# Crop, save  & Export



## ColMac9090 (May 23, 2019)

Not sure if this is the right forum or not.

I am digitizing old photos.  Batches are being scanned in  with an average of 5 -  6 photos of different sizes per scan (Epson scanner).  I then duplicated each image  using Windows to create 2 or  3 or 4 or 5 or 6 copies as appropriate, imported in to Lightroom Classic then synced with LR Web.

Here is a screen grab of one sub-folder  (in Explorer) before  I start editing in Lightroom.






I then switched to my tablet (Android) and  cropped each image in turn and let the  image sync back to Classic. 

I was then able to Export each image  (adding each image & folder back into the catalogue)  to create a cropped  version, when I can then delete the original multi image scans, and proceed to other edits, tags, keywords etc, with the smaller sized image  (quite important when thousands are involved).

My query  however is about the synced back version  that still exists in LR Classic before I delete them. I understand  that  LR is non destructive  and that I would need to Export the cropped image  to see a truly cropped version (although I made the mistake of  using "original" as the "Image Format" in which I assumed original applied to the format as it said, and not the original file - however LR simply exported a full set of the multi-scanned images.   So I had  to change the format to jpg to force it to export the cropped file.)

What I do not understand though is how LR is dealing with these original scanned images.  Once all images were cropped  on LR Web, and synced back to LR Classic, they showed perfectly cropped and rotated as expected in the Library module. I did wonder initially if saving these edits would be sufficient to commit the crop as they were jpegs, so I did CTRL+S with all of them. It appears however that only (of the edits I made) rotations were saved and that crops were not  but ……........







The above is a screen grab of one of the directories after the save. As you will see, some images have saved cropped. Some have saved rotated (they were all portrait initially) while others  remain as scanned ie true non-destructive editing.

I cannot see any pattern that would explain why a photo should appear in one format or another.  Surely  (rotations excepted,) I would have expected all images to be originals, or all to be cropped.

Can anyone shed a light on this? 

Many thanks, and I hope this made sense.


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## Johan Elzenga (May 23, 2019)

Lightroom is a non-destructive editor. Cropping is applied as an overlay, the original image remains untouched. Using ctrl-s does not save the cropped image, it saves the edits to the metadata of the original image. Most other applications cannot read those, and so they will show the untouched original.

Export does save a new image with the edits applied to it.


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## ColMac9090 (May 23, 2019)

Thanks, but why have some appeared as cropped images?


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## Johan Elzenga (May 23, 2019)

Maybe you exported those (and imported them again)? Lightroom does not crop originals, period.


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## Rob_Cullen (May 24, 2019)

ColMac9090 said:


> I then duplicated each image  using Windows to create 2 or  3 or 4 or 5 or 6 copies as appropriate, imported in to Lightroom Classic


My approach to your project would be-
1) Scan the composites
2) Import the composites to Lightroom
3) Create VIRTUAL COPIES for each composite. eg.  A page of 4 images- create 4 Virtual copies
4) Crop and Rotate each Virtual copy to show ONE single image from the composite. And edit as needed.
5) Filter to show only VCs
6) Export all the VCs
You have now created new photos of every individual photo without having to create all those multiple copies of the original scan. You have the one 'original' scan and the exported individual photos.


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## ColMac9090 (May 24, 2019)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Maybe you exported those (and imported them again)? Lightroom does not crop originals, period.



OK I can't be certain that  I did something "wrong" here. Thanks anyway


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## ColMac9090 (May 24, 2019)

I-See-Light said:


> 3) Create VIRTUAL COPIES for each composite. eg.  A page of 4 images- create 4 Virtual copies



Thanks, yes virtual copies  would have been a bit easier.


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