Lightroom: Using The History

I am processing a whole bunch of files in Lightroom. Now I realize that I don’t like the recent steps that I did and want to go back more than 1 step backward. Ctrl-Z / Command-Z only undo the last command, and if you did a select, that’s the last one that will be undone. So are you stuck?

No, not really. Lightroom does not make any change to the original photo. This means that every time I look at a processed photo, Lightroom has to apply all the changes that I have done and in that order. So Lightroom keeps track of the history. Going to the Develop module, in the left pane, you can view the history of what has been done to that photo. That’s only, if you haven’t cleared the history. In my opinion, you shouldn’t have to clear the history.

On this photo, the last step I did was to synchronize the settings, as you can see in the history. I had an argument with myself and decided that I didn’t like it. The problem is that it was done a few month ago, so no Ctrl-Z/Command-Z undo available.

I clicked on the previous step that was my last “good” point and do my changes from there.