Lightroom tutorial: saving changes to file

[Elja Trum]

Did you know that Lightroom, by default, only saves your changes to your photos to its own internal database. If you lose this database, you'll lose all your changes! Furthermore it limits the uses of the changes in other programs. When you open a photo in Photoshop Camera RAW, it will not show you the adjustments you've made in Lightroom.

You can fix this by simple changing a setting in Lightroom and I would recommend on doing so!

On my photography blog I've posted a video tutorial on how to save changes to a file in Lightroom also.

By saving your changes to file it becomes easier to backup or copy the RAW files including the changes. You're no longer dependent on the Lightroom database. Saving to file might make your Lightroom just a bit slower.

I've included the video here also:

Lightroom Tutorial: save changes to file from Elja Trum on Vimeo.

Let me know what you think!

[bdbolin]

My bet is this: If I loose my Lightroom Database, chances are I've lost all my files. I would be more inclined to simply double backup my entire system instead of saving changes to specific files. Just my 2 cents though

[Elja Trum]

@bdbolin; If you are sure about the way you're backing up your stuff, that is fine.

In my case, the Lightroom database is on my SSD drive while my photos are on another (normal) hard drive. Not everyone knows how to find (and backup) the folder where Lightroom keeps its database file.

An advantage to the extra XMP files is that you can copy the photos (and their XMP's) and take them with you to another computer. There you can open the files the way you want to without dealing with the Lightroom database.