Hi, I’m Jesus Ramirez from The Photoshop Training Channel!
In this video, I’m going to show you a little-known Photoshop trick
that will allow you to track all your edits for you.
It’s like creating a written-step-by-step tutorial automatically.
And make sure that you stick around until the end of the tutorial so that you can see
how you can watch my Lightroom CC course that was just published on the Adobe website.
But anyway, there might be a time when you need to keep a record of your edits for a
client, legal purposes, or to simply remind you of the edits that you have applied to an image.
As you may already know, Photoshop is always tracking your edits.
You can see what Photoshop is tracking through the History Panel.
Under Window
History.
These are the edits that I have made to this file off camera.
The with the History panel is that you can only see the generic basic steps that you have applied.
In this case Levels, Vibrance, and Smart Sharpen.
But we don’t get specific information on the settings or options that were applied
to those adjustments.
Also, you can’t export these History States as text.
So, if you want to track all the steps and settings that have performed to a file,
then you can open the Preferences Panel by pressing
Ctrl K.
That’s Command K on the Mac.
Then click the History Log tab.
Enable the History Log by clicking on the checkbox.
The History Log is a textual history of the edits that you have made to an image.
In other words, Photoshop tracks all the changes that you make and saves them as text.
Best of all, you can save the text information within the image file itself, in the Metadata.
Or you can save it in a separate file;
if I click on this option,
the “Save As” window comes up,
and I can give the text file a name
and decide where to save it on my computer.
I’m going to press the Cancel button to go back to the History Log Preferences.
And you also have an option to save the steps both within the metadata of the image
and in a separate text file.
And that is the option that I’m going to select for this tutorial.
The “Save As” window will come up again.
I’ll use the default file name and the current file location.
And I’ll click the save button.
Under “Edit Log Items” you must select the level of detail contained in the History Log.
Sessions Only Keeps a record of each time that you start
or quit Photoshop and each time that you open or close files.
The filename is also included in the History Log.
This option does not contain any information about edits that you make.
“Sessions” is a useful setting for time tracking.
But keep in mind that with this setting the History Log will not record activity.
Only open and close times.
The next option is Concise.
Concise includes the information from the Sessions option, along with the text that
appears in the History panel next to the History state.
So only a basic description of the steps but no details on settings or options used.
Detailed Records the same information as the Concise
option, and it also gives you a complete history of all the changes made to your image.
Including settings, options used, and file locations.
The information displayed with this option is very similar to the text that appears in
the Actions Panel when you open an action to see the steps.
For this tutorial, I will select Detail.
Then I can close the Preferences panel.
And I will make a few adjustments to this image.
I’ll go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
And this blur is fine.
I’ll press OK.
Then I can add a Curves Adjustment Layer.
And make a few adjustments.
The aesthetics are not important for this tutorial.
I just want to record a few history steps and show you the result.
I’ll also add a Layer Style.
And then I’ll press ok.
Now that we made several changes, you will be able to see what Photoshop tracked.
To view the external text file, just go to the folder where you saved the file and double-click
on it.
As you can see, Photoshop tracked all the detailed information about the changes we made.
The Gaussian blur.
The Curves Adjustment Layer.
And the Layer style.
I’ll go back to Photoshop,
and I will show you how to see the Metadata information for this file.
Just go to File, File Info, and then select the Photoshop Tab.
And you will see the same information that we had on the external text file.
Keep in mind that storing many editing operations within the file metadata increases file size.
In some cases, saving only a text file is the better option.
Also, if you need to prove that the file’s metadata has not been altered in any way,
you can use Adobe Acrobat to digitally sign the file.
Let me know in the comments how you plan on using this technique.
And by the way, I want to take this opportunity to tell you about a project that I worked on with Adobe.
Adobe hired me to create several courses for them on Lightroom CC, the first course is
live now, and you can watch it.
I can show you how to get to it.
All you need to do is open you Creative Cloud App.
From your Creative Cloud app, you can click on the Learn tab.
And scroll all the way to the bottom.
When you see the See All button, you can just click on that.
This will open up your browser in a page at Adobe’s website.
You can click on Lightroom.
Then you can click on Tutorials.
And you will see my Beginner Photo Editing Course here.
These seven videos are free.
And you can select the one that you want to watch.
You can download the sample file.
Of course, watch the video.
And there’s also written instructions.
If you don’t have the Creative Cloud app.
No worries, I’ll place a link right below in the description that will take you to my website.
Photoshop Training Channel.com And from there I will have the links to all
the videos that are currently published.
As I said, Adobe hired me to create several courses.
The first one is out, and there are more coming in the near future.
And by the way, if you are not a Lightroom user, you can still watch the course since
all the principals in Lightroom CC are exactly the same as Camera Raw in Photoshop.
The technology is the same, and the technology is very similar.
So, you could also use these videos to help you with camera raw.
And by the way, if this is your first time at the Photoshop Training Channel,
then don’t forget to click on that subscribe and notification buttons.
Thank you so much for watching!
And I see you again in the next tutorial!