Bridge vs. Lightroom

[jsch]

Hi,

has anyone information whether this will be so in the future: Lightroom can only show Photoshop files if the layers are saved in the "old fashioned" (compatibility maximised) way. That makes the files huge. And it prevented me from using Lightroom as my standard tool. Is there a technical reason for this?

Also RAW files opened as smart objects in Photoshop become quite huge. I know, that I can do a lot more in the RAW file today (but no lens and perspective correction, especially not with shift lenses). But the last things always need a Photoshop treatment with some layers.

Any info or link with info about whether Lightroom can work with Photoshop files WITHOUT compatibility maximised. That would be a big help for me.

Thank you,
Johannes

[jjj]

Compatability maximised was something I always used to turn off as it makes files bigger, but with the enormous and cheap HDs available today, that is not a problem anymore.
For PSDs to be seen and displayed properly in many programmes, you need to enable maximise compatibility. So that's the simplified technical reason. I use LR with PSD files all the time. The problem I have is that it does not import all of my PSD files - it ignores duotoned images for instance. Grrrr!
Do you want to do LR adjustments on your PSD files?

You can do lens correction with RAW files in DXO

[Schewe]

I have a huge archive with files without compatibility maximised, which I often need. Consequently I would have to change all these files before I could make the transition to LR. And I would have to triple the amount of HD space.

Well, if you want to use Lightroom that's exactly what you're gonna have to do...PSD is no longer the "native file format of Photoshop", it's the native file format of the Creative Suite, so unless you do so with the composite embedded, other 3rd parties can't read the PSDs (and Lightroom is treating PSDs as a 3rd party would).

You would have been better off switching to TIFF years ago...publicly documented and fully supported in Lightroom...as fas as PSDs without the max compatibility? Cold day in hell comes to mind.

[gvaughn]

Jeff:  Even if we don't mind the larger file sizes of PSD files with compatibility maximized, are we still better off using (layered) TIFs?

[Schewe]

Jeff:  Even if we don't mind the larger file sizes of PSD files with compatibility maximized, are we still better off using (layered) TIFs?

Yes...TIFF is a publicly documented file format, PSD is not. TIFF can save EVERYTHING a PSD can save...the only thing is that layered PSDs fill flow into InDesign a bit better than TIFF because InDesign can use PSDs transparency...if that doesn't matter to you, PSD offers ZERO over TIFF.

Photoshop's ONLY real proprietary file format these days is PSB (the large format format). That and TIFF are the two rendered file formats I would store in.

[gvaughn]

Thanks, Jeff. Good stuff to know.

[neil snape]

Funny, I was just reading the manual for LR yesterday and I noticed it said Maximum compatibility has to be checked for read reasons. I was surprised but since I've always had it checked anyway, I never had a problem.

[JeffKohn]

The problem with TIFF ZIP compression is that it makes opening and saving files even slower than "compatible" PSD's. Also, I don't think TIFF compression accomplishes anything on 16-bit files (they end up being about the same size as uncompressed if I recall).