"Saving" in LR3

[DianeK]

Please bear with me, I'm new to LR3.  I have read Kelby's book.  I have now installed LR3.  Last night for the first time, I worked on a photo then confusion ensued.  It was late, wasn't finished fiddling with the photo, just wanted to save it to do some more with it this morning but all I could do was "export".  But I wasn't finished and didn't want to export it anywhere as a jpeg or tiff or dng.  I just wanted the raw with the xmp to work on some more.  Ended up just leaving the program and image open overnight but I was wondering what does one does in this situation?

[johnbeardy]

Don't worry, Lightroom saves each step as you do it - the information is stored in the catalogue (database) which you'll see on your hard drive as an lrcat file. Open the catalogue  again and your work will still be there in exactly the same state as before.

With Lightroom "the xmp" is optional - don't worry about it for now.

If you want to create a new version of the file, only then you would export it.

John

[DianeK]

So are you saying all I had to do last night was hit the red X buttom to close LR with the image still open in Develop and all the edits I had done to that point would have been "saved"?  Or, if I had just closed the program like that would a dialog have opened like you get in Excel or Word asking me what I wanted to do with the image?
Diane

[digitaldog]

LR is constantly auto saving what you do into its catalog database.

You can optimally save the XMP edits either manually (select images, Command/Control S) or set the preferences to do this (Autosave XMP).

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

So are you saying all I had to do last night was hit the red X buttom to close LR with the image still open in Develop and all the edits I had done to that point would have been "saved"?

Yes.

Or, if I had just closed the program like that would a dialog have opened like you get in Excel or Word asking me what I wanted to do with the image?
Diane

No.

[johnbeardy]

So are you saying all I had to do last night was hit the red X buttom to close LR with the image still open in Develop and all the edits I had done to that point would have been "saved"?  Or, if I had just closed the program like that would a dialog have opened like you get in Excel or Word asking me what I wanted to do with the image?
Diane

Yes, I'm saying exactly that. At the heart of Lightroom is the lrcat file, known as the catalogue, and it's a database which stores your adjustments or keywords as you work. Next time you go into Lightroom, those adjustments are still there - you can even undo them using the History panel (left hand panel in Develop).

John

[DianeK]

Thanks a lot everyone. 
Diane