Lightroom Classic to Photoshop flow?

[PDeXplore]

What do you all do as your standard processing flow between LR and PS? Typically I just do the standard 'Edit in Photoshop' from Lightroom, save as a PSD file when I'm done, and then just make some final tweaks like vignette to the new file in LR. This is simple enough, but seems to break down for me when I want to make changes to the basic LR file. For example, if I wanted to make adjustments to what I did in PS... that would be fine. I just open that psd in PS, and my file gets updated automatically in LR. But if I wanted to make some LR adjustments, it seems like I'd need to then re-do all of the PS adjustments afterwards. Am I doing something wrong, or is there a better way to do this?

[fdisilvestro]

Hi, instead of "Edit in Photoshop", use "Open as a Smart Object in Photoshop". If you need to tweak the raw file, just double click on the smart object, which will open in ACR

[john beardsworth]

I also mostly use the Smart Object method, but it's more relevant that once a photo has come back from Photoshop as a TIF, from then on I don't make further adjustments in LR. Instead I'll Edit With > PS and choose Original. I would add further metadata like ratings or keywords in LR, but try to do a Ctrl S immediately afterwards, meaning that a further trip to PS wouldn't affect the metadata.

[JeanMichel]

Everyone develops their own best practice. In my case, I develop my files almost exclusively in LR, and only take a trip to PS for special purposes, such as compositing, making cmyk versions for publishing needs, and such. I do all of my printing from LR, even if it the image  took a trip to PS.

[PDeXplore]

I also mostly use the Smart Object method, but it's more relevant that once a photo has come back from Photoshop as a TIF, from then on I don't make further adjustments in LR. Instead I'll Edit With > PS and choose Original. I would add further metadata like ratings or keywords in LR, but try to do a Ctrl S immediately afterwards, meaning that a further trip to PS wouldn't affect the metadata.

How does that work to do the"edit original" option? Do you then still go in and edit the smart object (raw) just as you did originally? Does that open all of your PS layers as well?

I'm wondering if maybe i don't need to be saving as both tif and psd, does the link between ps and lr somehow do that for you?

[john beardsworth]

From LR, usually Edit With, choose Original. That opens the layered file, and the smart object is just one of the layers. Double click the layer, and it opens Adobe Camera Raw.

This is slightly awkward, of course. But once I have taken the image to PS I normally do any further adjustments like vignette (or grad /radial / brush) in PS and as adjustment layers.  It would only be if I want to do something like noise or sharpening that I would go into the smart object's ACR.

TIF is an alternative to PSD - don't save both. The reason for choosing TIF is it's non-proprietary, looks right in more third party apps (long term thinking), and it does everything important that proprietary PSD can do.

[rabanito]

Hi, instead of "Edit in Photoshop", use "Open as a Smart Object in Photoshop". If you need to tweak the raw file, just double click on the smart object, which will open in ACR

Interesting.
In that case you wouldn't need to do any adjustments in LR since ACR has every control as well
Am I wrong? Please correct me

[leuallen]

This works for me: Do edits in LR. Go to PS with original. Do stuff there. Back to LR. Your adjustments will be reapplied.

For safety you can save all of the adjustments as a preset with a name like Temp which can be overwritten and reused. Apply the preset to the returned file. Do this if you feel that your LR adjustment will change before you get back from PS but I don't see how that can happen.

You can screw it up if you do things like crop or transform. Just don't do those things in PS, leave them for LR. You can do a lot in LR.

Maybe I don't understand the question but it seems pretty simple to me.

[rabanito]

Maybe I don't understand the question but it seems pretty simple to me.

I think you did, thanks

This is more or less my method but in the past I've been surprised many times by others that do things easier, simpler or whatever.

There is plenty of knowledge to be reaped in this forum 

[PatCastaldo]

I love reading about people's workflows, helps me learn what I might need to modify about my own, so this is a great thread.

I do mostly product photography where we need to drop-out the background; so might Lightroom Classic --> Photoshop workflow is probably unique.

I use Lightroom to import and organize the products, and then do a first-blush correction there: color correct, histogram adjustments and crop to final size.

