External editing in Photoshop & colour profiles

[Simon Withington]

Hello

I am using Lightroom 3 with CS5. I do the majority of my digital darkroom development and manipulation in Lightroom, I then proof images for printing in Photoshop using my lab's printing profile. In Photoshop, I then 'convert' the image to the relevant printer/paper profile and then save a copy. It's this copy that I then send to the lab.

The copy (with the lab's profile embedded) now stacks with the original image in Lightroom. If I then decide to make further changes to this image in Lightroom and then move into Photoshop to proof, the Lightroom 'external editing' process removes the embedded lab profile and assigns the profile specified in Lightroom's preferences (for me, this is Adobe RGB).  Similarly, if I 'export' from LR, then the only colour management options that I have are for the likes of RGB etc and not the embedded lab profile.

This is really annoying, as I've obviously already worked with this image in CS5 and have intentionally embedded a lab profile to it, which has now been removed. Is there anyway of 'preserving' profiles when seamlessly moving from Lightroom to Photoshop using Lightroom's external editing feature?

Looking at Lightroom's setting etc I'm guessing that the answer is 'no' and that the idea is once leaving Lightroom the workflow moves to Photoshop. This is fine, but as Lightroom also acts as a window to your library, it seems strange that to then work with the proofed image again, you 'lose' the profile intentionally embedded?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Si

[eliedinur]

In the Export window, under File Settings/Color Space open the drop-down menu and select Other. If your printer profile is in your OS's ICC profiles folder it will appear in the list in the window that opens. Select it and LR won't do a color space conversion during export.

[Simon Withington]

Hi, thanks for this.  This solves the problem when exporting from LR.  I've noticed however that the solution you suggest only works if my printer profile is in the RGB space, but not if it's a CMYK profile (doesn't appear as an option).

My question in the OP still stands re preserving profiles when editing externally in PS using the [Photo/Edit In] menu option.

Thanks again.

[frugal]

The preferences for external editing from LR specify which colour space to use, so that's why you're losing the previously applied profile.

However, why are you applying the lab's profile and then editing further on top of that? My understanding of a proper soft-proofing workflow is that you should be working with a profiled monitor and getting the image to the point where you're happy with how it looks on screen, then apply the printer's profile (recommend working on a copy so that the "master" stays as it was) and make adjustments to that version in order to get the final print looking as good as you can.