| Steve, again, any edits you make to your jpegs in LR are non-destructive just like any edits to raw files or dng files. LR just saves the edits you make in a database and does nothing to the jpegs themselves. If you make a virtual copy of a jpeg and save it in a collection, all is done non-destructively. Then, when you have a batch of files you want to export and print or whatever, somewhere else, you just export those files as jpegs, if that's what you need. So, after all that there is only one save (export) to any particular jpeg. Then, later, if you ever need another copy of any of the jpegs just go back into LR and export another copy rather than making a copy of the copy somewhere else.
When you make a virtual copy of a jpeg you're not making another jpeg, you're making another set of instructions on how to edit the same jpeg in two different ways (if that's your intention of making a VC in the first place)! When you add a file to a collection you're not copying the file to another location, you're, in essence, adding a set of instuctions about the file to a virtual space (called a collection). I hope this doesn't confuse you more. LightRoom is a database driven app and it won't make sense till you think of it as a database. |