Help me maximize the use of Virtual Copies

[MMarz]

I love them.. Virtual Copies are low overhead, easy to keep stacked behind Masters and I can have as many as I want. They show up in Collections and Grid view and can have their own History.

My typical workflow brings a RAW file to what I will call a traditionally finished image ready for export. Nothing special in the way of post production effects such as vignettes or treatments. I consider this my Final Master.

Then, if the image supports more creative effects I will apply various crops and presets to the master and if I like it, I will create of virtual copy of that image state. The problem is the virtual copies History only shows Create Virtual Copy..no preset name, no other history steps so if I want to recreate a certain look, chances are I can't since I don't have that exact steps..they are on the Master.

I think my use of Virtual Copies is more suited for Snapshots and as I write this I am thinking I should take my Final Master and make a virtual copy of it right away, and then apply the presets so the final edit step in the virtual copies History is the preset. Guess I answered my own question on how to use them, but I am very interested in how some of you use Virtual Copies...

 

[Brad Snyder]

I tend to use them for the different aspect ratios for different print sizes. I keep a couple of dumb collections for common enlargements. Select the candidates, add to collection as VCs. Then wade thru cropping to aspect. Repeat for other sizes. Export by collection to print lab by size, perhaps an intervening temp folder to aggregate. Then remove from collections.

 

[clee01l]

I have yet to find away to use VCs effectively in my workflow. Ideally, what I want is a file that is exported that contains all the adjustment information and a reference back to the master that created it. The idea being that if I load a JPEG to a website or create a slideshow and later want to recreate that JPEG or print it, I can do so without having to keep my 'final' JPEG around. And if I have that Master file I can recreate the adjustments that went into it 1' or a 1'' years from now.

My RAW original is a DNG. If the DNG did not come out of may camera, I would convert the proprietary RAW file to DNG and let that become my master. Instead of VCs, I use Snapshots. The reason being that Snapshot information is written to the DNG header while the VC only resides in the catalog. My DNG contains all the snapshot information to recreate the adjustments that were made in development to create the snapshot. All I need to do (and in LR this is a manual operation) write the snapshot name in the Job Identifier field of the IPTC section of the Metadata in the Master file header.

I tried doing this with VCs but I fould that VCs were harder to track and harder to document. If for some reason, I lose my catalog, I lose all my VCs. With the snapshot, I have a record of every snapshot created against the masterfile that created it. I would love to see an advancement by Adobe in merging VCs and Snapshots and making these more versitile.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

[quote author=MMarz link=topic=97'2.msg65631#msg65631 date=12725'4283]no other history steps so if I want to recreate a certain look, chances are I can't since I don't have that exact steps..
[/quote]
Just catching up on a backlog of threads and saw this... you don't need a history of what order you did the steps, in order to recreate a look, you just need the end result, which is what you've got there.