One of the things I like about Lightroom (Aperture has a similar feature) is the virtual file feature. I recently did a series of triptychs of a parrot tulip. Rather than convert multiple copies of the image has I’d normally do in Photoshop, I created three virtual copies - Photo > Create Virtual Copy (Cmd/Ctrl + ‘). I then placed these into a Quick Collection (B) to make it easier to work with these copies since I have a tendency to get confused when looking at dozens of similar images in the filmstrip.

If you haven’t worked with virtual files before, you’ll be able to tell the difference by the turned corner icon. These copies take virtually no space at all on your drive since they’re just the list of adjustments you made. It’s a great way to experiment with different settings to see what you like best. This is how I ended up doing the triptych - I ended up playing around and came up with multiple options, and when asking my wife what she thought, she suggested doing them all.

The first image is the original and most resembles reality. For the middle image, I wanted a negative effect and used these settings:
Exposure = +2
Contrast = -50
Highlights = 0
Lights = 100
Darks = 0
Shadows = 0
I also adjusted the Yellow and Green saturation sliders lower and raised Purple and Magenta all the way up.

For the third image, I used the following settings:
Recovery = 70
Fill Light = 70
Blacks = 24
Contrast = 100
Vibrance = 34
Highlights = 20
Lights = 60
Darks = 11
Shadows = -56

To wrap things up, I jumped over to the Print module and selected the triptych preset. I had to modify the settings to use one row and three columns, and to fill the cells I selected Zoom to Fill Frame. Finally, I positioned the images in the cell to have the position I wanted before sending the layout to print.

Using virtual files has really helped my workflow and opened me up to more experimentation with files. Since it costs nearly zero disk space, they are quick to work with and they preserve the original file settings for future use (or misuse depending on your perspective).