Hi all. I'm just after some clarity on the relationship between the JPG, CR2 & XMP files that I'm getting. I use Adobe Bridge to organise my photos & Adobe Camera Raw & Photoshop to edit them. In Bridge, I've noticed that when I rename a CR2 file, it also renames the JPG & XMP files to match. (I haven't tried to re-name a JPG & see if it behaves the same, as I'm worried about "breaking" something.) Yesterday I imported some photos from a Lumix card I had lying around & when I re-named the JPGs from the Lumix, Bridge didn't rename the XMPs. (I assume this was because they were JPGs & not Raw files from the Lumix but I'm unclear on that.) What I'm wondering is: Do the photos & their respective XMP files have to have the same name or is there something in the image file that knows which XMP file is "its" XMP file? If I re-name them manually to match, is that sufficient or is the "link" between them broken when I re-name the image file manually? Do I really need the XMP files at all & what are the ramifications of deleting them? Just as a bit of background, I've been using Photoshop since the mid-nineties in a work capacity but I've almost never been given raw files to work with, so I don't know much about them. As a rule, I've usually had to do so much to the images in Photoshop, that when I have been given them, I've just accepted the raw defaults, worked on them in Photoshop & saved out PSDs & TIFs. Now that I have my own camera & am enjoying photography again, I need to expand my knowledge to include the kind of enhancements that one might make to an image to get the best out of it. Going forward, if I did want to take an image into Photoshop to work on it, I would probably open the Raw file as a smart object so that I could always go in & tweak the Raw settings. I'm wondering it this negates the need for an XMP file?
XMP (sidecar files) ....They are small and important stores of data about your raw file (cr2) that adobe has created, you don't want to delete them, and they take up little space. My general workflow is a bit different from yours but same thing applies. When you use raw and enter into the world of adobe, it creates these sidecar files to pair with the raw file since it cant edit the raw. This is the info that you dialed into adobe camera raw for edits in your case. SO, you delete the file you delete the edits. This would be any edits on top the raw file from camera, as well as any ratings, keywords, etc tagging you have done to edit the metadata about your image. In the early 2000s when i first went digital I too used bridge for file handling and tiff files for my primary "negatives" because more of my shooting was scanned film than shots on my 20d in raw. I heavily shy away from keeping jpgs and if i do they are a sub folder labeled Final Output, because jpgs should only be exported when ready for print or web. I always have an edited raw or tiff file that is the final edit matching any jpg I export at a smaller size for web or print. Hence why I saw that managing jpg copies is really not a needed part of the workflow. Once i primarily went digital i completely left bridge as it was cumbersome to have file management in a separate program, I drop my raw files in the file structure, and add the folder to my Lightroom catalogue. I think its worth considering dropping bridge and raw in the workflow and getting Lighroom, as you may find more fluid to do almost everything in 1 program. LR manages the files like bridge sorting and rating them. It edits the images more to the level of Photoshop so you don't need to do a middle step of camera raw, making it a 1 and done management program. Photoshop is still needed for certain types of edits, and that's where i save a tiff copy separate of the raw negative and live as 2 parallel files in the folder. PS and LR allow you to jump between the two for editing right in the programs menus, they are made to work together. I have older retail copies of both LR and PS, they worked perfect with my 5dM2 based on the level of raw support. In the 201Xs Adobe really pushed to cloud subscriptions and you needed to use updated online copies of their software to support raw files from newer cameras you purchased or you needed to convert newer raw files to adobe raws DNG format. This extra step is a bit of a pain to work mith my 5d4 files, and if i shot a lot more i would just subscribe to the photo bundle which allows you to have updated lightroom and photoshop with all the bells and whistles as well as manage edits across your phone/tablet and computers. I mean the bundle in the US is $10 a month if purchased yearly.
Speaking of Same Name Necessity. Yes, the photos (CR2 or JPG) and their respective XMP files have the same name to maintain the link between them. And, Adobe Bridge manages this automatically when you rename CR2 files. And, if you delete the XMP files, you will lose all the non-destructive edits and metadata adjustments made to the RAW files. I would recommend keep using Adobe Bridge to organize and Adobe Camera Raw to make initial edits. And, make sure that the XMP files are kept with the RAW files for non-destructive editing.
Thank you. I'm pretty sold on using Bridge as my iPhoto & I have a system that allows me to use it in a similar way. (I could talk a lot about that but I won't.) Here's the thing with XMP files, though. Whenever I open my CR2 file in Photoshop, I use the RAW interface to adjust the photo to my liking & then open "as object" so that my RAW file is a smart object. I can then open it at any time & adjust the RAW settings, (although any global colour changes would obviously throw off any work I've done over the top in Photoshop, so it has ramifications). I worked through a couple of tests & it turns out that any additional changes to the file in the smart object does not update the XMP file & if I open the original CR2 file & make further changes to it, it updates the XMP file but doesn't affect the smart object. This is a very familiar workflow for me, as I'm a creative retoucher for a living, so technically, as I will always open my CR2 as a smart object & save the resulting file as a PSD or PSB file, I don't actually need the loose XMP files at all. That said, I will certainly follow the advice here & keep them, as this is the very beginning of my journey into photography & who knows what may change, once a few more pennies drop.
I never use them, but as I understand smart objects are meant to be a separate layer on top of the source so you are specifically editing on top the original in a new layer inside the Photoshop file or whichever you chose when creating a smart object. This workflow is never meant to impact the original file by design. And yes by design you simply are not actually editing the CR2 or any raw format file for that matter. Think of them as your film negative, ALL your changes made in bridge/lightroom/whatever are simply writing to the XMP, this is by design that your edits are a separate file in adobe, your raw file stays with its original integrity and you can always start over.
A smart object is a file within a file, so it appears to be one layer in photoshop, but when you double click on it, it opens as a separate file which could be many layers in itself. (It's a very powerful tool which can do all sorts of things that are essential for my work but probably of little or no use to those hereabouts. ) In this instance, when you open your CR2 file, adjust the Raw settings then open "as object" it becomes a single layer in the resulting Photoshop file, but when you double click on it, it opens as the Raw File Interface again, so you could tweak the settings further if you needed to. Then, when you save & close, it becomes a single layer in your Photoshop file again. Of course, you'd have to be careful because if you've done any retouching work over the top of the smart object & then you go in & do something to fundamentally change the colour, the retouching work will no longer match when you save & close. For me, though, once I'm happy with the image, I could go in & work over the top of it, to clean up bird poop or remove unwanted clutter from the shot.