Then I Export as 16-bit PSDs the final shots to a folder in the dropbox (named for the product), then my assistant picks up those up and drops out the background in Photoshop. They save the original PSDs with layers and the mask, and then run an action that exports them to the different target size needed for web and other uses.

If Lightroom had the ability to do the kind of dropping out of the background we do in photoshop, I'd have no real reason to ever use it. I fantasize about a "better" AI version of dropping the background, too, since so many of the things I do seem like machine learning could get real close compared to doing it by hand (like we do now).

[fdisilvestro]

If Lightroom had the ability to do the kind of dropping out of the background we do in photoshop, I'd have no real reason to ever use it. I fantasize about a "better" AI version of dropping the background, too, since so many of the things I do seem like machine learning could get real close compared to doing it by hand (like we do now).

Photoshop "Select subject" uses AI (Adobe "Sensei") to try to identify the subject from the background, it is not perfect but shows progress.
It seems to me that this kind of operation is more suited to pixel editors such as Photoshop, but I may be wrong.

[fdisilvestro]

Interesting.
In that case you wouldn't need to do any adjustments in LR since ACR has every control as well
Am I wrong? Please correct me

You could if you like this way. In any case, as other posters have shown, there are many ways to use the tools to achieve the same goal. That's the beauty of it, choose the workflow that you like the most.

[PDeXplore]

This works for me: Do edits in LR. Go to PS with original. Do stuff there. Back to LR.

But how do you get back to Lightroom? Maybe this is where my hangup is. I save as default, which i think is tif, but also as psd. Then i get two copies of the file but .tif and .psd in Lightroom. So clearly I'm doing something wrong.

Maybe i don't need to save as .psd, but u was under the impression if i didn't save as a Photoshop file, i wouldn't be able to go back and tweak my layer adjustments in the future and would have to edit the edit or start from scratch.

Does Lightroom or Photoshop somehow save all the layers and adjustments even if you don't save the Photoshop file?

[PatCastaldo]

Photoshop "Select subject" uses AI (Adobe "Sensei") to try to identify the subject from the background, it is not perfect but shows progress.
It seems to me that this kind of operation is more suited to pixel editors such as Photoshop, but I may be wrong.

Thanks, I hadn't actually ever seen that before — part of the problem of using Photoshop since 2.5 is I'm often stuck doing things the "old" ways — I'll try it out. 

[Mac Mahon]

Maybe i don't need to save as .psd, but u was under the impression if i didn't save as a Photoshop file, i wouldn't be able to go back and tweak my layer adjustments in the future and would have to edit the edit or start from scratch.

Does Lightroom or Photoshop somehow save all the layers and adjustments even if you don't save the Photoshop file?

I do not have the experience of some others here, but AFAIK, if you think you may later want to re-edit your PS adjustments, you must have saved your PSD file.   LR doesn't save layers.

[JeanMichel]

But how do you get back to Lightroom? Maybe this is where my hangup is. I save as default, which i think is tif, but also as psd. Then i get two copies of the file but .tif and .psd in Lightroom. So clearly I'm doing something wrong.

Maybe i don't need to save as .psd, but u was under the impression if i didn't save as a Photoshop file, i wouldn't be able to go back and tweak my layer adjustments in the future and would have to edit the edit or start from scratch.

Does Lightroom or Photoshop somehow save all the layers and adjustments even if you don't save the Photoshop file?

Hi,

I do not know how experienced you are with LR, but you might find it worthwhile to view the extensive LR tutorials available from LULA.

Remember that the development  you do in LR is parametric. Nothing is changed to the original imported file; the actions you do are simply a set of instructions to be used to eventually either export or print an image.

If you develop a RAW file in LR  and then export it to a tiff or jpg or whatever, then the adjustments you made are cooked into the exported file. The original RAW file is untouched and you can revisit it anytime with all your LR adjustments in place.

If you develop  RAW file in LR, making whatever adjustments you care making, and then decide to send that file to PS for further processing then you have  choice: if you send (cmd E) the file choosing to include the LR adjustments, those adjustments will become cooked in the file saved from PS, either PSD, TIFF, JPG or such. Your original RAW file, with all your adjustments is untouched. The PSD or TIFF, etc file is saved with the LR adjustments cooked in and with PS layers if you choose to save with layers, or a flat fie.

