Lightroom Tutorial One - Virtual Copies

by Edward Moniz

As most of you are already aware, Lightroom is one of the newer types of software known generically as “Parametric Image Editors.” This form of editing is different from products like Adobe Photoshop that are pixel based editors. One of the advantages of Parametric Image Editors is that by definition they provide non-destructive editing of your images. When you edit an image in Lightroom, what you are effectively doing is introducing a series of instructions on top of the image preview and when you now look at the image you are looking at the preview and a “filter” that includes the instructions you have added.

As this article is about virtual copies, I’m sure some of you are wondering where they fit in this equation. Virtual copies are a wonderful tool that allow you to look at, and explore, your images through multiple sets of instructions. You can retain your original image for reference and then create virtual copies for low key, high key or black and white versions of your image file. This list is just a short example; there is no limit that I am aware of to the number of virtual copies you can have for each image. From a practical point of view, you may wish to restrain your creativity somewhat. Each virtual copy uses the same original image file (which is still on your hard drive untouched), creates a new preview of the same data but does not create additional files on your hard drive. All of this data is stored in your catalog. Virtual copies become a great tool to explore your image and try different looks of the same photograph. It is like taking one negative to a photo lab and asking the lab tech to print different versions of your negative in different formats such as crops, colour balance or the lightness/darkness of the image.

Now that you are all excited about the potential, just how do you create virtual copies? You right click on the image file (either on the filmstrip or the grid view) and select “Create Virtual Copy” from the context menu. Lightroom will now create a new preview of your image and place it next to the original.

In Figure 1 we see two images of the statue side by side, the one on the left has a 2 in a box in the left hand corner indicating that there are two copies while the one on the right has a curled lower left corner indicating that it is a virtual copy. These two images are identical as no changes have been made to either image. In Figure 2 we will take one image and make several changes to it to demonstrate the process. The right hand image now has the exposure and contrast increased to create a simple high key image (I would like to be more creative here but as Close-Up is printed in Black and White I wanted the sample to work for both the online and printed version.)

Lightroom names the virtual copies with the same file name as your original with Copy 1 appended to the end. If you create more than one virtual copy, then the file name will be incremented with the second being Copy 2 etc.

When using Lightroom my usual workflow is to create a virtual copy of the image prior to making any changes to it, and making the changes on the virtual copy. While this is my recommended workflow, what do you do when you start to play with an image and decide you would like to keep your experiment? Lightroom allows great flexibility here as you can create a virtual copy of your image at any point in time. So for those times where I forget to create the copy upfront I can create it after applying some develop settings and then I can reset the original image back to the original raw file, leaving my original file as copy 1 and the virtual copy with the changes I made as copy 2. If you prefer more descriptive names than Copy 1 etc., then you can go to the Metadata panel (see Figure 3) and change the name to something that is more meaningful to you.

Deleting virtual copies is similar to deleting images; you can select the copy and either hit the delete key, or right click to get the context menu then select delete. When you do this, the dialog box shown in Figure 4 will come up asking you to confirm removal from the catalog.

Virtual copies are a great way to explore multiple renderings of your images and allow your creativity to come to the surface. As the entire process is non-destructive and takes up very little disk space, you can allow your imagination to roam freely.

We hope you have enjoyed this instalment of the Lightroom Tutorials and that it will enhance your exploration of this powerful program.