LR3 Snapshots

Dan7312

Is there a way in LR3 to make snapshots of multiple images at onces? If I select multiple images and make a snapshot only one snapshot is made, that is just for the primary selection.

TIA

arodney

I don’t believe there is a way to make a snapshot on multiples of selected images. You can select multiple images and make a Virtual Copy however which may solve the issue by working forward with the new VCs, leaving the originals in their current state.

Dan7312

Thanks, but what I was looking for was a way to "lock" in the settings so I couldn't change them by accident. Snapshots do that for me.

arodney

Dan7312 wrote: »

Thanks, but what I was looking for was a way to "lock" in the settings so I couldn't change them by accident. Snapshots do that for me.

But you can apply edits over a snapshot. The VC’s would be locked in the same way. The rendering from the original, as a VC would be a snapshot, you could, like the original with a snapshot, make edits over the VC.

Dan7312

OK, I see now. I can edit "by mistake" either a snapshot or virtual copy, but in either case I can always use the history to roll back to the original setting.

I was thinking of snapshot in terms of a version control system used in software development, where the snapshot is fixed and can't be changed. Both snapshot and virtual copy work like a making a branch in a version control system.

As far as I can tell the only difference between a snapshot and a virtual copy is how they are shown in the UI. Are there any other differences?

arodney

I suggested a VC to “solve” the issue of making a new line in the sand in terms of the edits with multiple images.

I consider a VC as just a metadata set of instructions that branch away from the original. I want two different crops, or a color and B&W version of the same image etc. You have one raw, but you could have 20 iterations or interruptions of that image rendering by using VC’s with none of the overhead of having 20 actual documents.

colourbox

Dan7312 wrote: »

As far as I can tell the only difference between a snapshot and a virtual copy is how they are shown in the UI. Are there any other differences?

Functionally there are differences.

With a snapshot all of your states will travel in a single file (single instance in the catalog, really), but you can only have one of those states active at any time.

With a virtual copy you fork the changes so they will now be independent from the original file, but you get to have multiple states present in the catalog in parallel, so you can view side by side or output them as separate files at once, etc. With a VC you can also experiment and go wild without stuffing the History sequence in the original with lots of extraneous steps, and when you arrive at the settings you like you can copy and paste them back into the original if you want.

Dan7312

After seeing this thread http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=1417934#post1417934 and poking at the xmp files I think I understand a bit better what LR3 is doing with VC's and Snaps. I'm passing on what I've found.

VS and Snapshots treat the xmp sidecar file differently. You have to config LR to save settings in an xmp sidecar file, by default it doesn't do that. That's how I setup LR3.

A VC copies the develop settings so you can branch off and try things without affecting the original, but the develop settings of the VC are only stored in the catalog.

A Snapshot also copies the develop setting and you can go back to and edit those setting by selecting then from the snapshot menu. However all snapshot settings are stored in the xmp file as well as the catalog.

So if you loose your catalog and can't recover it from backup, (shame on you for not backing up :nono ):D then you will lose all your VC's but as long as you still have the xmp files you will be able to recover all of your snapshots.

The setting for each snapshop are stored in a resource tag (looks like
<rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">) where the name for the resource is the name you give the snapshot. So if an image has 3 snapshots you will see three resource tags in the xmp file.

When you make changes to a VC, the changes you make are put directly into the catalog as you make them, you'll see them appear in history for that VC.

You cannot directly make changes to a Snapshop. When you select a snapshot that updates the settings for the original or VC you are working with. If you make a change to the develop settings they do not go into the snapshot. However you can always "update with current settings" a snapshot if you want to change it.

You cannot directly compare on screen two different shapshots because you can only see a single snapshot of a particular photo. However you can always create a VS's of a Snapshots when you need to compare them on screen.

So snapshot do give me one thing I want, the ability to "lock down" develop setting for an image so that they don't change if I happen to do further edits to an image.

Snapshots only capture develop settings, not metadata though.

arodney

Dan7312 wrote: »

A VC copies the develop settings so you can branch off and try things without affecting the original, but the develop settings of the VC are only stored in the catalog.

Which is kind of an issue with me (proprietary stuff) so when I have to upgrade catalogs or want to really “burn” the VC into something real, I export as DNG and in the export dialog, pick the store with catalog check box. Now its a real raw file with those settings all built in. Its of course no longer a VC but storage space is cheap. I will usually only do this when I’m sure I’ve found the VC iteration I want to store as a true raw data file or if I have to do some migration (a prefect example was during beta of 3.0 when you could not do a catalog upgrade, making the older VCs impossible to take along for the ride).

Dan7312

As an experiment I did the following. I wanted to see if there was a way to get my VC's back after I deleted them.

I took and raw image and created two virtual copies of it.

I made some abitrary changes to the raw and vc's so I could visually tell the differences.

I made snap shot of the raw and the two VC's

I deleted both VC's and removed the raw from the catalog, but not the disk.

I imported the raw (the xmp was beside it because I have write xmp turned on).

The image was imported with snapshots.

I creatred a VC of each of the snapshot and, in effect recovered the VC's

brianb

Dan7312 wrote: »

Is there a way in LR3 to make snapshots of multiple images at onces? If I select multiple images and make a snapshot only one snapshot is made, that is just for the primary selection.

TIA

There is a way now:

http://thephotogeek.com/lightroom/snapshotter/

The Snapshotter plugin creates snapshots of the current develop settings for all selected photos in a single step. Snapshots capture a permanent record of an image’s current develop settings and can be accessed from the Snapshots panel on the left hand side of the Develop module.

Dan7312

Thanks for the pointer.

arodney

Its a pretty cool and useful plug-in. So my understanding is this; VC’s all share the same Snapshots from the master (and you can actually swap a VC to be a master using Photo> Set Copy as Master). The Snapshots are saved as XMP which is useful even though the VCs are proprietary to LR. Apparently when you use this plug-in after selecting multiple VCs, it writes all the various snapshots to the others meaning the get saved as XMP. It appears you can select say 5 VC’s from one master and use the plug-in. Then each of those 5 states becomes a snapshot within each VC allowing you to actually toggle to other rendering options within the same VC which is kind of cool.

arodney

You cannot directly compare on screen two different shapshots because you can only see a single snapshot of a particular photo.

Try this. Go to the VC or image and click on the Snapshot you want to use to compare to the current rendering and Alt/Option click to select “Copy Snapshot settings as Before”. Now type the Y key or \ key. You should see the “before” as the snapshot you selected in the last step and the “after” being the current rendering. Can do the same thing with History too. Alt/Option click becomes “Create History settings as Before”. Instead of the “Before” using the Y key being what was initially the rendering upon import, its now the “before” of the history you just selected.