Need Confusion resolved on edit images and original image.

[thdawkins]

I want to know that when I edit an image in lightroom, will I still be able to access the original file, if I want to make a second edit, but still want to keep the first edit without exporting it.

I shoot all my images in raw, and most of the time I make 1 edited version.  Can I access the original version to make another edit at a latter stage. for  example I would do my editing on the original in colour.  and the edited version stays in the library, and I wanted to re-edit the origin file while keeping the first edited version so that I would have 2 different edited version of the Original Image.

When I first started using Lightroom, before creative cloud came about, I was able to edit an image, and in the library see both the unedited image, as well as the edited image, and was able to select the unedited image, and make a 2 edited version, and they would all be accessible through the library module.  Now in the latest version of Lightroom, I have not been able to achieve that.

How do I keep multiple edits of the one image within lightroom.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

I want to know that when I edit an image in lightroom, will I still be able to access the original file, if I want to make a second edit, but still want to keep the first edit without exporting it.

Lightroom never changes the image portion of your original files. So the original file is always available for you to edit.

To access the original, you can click on the bottom entry of the History panel in the Develop Module, create a virtual copy with Ctrl-apostrophe, and then you have the unedited original as a virtual copy to work with. (Remmeber to go back to the first edit and click on the top entry in the History panel to return that photo to it's edited state).

When I first started using Lightroom, before creative cloud came about, I was able to edit an image, and in the library see both the unedited image, as well as the edited image, and was able to select the unedited image, and make a 2 edited version, and they would all be accessible through the library module.  Now in the latest version of Lightroom, I have not been able to achieve that.

This is not the default way the Lightroom Library Module works. It has never worked this way unless somehow you are creating virtual copies of the unedited photo.