Why are my photos not being saved in Shotwell?

Shotwell is a non-destructive photo editor, see http://yorba.org/shotwell/help/edit-nondestructive.html. If you want to share the altered photo then you will have to export it.

Shotwell will not modify your original photographs. if you do some change in photographs like crop , rotate etc. and you want to save that then you have do Export it :

File ▸ Export ▸ Choose File Format  ▸ Choose Save Location 

or press :

Ctrl ShiftE : For export image

some other useful shortcut

Shift Delete : Remove from Library

Ctrl I : Import from folder

Ctrl O : Crop Image

Ctrl d : Adjust

Ctrl Y :Red-eye

Ctrl A : Straighten

Ctrl E : Enhance

Ctrl + : Zoom In

Ctrl - : Zoom out

Ctrl Shift M : Show in File Manager