How do you remove the watermark from a photo that you edited in LR4? Say, somebody saw your photo and wants to buy a copy, or you want to print it without your watermark on it.

If I open the image in LR, then export it "without watermark or metadata" then open the file outside of LR, the watermark is still there.

Make sure you are opening the original image file, which may be a raw file if you shoot raw.

If you are trying to remove the watermark from a jpeg file you previously exported with the watermark, that won't work. The watermark in that case is "burned into the pixels" and cannot be removed without extensive retouching in something like Photoshop.

Depending on your LR settings, LR may be stacking or otherwise hiding files related to the same image. You may need to change those settings to see multiple versions of the same file. You need to find your original file as it came out of the camera, whether it be raw or jpeg. If you have somehow deleted or replaced the original file, you are in for a tough time.

Thanks. This set was all Jpeg. (My fault for not verifying settings on my camera).

Am I wrong in thinking that when you edit a photo in lightroom, that the "edits" are a different file from the image, and it combines them if exporting them as a complete image? Effectively creating a copy of the original, combining the edits and effectively flattening them and sending them to 'where ever' as an outsource, i.e., Web, printer, completed image folder, etc. The original image file, unedited should still live where you imported it too (that is, from your card reader, camera or other). That should have NO changes to it from Lightroom.

What I do not seem to be able to either grasp, or convey is, if you reopen an image that you edited in Lightroom, via Lightroom, why do you no longer have access to the edit history for that image? I was under the (mis) understanding that being that the edits were effectively a separate file that is associated with your now edited image, that you could change it, adjust it, or dump it completely.

Am I to assume that you cannot tweak your previous adjustments, and that you always have to start over from scratch? If so, why would that be better than the way I used to do it in Photoshop? That is, Open image, duplicate image, close original, edit copy. Save edited copy. Don't like it, open original and start over.

With all the videos and tutorials I have watched, I dont know why this is so damn hard to wrap my head around. I don't think I have gotten too old to learn new tricks, and, though it obviously is not showing here, I'm not that dumb. Really!

Lightroom works that way with raw files with jpg and tiff it works like any other editor changing the pixels them self.
If you want to work with jpg or tiff in a non-destructive way then Photoshop with layers is the way to go.

You can always restore the photo from your back-up and edit again without the watermark.

That is just strange, since I could swear that Lightroom is supposed to be non-destructive. I guess layers and not flattening is the only way to go back and alter a step in the editing process.

LR is non-destructive.
However when you export a file created in LR the new file can be altered in destructive ways. Or you can export to Photoshop and create a layered file.
Scott

Raw files, PSDs, TIFs, and Jpegs can all be adjusted non-destructively INSIDE Lightroom. When you EXPORT to a file though, those changes are applied permanently. It is the EXPORT step that converts parametric edits to pixel-level edits.

There is a good probability that you still have the original file somewhere. You would have received an overwrite confirmation message if you were trying to overwrite it. I recommend that you use the operating system's file explorer to look inside the folders where you keep you original files to try to find the original file.

Open image "A" in lightroom. Edit and tweak to your hearts content. All of this is non desctuctive and is not actually modifying the base image file. It is only modifying the way Lightroom shows you the image. Export the edited image "A" from lightroom. You now have image "B". Image "B" was image "A" with your lightroom edits applied. Therefore image "B" is no longer the same as image "A". You can not open image "B" in lightroom and undo edits. If you wan't to modify your edits you would open lightroom and tweak the edits to image "A".