Allow to protect images/variants from modification
Not currently planned
When I have finished an edit, I want to preserve that state for future reference.
The major motivation is to protect myself from user error. Examples could be accidentally clicking in the wrong spot or having wrong images selected while mass editing. Those errors often happen unnoticed and you discover much later, that something is wrong.
A secondary motivation is to make life easier by protecting me from careless actions and help me to train myself towards a clean workflow. For example, I often want to try out something on an older image. The safe way would be to create a new or cloned variant for those experiments.But I often just use one of the existing variants and undo my changes when the experiment is finished. If I had protected the existing variant from modification, I would have to deliberately unlock it and probably would instead do the clone.
Currently, there is no easy way to do that:
- Moving a variant to be preserved into a dedicated archival album doesn't work, because you can't move variants separately. Even if that was possible, this solution would lead to further problems.
- Exporting a variant allows you to restore a former state, but doesn't help against unnoticed errors and complicates access and handling.
- A backup of the catalogue has the same problems as an export.
Some ideas for implementation:
- Provide a lock button. That would prevent any modifications on a variant, including adjustments, layers, rating, keywords and metadata. Also deletion of an image file could be prevented as long as there is a locked variant.
- Thinking further, a lock button for albums might also be a good idea. That would prevent variants to be removed from an album and prevent the contained images from beeing deleted.
- Snapshots as described here would provide the requested functions.
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Official comment
Hi everyone,
Thank you for the suggestion - this is not something we are currently working on.This does not mean this is a bad suggestion or that it will never be adressed, but in an effort of transparency we want you to know that we are not currently allocating resources to solving this issue.
We will revisit the status of this thread if and when it changes.
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Vote+
Very good description!
Did you "submit a request"?
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Agreed and voted!
This feature was requested several times in the old forum.
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This is a really needed feature. I've resorted to creating an extra layer on my finished corrections and hand writing "LOCKED" in an overexposed brush stroke so it shows up in the thumbnails and reminds me to leave that variation alone. It looks sloppy and unprofessional but that's better than accidentally screwing up a good image.
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I would also welcome such a feature very much!
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This would be very useful.
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Agreed and voted!
Great idea and very well thought out request.
I have also been victim to accidental editing on a photo! I know it's my fault completely, but I would like to minimize the chances of me being an idiot! LOL
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I just searched for the same idea. I have accidently made changes to images/ variants. A simple pad lock to restrict most alterations would be very helpful to start with. More specified locks and pass coding individual images would be something useful too, in a more advanced version. I'd request the ability to alter the print size/ process size unlocked from a general lock to allow easy distribution / delivery options without changing the artistic choices, if possible.
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+1. Locking variants would mean we could divert our attention to more important things than not accidentaly selecting the wrong image.
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I consider this to be a very valuable request. I taught myself this lesson recently! I assume this would be a good request for a software engineer new to the team to work on.
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I agree that it would be a welcome feature. Another possibility, as a workaround, would be to move finished images to a "Finished" folder.
Ian
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There are at least two similar/duplicate requests:
Option to lock images to prevent further changes
Add the ability to create a locked version of a file to prevent further accidental editing
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One potential workaround would be a snapshot function like Lightroom's, which would allow you to save the final editing state, so that if you accidentally make further changes to an finished version of an image, you can revert to the snapshot of the final state. (See this request.)
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