How to use Smart Objects with LR3 and CS4?

[Philmar]

I have been using LR3 for the last month to process my RAWs. Am loving it. Up until then I had been using CS4.
Whenever I want to do some post production in Photoshop, I have to move it in to CS4 as a TIFF file so that I get the benefit of LR3's lens adjustment and NR/sharpening.
But how do I send the TIFF back to LR3 as a Smart Object? Currently everytime I create a Smart Object in CS4 it opens up in Camera Raw CS4 which means I'd lose the lens adjutment/NR/sharpening/improved demosiac, right?

How do I get the Smart Object to open in LR3?

THANKS!

[john beardsworth]

Do the LR work first, including the lens correction, then right click and choose Edit as Smart Object.

[Wayne Fox]

Smart objects are a Photoshop layer, and will open in ACR.  Not sure of any way to "open" them in LR.  Never tried it myself.

I think the problem is CS4 cannot utilize the current version of ACR and some of the features you are missing are part of ACR 6.  so to reopen your smart object and have all of the settings of LR3, you would need CS5 which uses ACR 6.  ACR 6 and LR 3 share the same raw processing engine.

[Philmar]

Hmmm, maybe uninstalling ACR is a solution?? ACR is really a plug-in, right?
But would that make the TIFF with the Smart Object open in LR3 though?

[Schewe]

How do I get the Smart Object to open in LR3?

To keep rendering compatibility, you'll need to update to Camera Raw 6.2 in Photoshop CS5. No way around that if you want to use Lightroom 3.2 and open images as raw Smart Objects in Photoshop.

[Philmar]

Oh Poo!!

The reason I bought LR3 was because I was sick of paying the upgrade cost for Photoshop. It's one third of the cost of the original program. LR's upgrade was cheaper so I figured over several years several upgrades I'd save money. So I guess it's goodbye to smart objects.

Just curious though. if I had CS5 would the smart object open in LR or would it always open in ACR?

[Schewe]

Just curious though. if I had CS5 would the smart object open in LR or would it always open in ACR?

You would be able to open the image as a raw Smart Object in Photoshop CS5 then save it and have it entered back in the Lightroom catalog. If you then do an edit in Photoshop, the image would open in Photoshop with the Smart Object intact for further editing. You wouldn't want to "edit" the SO file in Lightroom but you could use it like a regular file for printing, web and slideshow.