Manage before and after previews in Photoshop Lightroom

Manage previews

Let’s say at this point you carry on making more tweaks to the Develop panel settings, but decide that these corrections have not actually improved the image and the interim “Before” version was actually better. You can reverse the process by clicking on the Copy settings from the Before photo to the After photo button. Basically, the Before and After compare mode controls will let you make a snapshot of an image during mid-correction. The following steps illustrate one such workflow, plus how to go about restoring the original Before version as a “Before” preview.

1. Here is a screen shot that shows a “Before” version of the image which was “as shot” and on the right an “After” version that has been modified using the Develop module adjustments.

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2. I clicked on the Copy settings from the After photo to the Before photo button so that we now had two identical versions of the image displayed in the Before/After previews.

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3. This gave me a new “Before” image starting point to compare with, and I was now able to make further Develop adjustments. In this example the “After” preview shows a grayscale conversion.

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4. This gave me a new “Before” image starting point to compare with, and I was now able to make further Develop adjustments. In this example the “After” preview shows a grayscale conversion.

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5. But what if you want to make the “Before” preview revert back to the original “Before” state? To do this I clicked on the Reset button at the bottom right corner of the Develop module. The “After” preview now showed the original “Before” version.

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6. But I wanted the Reset version to be the new “Before” preview. To do this, I clicked on the “Copy settings from the After photo to the Before photo” button again. Both halves now displayed the “Reset” version.

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7. And finally, in order to return to displaying the grayscale converted state as the “After” version, I went to the History panel and clicked on the one before last, “Convert to Grayscale” history state.

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Where to go from here

For more information about Photoshop Lightroom, check out the following resources:

• Photoshop Lightroom Design Center
• Boost an image’s saturation, by Martin Evening
• Keep your images organized by using keywords, by Scott Kelby
• Correct an overexposed image in Photoshop Lightroom, by Martin Evening

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