Virtual Copies in Lightroom

[DeadpanDodo]

As I continue to get up to speed with Lightroom (v4.4) I am starting to want to make more than one version of an image, perhaps one colour and one monochrome. I've discovered that Virtual Copies is the tool of choice for this. However it appears that you need to make your virtual copies from the original before you have started to conduct any processing on it.

What if I have an image that I have already worked on, and then decide to try a different approach but still retain the first version. Can I do this? If so how?

Am I completely missing something here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jon.P.73]

As far as I can remember you can just create a virtual copy at any point and it creates, well a virtual copy, at that point?

I do as you have mentioned regarding a B&W version after adding PP

Give it a try

 

[Jimmy_Lemon]

You can create a virtual copy at any stage and yes it will copy it as it currently stands so if you have already started to tweak it then you will get two tweaked versions.
To get one of them back to the un-tweaked version just select one of them and go into the develop module and click "reset" in the bottom right. This should wipe all the develop settings, but leave the other version with the settings you chose.

 

[DeadpanDodo]

Thanks both for the speedy replies.

Jimmy L - I think you've cracked it for me. I knew I was overlooking something simple. Hadn't occurred to me to hit Reset after making my virtual copy. Makes sense now. Off to have a play!

Many thanks.

 

[Graham W]

You can create a virtual copy at any stage and yes it will copy it as it currently stands so if you have already started to tweak it then you will get two tweaked versions.
To get one of them back to the un-tweaked version just select one of them and go into the develop module and click "reset" in the bottom right. This should wipe all the develop settings, but leave the other version with the settings you chose.

 

[Byker28i]

Thanks both for the speedy replies.

Jimmy L - I think you've cracked it for me. I knew I was overlooking something simple. Hadn't occurred to me to hit Reset after making my virtual copy. Makes sense now. Off to have a play!

Many thanks.

Don't forget lightroom doesnt make changes to the original file, but keeps the changes as meta data and applies that, The changes are only fixed when you export.