How do I Remove one processing step from history?

[Billius]

Very new to Lightroom. Have started on 1.3.1

Love it so far but a real newbie question to show that I haven't grasped how history is meant to work...

When I see in the history that I have made 5 changes to exposure what does this mean to the NEF file I am working on?

Has LR only actually changed exposure once? (which begs the question where in the processing of develop steps does it do it) or did it 5 times?

If it has made mods 5 times then I worry about image degradation (no matter how good processing you'll end up with quantisation / rounding changes etc)

So... what is happening to the NEF / image that LR is working on at each point?

And... I sort of expected to be able to clear any develop step from an option in the history panel. i.e. selectively decide that I didn't want that crop there or get rid of the other 4 exposure mods - but that doesn't seem to be possible? (of course depending on the answer to the above question on cumulative mods it becomes more or less important depending on what you're trying to do...)

Can someone help me understand the basics - or point me at a FAQ please?

Thanks,

Bill

p.s. Happy Holidays - and I haven't even asked about Export Plugins yet....

 

[Kiwigeoff]

Very new to Lightroom. Have started on 1.3.1

Love it so far but a real newbie question to show that I haven't grasped how history is meant to work...

When I see in the history that I have made 5 changes to exposure what does this mean to the NEF file I am working on?

Has LR only actually changed exposure once? (which begs the question where in the processing of develop steps does it do it) or did it 5 times?

If it has made mods 5 times then I worry about image degradation (no matter how good processing you'll end up with quantisation / rounding changes etc)

So... what is happening to the NEF / image that LR is working on at each point?

And... I sort of expected to be able to clear any develop step from an option in the history panel. i.e. selectively decide that I didn't want that crop there or get rid of the other 4 exposure mods - but that doesn't seem to be possible? (of course depending on the answer to the above question on cumulative mods it becomes more or less important depending on what you're trying to do...)

Can someone help me understand the basics - or point me at a FAQ please?

Thanks,

Bill

p.s. Happy Holidays - and I haven't even asked about Export Plugins yet....

Bill, happy holidays to you too!!
Simple part is nothing happens to your NEF file at all. The develop steps/changes are written to an xmp sidecar file if you choose to do that and kept in the LR database. If you want the NEF as shot to view either delete the xmp sidecar file and open in PS or go back through the history panel to import. To remove a step you would be best using snapshots I think.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

That's the great thing about Lightroom. If you were making consecutive changes to a file in Photoshop, you'd be degrading the file with each change. Not with Lightroom though! It just keeps a record of what changes you'd like to make, and applies them once when it exports the file - and as Geoff said, it leaves the NEF untouched.

The history panel is just a handy record of the changes you've made to the file, so you can go back to an earlier point when you were happy with the image.

If, though, you've made 5 exposure changes, then a crop, and you want to reset the exposure changes without resetting the crop, investigate some of the reset functions. First, at the bottom of the right hand panel you'll see Reset. That does everything on that right hand side. Or if you hold down Alt / Opt, a little Reset button appears in each panel - that resets just the settings in that panel. And finally, double clicking on the name of each slider resets just that slider to it's default. So you can pick and choose what you want to reset, without worrying about degrading the image.

 

[Brad Snyder]

...And finally, double clicking on the name of each slider resets just that slider to it's default. ....

Although, apparently there's a known bug in the single parameter reset in Quick Develop in recent ? LR versions. In QD, clicking on a single slider name is supposed to reset it, but doesn't.

Don Ricklin has a thread going here somewhere on the site.

....brad s

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Quite right Brad. As Bill mentioned the history panel, I assumed he's working in Develop, but that's an excellent thought!