[DanCooper]

1:  In Kodi you select local information.  If not, Kodi will skip the nfo and scrape all the data from the web.

That is not entirely correct. Kodi still use the NFO and already stored images if they are available but tries to scrape part of the information if Kodi think there is something missing. Also videos without a NFO will be scraped automatically.
But if you work with a Media Manager the scraper "local information only" is always the best way because you get the same result that you've in the manager.
 

2:  If you make changes to images/nfo etc these will not be picked up again automatically.  You need to refresh your source folder by doing this:

Kodi never recognize changes on an video that's already added to the Kodi database (except images because the images cache checks the images periodically and refresh the cache if needed, but it takes hours for the refresh to be triggered). Also "Database update" does never re-read already added videos or NFOs. The only way to re-read or refresh the information with Kodi-only is to manually open the information dialog or the way you describes... or you use the Kodi Interface in Ember.