# Is there a "master switch" to temporarily turn off all processing in a set of photos?



## audiowurks (Jun 26, 2014)

Hello,
Curious -- does anyone know if within Lightroom, there is a "master switch" or equivalent to temporarily turn off all processing for a found set of photos? Basically a master "before / after" switch.

What I want to do is select 100 photos that have been fully processed, export those, then turn off all processing for the same 100 photos (so you'd be back to exactly how the image came out of the camera) and export those. Then I'd have two sets... a before and after for all 100 photos. Of course I do not want to lose all the processing I've done, so it is imperative it doesn't get deleted so I can turn it back on. 

I know I can do this on a per-photo basis, but I want to do it on a set of many photos.

thanks!


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## clee01l (Jun 26, 2014)

The "Master Switch" is the {Reset} function. It is however a one way switch.  The way to approach this is to select the "100 Photos" and create a collection making sure the to check the boxes to "include Selected Photos" and "Make new virtual copies".  You will be working with the virtual copies.  Open the collection of your virtual copies. Select all of the images.  Change to the Develop Module.  There are two buttons at the bottom of the right side panel.  One toggles between {Sync...}and {AutoSync}  Set it to {Auto Sync}  While you have it set to {AutoSync} Press the {Reset} button. This will set the selected image back to their default neutral position.


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## Mark Sirota (Jun 26, 2014)

Are you shooting JPEG? If not, the initial state is not "exactly how the image came out of the camera". There's no such concept for a raw file. If you're shooting raw, the closest you can come to that idea is to extract the embedded previews from the raw files.


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## audiowurks (Jun 26, 2014)

Thanks clee01l

Your suggestion is a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't work very cleanly. When I select the 100 processed photos and create a collection from them (creating virtual copies), it does that fine, but also places these virtual copies within the original folder. So I end up with now 200 photos in the main folder, and 100 virtual copies in the collections folder. Delete, process, or reset a virtual copy in either location, and those changes are mirrored in the other location as well. Trying to utilize Stacking would be a mess, because part of the processing I do utilizes virtual copies... so some images already have virtual copies and I don't want an unprocessed photo to be one of them, and you can't selectively hide/show images in a stack.

I think at this point, in order to have an isolated set of 100 processed and a set of 100 unprocessed, would be to re-import all 100 a second time, turning off "ignore duplicates", although I've never done this so don't know what kind of file name conflict it may create. Another idea is to create a separate Lightroom library for only the 100 unprocessed images to reside, and flip between catalogs --also not ideal because I want ratings and other metadata to be in sync weather the image is processed or not. 

Any other ideas... I'm all ears! 

thanks!


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## clee01l (Jun 27, 2014)

Collections and Folders are separate concepts.  An image belongs in one and only one folder but can be a member of many Collections  You can have only one mailing address at a time.  This is the equivalent of an image being "parked" in only one folder
You can belong to several clubs.  Photo club, Soccer club, cycling club.  These clubs are like collections in LR. While you can be a member of many clubs you still live a the same one address.   A virtual copy is like being the same person but having several names.  Your name might be Robert, and you are going to still be at that same street address.  I might call you Bob, Rob, Bobby or Robby but your home is still that same address.   The Photo club might know you as Bob, the soccer clubs as Robby, but at home your mom calls you Robert.  Virtual copies are like that.  "Bob" may be seen with a camera, And "Robby"  has shoes with cleats and a funny round ball.


Reimporting as a duplicate only creates twins with two homes. This does not help you solve your problem.   What are you really trying to achieve?


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## ande8150 (Jul 5, 2014)

What about creating virtual copies of each picture then hitting Reset on those only? You could then export them and delete the virtual copies, keeping the master copies with the edits.  Just gave it a test and worked fine.


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## audiowurks (Jul 5, 2014)

Hi Ande8150,

Yes, that is essentially what I did. And then I tagged each "reset'ed" virtual copy with a particular color flag. That way, I can have them visible or not depending upon my filtering. While I'd prefer a slightly different option, this works. Thanks.


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## Rob_Cullen (Jul 6, 2014)

In your Library Grid View- have your 100 Masters, and 100 Virtual Copies (so grid shows 200 thumbnails)
To selectively view Masters only or VCs only- Click on "Attribute" on the Filter bar at the top of the grid view and click on a "Kind" icon just under the Custom filter padlock. The icons 'toggle' on/off 
VCs can be edited to whatever you desire, Masters can be edited and 'Reset' if needs be.

Shown here- BOTH "Kind" icons are toggled "ON" so you will see both Masters and Virtual Copies.






Here only the Virtual Copy icon is toggled ON, so you see only VCs. Can also toggle only the "Master" to hide the VCs.


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## MutantLabs (Jul 16, 2014)

audiowurks said:


> What I want to do is select 100 photos that have been fully processed, export those, then turn off all processing for the same 100 photos (so you'd be back to exactly how the image came out of the camera) and export those. Then I'd have two sets... a before and after for all 100 photos. Of course I do not want to lose all the processing I've done, so it is imperative it doesn't get deleted so I can turn it back on.


A solution for this could be to "export as original" which does not apply any processing. This can be done by selecting "Original" in Export Dialog -> File Settings -> Format.
Additionally, you can tell LR to import the exported photos right back into the catalog, if you want to. This can be done by ticking "Export Location -> Add to this Catalog".

Additionally, I guess that any default import processing will be applied if you bring in the photos back into your catalog (automatically or manually), so you might have to check those defaults.


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