Where does LR save edits made to a TIF?

I have had LR set to automatically write changes into XMP for many years.

 

Recently I stacked the image below in Zerene, edited it in LR, then moved it to photoshop to edit it further. I then brought it back into LR as a TIF.

 

The image had a lot of white spots caused by imperfections in the petals, and yesterday I went back to it in LR and did a LOT of spot removal. I then exported the resulting image, which is what is posted below.

 

When I then went to back up the relevant directory, I found that NEITHER the XMP file nor the TIF file had been altered. They still had a two-week-old date stamp.

 

The edits are clearly stored because the exported JPEG shows them. However, it seems to me that the only place these could be stored is in the catalog, even though I have LR set to store edits in sidecar files.

 

Anyone know what's going on?

 

Thanks.

 

See if this explanation works: Lightroom is famous for its non-destructive editing process. So any changes you make to a file in Lightroom won't (by design) be visible in the original (TIFF) file. Neither is the meta-data updated in the original file (since the original file hasn't changed). Edits are stored in the catalog (in some form or other which probably only Lightroom knows how to interpret). As far as I know (though I've never used them), side car files usually contain metadata. So you might have set Lightroom to export metadata to sidecar files. These would not include propriety 'editing' information. Lightroom does not keep track of exported files unless you import them back into the catalog. I'm no expert on Lightroom files but this seems to me to be one explanation.

The XMP is stored in the catalog itself.

IF you have proprietary raw, the edits can be stored in sidecar files or, within a DNG itself.

When you render the raws, in this case a TIFF, a new virgin image is created with the edits applied of course. Now edits to the TIFF can be stored within that TIFF if you conduct further edits in LR/ACR. Or the catalog.

Metadata basics and actions in Lightroom Classic

I have had LR set to automatically write changes into XMP for many years.

 

Recently I stacked the image below in Zerene, edited it in LR, then moved it to photoshop to edit it further. I then brought it back into LR as a TIF.

 

The image had a lot of white spots caused by imperfections in the petals, and yesterday I went back to it in LR and did a LOT of spot removal. I then exported the resulting image, which is what is posted below.

 

When I then went to back up the relevant directory, I found that NEITHER the XMP file nor the TIF file had been altered. They still had a two-week-old date stamp.

 

The edits are clearly stored because the exported JPEG shows them. However, it seems to me that the only place these could be stored is in the catalog, even though I have LR set to store edits in sidecar files.

 

Anyone know what's going on?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Hi Paddler4

It would help to know the specifics of what you took from LR to Photoshop and also back. You said ""moved it to photoshop to edit it further. I then brought it back into LR as a TIF." Did you use the LR Edit in Photoshop going for a round trip, or did you export from LR with a separate image, Save As in PS as another image and re-import to LR. If you used Edit in Photoshop, which option did you choose. Also, if the ACR versions are not identical, the image will come back as a new separate image. You usually get a warning about this unless you disabled the warnings. If the above posts did not already answer your question, then the extra details would be helpful.

Now edits to the TIFF can be stored within that TIFF if you conduct further edits in LR/ACR. Or the catalog.

Metadata basics and actions in Lightroom Classic

 

yes, that's what they say, but it isn't accurate in this case. I checked, and no changes were made to the TIF file when I did additional edits in LR, and LR did not create XMP files for the two TIF files in that directory. I then opened the file directly in photoshop, and the post-PS edits I did in LR were not present. Note that I have both "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" and "automatically write changes into XMP" selected in LR.

 

I think the answer to this is that the image in question was created from a virtual copy. When I go to grid view in the library module, I can save the metadata to the actual file manually, but not to the image created via the virtual copy.

When you modify a file and go to save it to the same file, there's usually a question asking if that's what you want to do. Or you can rename the file which would create a second tiff file. That prevents erasing an old file by mistake. What did you select? Edited July 6, 2020 by William Michael

" I then opened the file directly in photoshop, and the post-PS edits I did in LR were not present."

 

Manage Adobe Camera Raw settings

Ditto for LR.

 

XMP edits in TIFFs exist but can only be seen in ACR/LR. Ditto for JPEGs. So you open a JPEG or TIFF in ACR or LR and apply edits. You see the edits there. You then open that in Photoshop (NOT ACR); edits are not seen. You must render a NEW TIFF/JPEG with the XMP edits from ACR/LR. Doesn't matter if you do this in LR as a Virtual Copy, which is 100% stored in the catalog; it's not (yet) an existing TIFF/JPEG. All the edits in ACR/LR are parametric; instruction based. Not until you render those instructions with the pixels, making a new document will you see them outside ACR/LR.

When you open an image in Photoshop, you are given the option to open the original, or a copy with LR edits.

 

To save a file, with edits to another format, including TIFF and JPEG, use the EXPORT button. That will open a dialog in which you can select the destination, resize, color space and image format.

Ed, and John, this isn't a question about opening the file in Photoshop, moving a photo back from PS to LR, or creating a file via export. The question is: when you edit a TIF in LR, where are the edits stored? The answer turns out to depend on whether you have created a virtual copy.

 

I just tested this again. I had both "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" and "automatically write changes into XMP" selected in LR, which are my default settings.

 

I moved a raw file from LR to PS, did a few edits, and returned the TIF to LR. I then did a few simple edits in LR. LR did not write the changes to an XMP file. It did, however, update the TIF file. This is consistent with having the "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" option selected.

 

I then unchecked "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" and edited again. This time, the TIF file was not updated.

 

I then checked "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files", created a virtual copy, and edited that. The TIF file was not updated.

 

What I conclude is:

 

1. LR does not create XMP files for TIFs. If someone knows how to get it to do that, please let me know.

 

2. If "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" is selected, the metadata for edits will be stored in both the catalog and in the TIF file.

 

3. If "include develop settings inside JPEG, TIFF...files" is not selected, or if it is selected and you edit a virtual copy, the metadata for the edits will be stored only in the catalog. This makes perfect sense, in hindsight.

 

Consistent with #3, the option to store metadata in the image directly (image in grid view in the library module, select Metadata - Save Metadata to file) is grayed out if there is a virtual copy in the stream of edits.

 

Digital Dog is right that I confused matters by looking for changes in another image viewer. That image viewer doesn't know to look for the metadata.

 

The reason I pursued this is that I want all of my edits stored outside the catalog in case of a catastrophic database failure that I don't notice before a backup. In the case of raw files with XMP sidecars, the worst case is simply creating a new catalog, which preserves edits but unfortunately not the history. The question in my mind is where, if anywhere, the metadata for edited TIFs resides outside of the catalog. What brought this to mind was the large amount of time I had spend removing spots in the image I posted.

Edited July 6, 2020 by William Michael

All parametric edits from LR (which of course can edit non raws) are stored in the LR catalog.

For proprietary raws, Adobe treats this as read only so edits are stored in sidecar files (and/or the catalog).

DNG can contain raw data but Adobe's openly documented raws so this data can be stored in that container.

PSD, TIFF, JPEG etc; all stored in the container, NOT Sidecar files.

Virtual Copies are not raw, PSD, TIFF or otherwise. They are totally the construct of the LR catalog. No matter the data source. You want a TIFF from a VC, you render a TIFF and of course, the edits are used to create this TIFF.