# Virtual Copy with editable history?



## rebop (Apr 15, 2019)

Hi folks,
I have images totally edited in Lightroom. Client has now requested PNG's with only the first few edits such as straightening and cropping done. I thought I would create a virtual copy and roll back the history to a point that suits his need. As an aside, still not sure why he needs this, but....

I found Virtual Copies have only one history point of creating the virtual copy! I just assumed 

Is there a way to do this? In other words make a copy or even edit in Photoshop and save as a different image for a place in the stack of hstory without losing all the changes performed after that point?

Thanks!

~Bob


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 15, 2019)

You could fist step back in history, then create a virtual copy, and then restore the history of the original.


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## rebop (Apr 15, 2019)

Thanks John. Are you saying I would not lose history if I selct, let's say step 3 orf 10 in history, create a copy there and go back to the original image and select the final history point? I thought that selecting an earlier point and performing any changes overwrites the subsequent hostory so did not wan to try that unless you belive its "lossless" for history steps.

~Bob


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 15, 2019)

rebop said:


> Thanks John. Are you saying I would not lose history if I selct, let's say step 3 orf 10 in history, create a copy there and go back to the original image and select the final history point? I thought that selecting an earlier point and performing any changes overwrites the subsequent hostory so did not wan to try that unless you belive its "lossless" for history steps.


I didn’t try it but I think it should work. You are not performing any changes, you just created a virtual copy. If it doesn’t work, then you could try the following. Copy settings, go back in history, create a virtual copy, select the original and paste settings.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 15, 2019)

There's no issue, it works as Johan described. When you create a VC from the original, no matter what history step you have selected, no additional history entry is made to the *original*, the "Create Virtual Copy" step is only added as the first step of the VC. So select the history step of the original, create the VC, and on the original select the latest history step to revert to the edited image.


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## JMtB-TLQ (May 27, 2020)

For quite a number of tricky occasions I succeeded in circumventing the (rediculous) omission in LR to save an entire history (or not!) to a virtual copy.
I found this procedure [https://feedback.photoshop.com/phot...virtual_copies_should_inherit_develop_history] and it worked!
<<<<<<<
_1. Open the History Panel in Develop
2. Select the "Import" step at the bottom of the History panel
3. Create a virtual copy
4. Navigate back to the master and select the final step at the top of the History panel
5. Copy the settings from the master
("Copy Settings" on the "Select" menu, or Ctrl+Shift+C)
6. Navigate back to the Virtual Copy and paste the settings
("Paste Settings" on the "Select" menu, or Ctrl+Shift+V)_
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

However to my great surprise, it does NOT work anymore. 
Have I missed something in the LR update comments? Am I the only one who cannot do this anymore?
Must say I'm realy at a loss here, because ...(it)... will happen, time and again: working on an image for a long time, interrupted by searches for better ways etc., then the need to start over. I know, one could use VC for that as well, but they are still NOT actual files, so I can lose things after a bad crash.
Maybe there is some kind of plugin? Or another "trick"?
 Mike.


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## LRList001 (May 27, 2020)

I'm surprised this ever worked.  LR isn't a proper 'history' editor at all, it is a parametric editor.  It doesn't matter what order you make edits in (global edits that is), because LR always applies them in the same order.  In fact, LR doesn't work through applying multiple changes of the same setting, it simply records the current value of that setting and applies it, while at the same time and separately noting the history of how it got there.  You can find out what that setting is if you generate a sidecar and open it in an editor, there is no history as such, it just is.

This doesn't solve your problem, to be sure, sometimes you want to see the history of how you got to a particular effect, but you can argue that if you create a VC and copy and paste the settings, LR correctly records a single history step, 'paste settings' (or equivalently, create VC, using the current settings, whatever they are at that point). 

I would like to be able to collapse some history into a single step, for example, moving the crop slightly.  However, LR is what it is.


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## clee01l (May 28, 2020)

Copy Settings only copies the last state of the develop sliders etc. This is all it has ever done.


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