Today’s Question: If I apply a Develop preset to images as part of importing them into Lightroom Classic, would the Before view of the image show the original unedited image or the version with the preset applied?
Tim’s Quick Answer: If you apply a Develop preset on import, the Before view will show the version of the image with that preset applied, not the unedited image.
More Detail: When you enable the Before view (such as by pressing the backslash key on the keyboard) in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic, you’ll see the image based on what it looked like when it was imported. For example, if you had applied adjustments to a raw capture using Camera Raw and leave the resulting XMP sidecar file with the raw capture, if you import the image into Lightroom Classic the Before view will show the image based on the adjustments applied with Camera Raw. Similarly, if you apply a Develop preset during import, the Before view will show you the image with the effect of that preset applied to it.
In other words, the Before view doesn’t necessarily show you the original version of the image without any adjustments. Rather, it will show you the version of the image based on any adjustments that had been applied prior to importing or during import through the use of a preset.
Let’s assume, for example, that you had converted a batch of images to black and white, either using Camera Raw before import or by using a preset during import. After applying a variety of adjustments in the Develop module, pressing the backslash key to switch to the Before view will show the black and white version of the image as it looked upon import.
If you want to get to the image without any adjustments, you can click the Reset button at the bottom of the right panel in Lightroom Classic. Even then, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have an image with no adjustments at all, because it is possible to change the default adjustment values for Lightroom Classic. And, of course, if you had clicked the Reset button just to see the image with the default adjustment settings, you could always use the Undo command (or go back in the History section of the left panel) to undo the Reset command and get back to the adjusted version of the image.
