Lightroom Classic is a powerful photo editing and image organizing program that can help you take your photos to the next level. But before you can start using this program, you need to know how to save your work.
In this blog post, we will discuss how to save your work in Lightroom Classic, including the different ways you can do this and the benefits of each method. We will also provide some essential tips on how to avoid losing your work.
Before we discuss the different ways to save your work in this program, you need to understand that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic will never permanently alter the pixels that you captured inside of your original digital image. Every time that you move a slider in Lightroom to improve the appearance of your photo, you are simply assigning a new set of instructions to this file.
These additional instructions tell Lightroom Classic to make your photo appear brighter or to make the colors in your image appear more saturated. Beneath the surface, these additional instructions are stored inside of your Lightroom Catalog file. These additional instructions, and more, can also be written into your image files themselves as Metadata.
In addition, almost all of the descriptive information that you can add to your images using Classic’s Library and Map Modules can also be saved as Metadata. Essential organizational features like your copyright info, keywords, star ratings, and colored labels are all possible Metadata annotations.
How To Save Your Work In Lightroom
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic lets you decide when to save your work. Unlike most other programs, with Lightroom you have three choices determining when and where your work is saved.
- You can choose to save your work only at the Lightroom Catalog level. This is the factory default behaviour and it is not recommended. Sadly, relying on this method only can cause you catastrophic harm if your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic Catalog gets deleted, corrupted, or destroyed.
- You can choose to save your work using the Save Metadata to File Command in addition to the notes that are saved within your Lightroom Catalog (.lrcat) file. When you save to the image file, your changes will be stored in the image’s metadata which means that you can view your changes in other programs outside of Lightroom like Adobe Photoshop. This method is highly recommended but invoking the Metadata > Save Metadata to File command again and again is tedious.
- You can set your preferences in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom so that all of your work is automatically, and continuously, saved for you into your image files and also stored within your Lightroom Catalog (.lrcat) file by turning on the Automatically Write Changes Into XMP Catalog Settings preference switch.
If you are new to this program, then I strongly recommend turning on the Automatically Write Changes Into XMP option. This option in Adobe’s menu should have been called “Auto-Save.” If you turn this option ON then all of your metadata, including your copyright info, keywords, and Develop Module improvements will be automatically written into your images. Think of this as if it were a constant “save my work right now” option!
Important Warning: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic is a great program but it is not a backup plan! Nothing in this program will help you if your hard drive fails. For more advice on this important topic please read our complete tutorial on Professional-Grade Backup Plans.
Note: There are a few features of Lightroom that cannot be saved anywhere but within the Lightroom Catalog file. Features like Pick / Reject Flags, Virtual Copies, and Collections cannot be saved outside of your Lightroom Catalog. These features cannot be saved down to the image’s XMP data block because these items are Lightroom specific features and they are not types of Metadata.
