Lightroom preset security

[Majid47]

Hi i need to find a way to keep secure my presets and colors that i created.

Im working for wedding studio as an photo editor my job is to edit any photos that captured from coupels

But the bad problem in this job is Competition

Not many people knowing that how to colorize and edit in this level so my presets and what i made for editing is important and if its being stolen by my boss or any people after my time work is end i will lost my job of course and many people find that how i do that so its my color and the way of editing i manually delete my presets everyday and some times i forget about it and its boring doing it eevery day  (need to mention that people work with this system after my work time) so i need way to change the preset folder from develope preset somewhere else like usb drive, or self destruc folder or way to keep these presets secure, is there any way to change develope preset location into usb flash drive for mac os?

[Rob_Cullen]

If others work with the same Catalog then I think you have a problem.

Privacy will not be easily possible.

Even if you remove your Presets (XMP files) from the computer, the catalog still records all steps in History, so anyone can click on a History step and then look at the position of sliders and tone curves, etc, to see how the photo was edited.

Maybe they will not see the single Preset effects, but there will be many clues to see.

Any other suggestions out there?

[Majid47]

I moved my catalogs into usb drive and changeing my catlog every project but i don't know what should i do about presets! Installed older version of lightrom and leaved classic version for others and somehow the happy point is claasic version didn't converted my lrtemplates into xmp so i use my presets in older version and they use the new version with xmp presets so before they found that I'm using another version i need to find a way to alias or shortcut or i don't know, just a way to load my presets from somewhere else that i can plug it out or manage it  

[JohanElzenga]

You can protect yourself a little by not using presets, but profiles. You can save any setting as a profile, and the advantage is that profiles do not touch the sliders, so people cannot see what you have done. They can still steal the profile itself, of course.

[johnrellis]

You can protect yourself a little by not using presets, but profiles. You can save any setting as a profile, and the advantage is that profiles do not touch the sliders, so people cannot see what you have done. They can still steal the profile itself, of course.

It's easy to see the profile settings if you have access to the profile, the catalog containing the photo, or a version of the photo exported with the option Include: All Metadata (since the profile develop settings are included with other develop settings in the photo's metadata).   Doesn't require any technical sophistication, just a metadata viewer plugin.

[JohanElzenga]

  wrote

You can protect yourself a little by not using presets, but profiles. You can save any setting as a profile, and the advantage is that profiles do not touch the sliders, so people cannot see what you have done. They can still steal the profile itself, of course.

It's easy to see the profile settings if you have access to the profile, the catalog containing the photo, or a version of the photo exported with the option Include: All Metadata (since the profile develop settings are included with other develop settings in the photo's metadata).   Doesn't require any technical sophistication, just a metadata viewer plugin.

That is why I said 'a little'. Most people would not know how to do that.

[richardplondon]

On the main question: if you are working in your own Catalog you can set the location of that to be on an external drive which you can connect and disconnect. Then you can configure LR to "store presets with Catalog". Hereafter presets will also be maintained in, and used from, this external drive. So by taking that drive away with you, the presets as well as the Catalog with all its editing History, remain entirely under your own control. The source image files themselves, can still remain wherever they currently are.

The finished edits can be handed over via Export (set to "Original" file format) and not by sharing your Catalog. Then these can be imported into your employer's Catalog where they will be reconciled as needed (e.g. duplicating versions as Virtual Copies).

Export (Original) produces a copy of the source file - whether bitmap or Raw - accompanied by latest Develop settings in XMP; but with no History included: so, not listing your sequential steps, nor the names of any presets applied. Alternatively you can just clear History for a given image, from a given Catalog.

Still either way, in order to include your editing, the local and global LR adjustments which that editing consists of must be left visible.

IOW what you've done will be inspectable, but not how you've gone about that.

If you truly don't want even the nature of those local and global adjustments to be visible - only the pictorial results - your remaining option is to  export your finished edit as a flat TIFF file in original resolution. This TIFF should be generated to a suitable bit depth and colourspace, not to constrain any further editing / retouching / usage by the recipient.

[Majid47]

Thanks for your answer i did this before (store presets with the catlog)

When i click on show lightroom preset folder its show my preset folder is in my usb drive catlog

But when i go to develop presets they are still there

And even after i unplug the usb the new catalog can use presets when i uncheck the box '' store presets with catalog ''

[JohanElzenga]

‘Store presets with this catalog’ no longer works for develop presets, only for other presets. Develop presets are now shared with Camera Raw and always stored in the Camera Raw settings folder.

[richardplondon]

Thanks for the correction on Develop presets, I hadn't yet picked up that change of behaviour (I have them all stored centrally).

I don't fully understand the OP's situation but it seems to me that what one may want to defend is not so much the mere fact of having using a particular preset / adjustment on a particular photo - but rather, the broader judgement and speed of decision involved in each photo getting straight to what it needs. One's artistry and experience, in other words.

People who don't know what they are doing, can steal a good cook's "recipe" all they want... they will never thereby become good cooks themselves! One can only re-use a recipe exactly, so long as the ingredients can be kept exactly the same; but each new photo that comes along is NOT the same as the last, and so calls for a different, often novel and unique, 'recipe' (or ad-hoc technique) to be used.

[johnrellis]

If you truly don't want even the nature of those local and global adjustments to be visible - only the pictorial results - your remaining option is to  export your finished edit as a flat TIFF file in original resolution. This TIFF should be generated to a suitable bit depth and colourspace, not to constrain any further editing / retouching / usage by the recipient.

Note that to exclude all develop settings from an exported TIFF, JPEG, PNG, DNG, or PSD, you need to set the Export option Metadata > Include to something other than All Metadata. Otherwise, the develop settings are easily viewable in the exported file's metadata.

[Majid47]

Want to thank to adobe that didn't even think that it can cause problems for many people, my work have many people wolf like !

So after all of my presets being stoled by my boss i losed my job (he think presets doing magic on any photos with different conditions...)

So my problem still exist in new studio, so before everyone find my style need to find a way..

I have same situation here