightroom, not Lightroom Classic. I don't edit my work on my iPad, so it does not affect me at all.

[loosecanon]

Never be the first to up date. I let others find the problems.

[rpcrowe]

Photoshop with Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Bridge is the way I prefer to edit my images. Since I don't use the Lightroom Catalog, I don't see any advantages of using Lightroom. I have lost images (not just lost the edits - lost entire images) using Lightroom. Obviously his has been due to operator error however, I have never experienced that problem using Adobe Camera RAW + Bridge...

[DanK]

I have lost images (not just lost the edits - lost entire images) using Lightroom. Obviously his has been due to operator error

Lightroom does nothing whatever to the base images unless you tell it to. The options for doing so are largely the same as in the operating system. For example, you can move photos by dragging and dropping either photos or directories, just as you would in a Windows file manager. Likewise, you can delete photos. However, lightroom has two protections against inadvertently deleting photos. First, if you delete individual photos, a dialog pops up asking whether you want only to remove them from the catalog or also delete them from the disk. It will ONLY delete them from the disk if you tell it to. Second, it doesn't even offer the option of deleting directories or subdirectories. You can only remove them from the catalog. To delete them, you need to go outside of Lightroom and delete them from the OS, e.g., with a file manager.

None of the editing commands in Lightoom affect the base file. In this respect, it's identical to ACR.

Re the recent bug: Adobe has posted that this affected only Lightoom iOS users who had not yet synced to Adobe Cloud. One more illustration of why you should ALWAYS have at least one backup, regardless of the software you use. I don't use Lightroom Mobile, but editing on my computer, the first thing I do (albeit sometimes after a first culling) is create my first backup.

[pschlute]

Lightroom does nothing whatever to the base images unless you tell it to. The options for doing so are largely the same as in the operating system.

Agree. You cannot "lose" a file that is on your computer unless you delete it directly or ask LR to delete it for you.

Having said that I do not like the LR system of "previews" and virtual copies. But it is easy to set up LR and have a workflow that does not involve those features.

I do like the catalogue in LR it is very similar to Elements which I used for years. I have many "collections" where I can access certain images easily, and the ability to view all photos by "lens used" is also quite neat. Like others I rarely use LR for editing.

[DanK]

I started out mostly using Lightroom as a converter and editor, but I have started making more use of its DAM features. One of them you mentioned: virtual collections, which I now rely on. I also print from it, and I have a small number of plugins that I rely on quite a bit.

One reason I like it is that it makes stacking very easy. Suppose I have, say, 20 images in a stack. I set WB using an image that has a whiBal. A few clicks, and WB is corrected in the entire set. Another few clicks and the entire set is converted to TIFFs and loaded into Zerene, which is executed automatically by the same plugin. Posting photos is similarly easy. A fellow named Jeffrey Friedl has written plugins that export JPEGs to your specs to Smugmug or Flicker and then gets rid of them, so I don't have unneeded JPEGs littering my hard drive. I also use a plugin that does exposure fusion.

[Cantab]

Dan, I've had a quick initial look at the website for Friedl's Smugmug plugin, including a lengthy document on the difference between exporting and publishing in LR. Do you use the Publish route, or simply exporting?

[DanK]

Bruce,

I don't know how publishing differs. I just export.

This is also how I post here. I export to Smugmug with Friedl's plugin and then paste a link from Smugmug here.

Dan