At this stage, you would have two file in your Library; the Raw fie, and a PS saved TIFF, etc, file.

If you then want to refine some stuff in PS, you can open up the TIFF, with all its layers in PS and continue working.

If you make changes to the TIFF in LR and then resend it to PS using the "with LR adjustments option" then you lose all your layers in PS. if you then do as "Save As" you create a third file. You now have the RAW, Tiff with layers, and a new Tiff.

If you need to make a cmyk file version in PS, then no changes are possible to that file in LR as it is strictly an RGB machine.

My recommendation is to do all you can in LR, all the way to printing if you can. If you need to use PS for whatever reason, then finish up your LR work, then go to PS for further processing; then return to LR for soft-proofing and printing; there is no point of doing any further development in LR after doing the original ones and the PS work, other than tweaking the file for the correct output as you soft-proof.

[PDeXplore]

Maybe i wasn't fully clear on my original question, or intent, so I'll try to elaborate. I think i have my answer but I'm still somewhat confused.

Here's my typical scenario.

Global adjustments in LR>open in PS>spot healing, luminosity masks, orton effect, etc...>back to LR for file storage, export, possibly vignette, etc.

If I'm happy with my final results, great. I'm done. Sometimes i want to tweak my PS local adjustments. That's easy. Open my .psd from LR into PS, all my layers open, make my adjustments, that automatically syncs and replaces the old version in LR, and I'm now good to go, no extra fuss.

But what if i want to make some basic exposure or color adjustments because i decide i don't like my final edit? I don't want to do that in LR on my final file because it's no longer a RAW file. If i edit the original raw file in LR, i would have to separately open up the psd/tiff file from previously, copy the layers, reapply to the now re-edited RAW, and go back to LR again. It's not a clean or simple solution.

What i am hearing from you guys though it's that maybe if i ORIGINALLY open as a smart object, that might solve my concerns? Then if i need to make any edits to the raw file afterwards, i can open in PS and work on the smart object? I also thought though that at a certain stage in the editing process you may need to rasterize the smart object?

This is confusing 

[Jeffrey Saldinger]

In my Lr to Ps workflow, I do whatever I want to do in Lr (sometimes more, sometimes less), then go to Ps and do whatever I want to do there, then save it as a PSD.  This much will be familiar to everyone.

If I later see there are things I want to do to the PSD, I either open it again and do them, or, not infrequently these days, open it in Ps (not having done any more on it in Lr), make a duplicate of the file, then do the new work on the duplicate, and save it as a second PSD.  My file naming convention for PSDs always names the 1st file “[original filename]_1st.PSD”, and when I do the save as for the duplicate PSD I name it “[original filename]_2nd.PSD”. 

In this workflow, there are two other things I might do to alter a PSD.
One is to go back to Lr, do something on a virtual copy of the RAW file I originally sent to Ps, open the virtual copy in Ps, drag and drop this virtual copy onto the original (i.e. “1st” PSD), and do whatever I need to with masks, blend modes, clipped adjustment layers, or whatever.  Then I close the virtual copy without saving it as a PSD.  The other is to open the reworked virtual copy in Ps, save it as a PSD (the “2nd”), then work on it, which might include dragging one or more layers or channels from the 1st.

I have done this sort of PSD/virtual copy iteration for several original RAW files when their PSDs became too unwieldy (i.e.too many layers to keep comfortable track of, or file size too big for Lr) or when I wanted to have different files for different ways of developing an image.  Using Lr snapshots, Ps layer comps and notes, and layer naming, I can keep track of all the steps I have gone through.  I have some RAW files that have become 10 or more PSDs (some involving different crops).

[leuallen]

My recommendation is to do all you can in LR, all the way to printing if you can. If you need to use PS for whatever reason, then finish up your LR work, then go to PS for further processing; then return to LR for soft-proofing and printing; there is no point of doing any further development in LR after doing the original ones and the PS work, other than tweaking the file for the correct output as you soft-proof.

I leave things like graduated filers, vignettes, final exposure adjustments, shadow settings, cropping etc to the returned tiff file. I often want to make adjustments a couple of days after the initial development when my eye is more critical. I make as many adjustments as possible in LR before going to PS. Most of the time the PS work is simple like removing halos and content aware removal which is too complex for LR.