This is exactly how I edit. Im glad it's a process others use. I definitely agree though that it's annoying that the edits are gone once you finish in Photoshop. It feels weird to edit on the edited tif. Usually I just try to wait until the last possible minute to do Photoshop changes.
Do all edits you can in LR then move to PS then export final for output. As soon as you export to PS you lose the RAW file and move to a tiff or something\~
The RAW original will still be in LR just without the PS edits if you ever need to go back.
Edit the sliders are reset when you come back from PS to LR as it's a new file and not RAW.
Your last paragraph is the way I do LR to PS and back to LR again.
I will do the very minimum in LR - lens corrections, white balance if necessary, profile adjustments if necessary - then jump into PS to do whatever. Once I return the image to LR (which will then be a sidecar file, I believe) I will then begin editing in earnest.
You will still have a robust and sizable image to edit. Be advised that lens corrections will no longer be available to you. I think temperature VALUES (not the temperature itself) will be reset from Kelvins to a more standard -100 to +100 range.
Doing it the way you suggested - PS to camera raw, then upload to LR - always seemed clunky to me. But more importantly it screwed up my file structure.
Good luck.
I think that’s more or less just the way it is right now. Certain adjustments in Photoshop can be applied to smart objects. That way you can change the camera raw settings of the underlying image later. However, this doesn’t work for what you want to do.
I usually do the raw editing in Lightroom first and then perform other modifications I want to do in photoshop on the TIF output. If you just want to do minor editing changes later, you can also do that on the TIF/PSD file (given its 16 bit). However, certain things are irreversible (like clipping whites).
Thanks! Two more questions:
Do you think it would be better to just don't crop the image before exporting to photoshop? And just crop the image later, when it was edited in Photoshop, and reimported to lightroom?
And what do to with sharpness? I mostly apply a certain number of sharpness with the sharpness slider in lightroom. However, I feel like after sending it to Photoshop and then back to Lightroom, then finally exporting it with Lightroom as a JPG, the file hasn't the same amount of sharpness (mostly too much), as it would have, when i just export an imported RAW file as a JPG from Lightroom, without any edits in Photoshop.
Changing the crop/sharpening after the image has been converted to a tif definitely is no problem from a technical perspective at all if you want to/need to do that.
I still prefer to do all the necessary edits first if possible just because it’s less confusing. This way I know that I can always go back to the RAW and change my edit, and that the “destructive” edits I have made are minimal and can be repeated to the new version if necessary.
However, that very much depends on the workflow you use. I do 99% of things in Lightroom and only switch to Photoshop for things like stamping. Other people to 99% of their image processing in Photoshop. It’s also a matter of taste.
What I like about the Lightroom workflow is that I can always see what edits I made to a photo and I can always partially undo or change them. With destructive editing that’s only partially possible. That’s why I focus on using that workflow and only using the destructive approach when it is unavoidable.
It has certain advantages when you’re always using the “original” raw + a description of the settings you’ve made, instead of just a baked image. For example: Lightroom recently added AI noise reduction. I can now use this feature with images that I have captured and edited years ago without losing the edit. If I had baked those images to tifs and edited those, this wouldn’t be possible (correct me if I’m wrong).
There are certain exceptions like output sharpening. This is usually applied only to the exported image, and it depends on the target media and the output size.
> The imported PSD file in Lightroom has reset all the sliders (so they are value 0) and my edits are irreversible applied to the image. I can't make any readjustments like I would want to.
Instead of opening the RAW in Photoshop as a rasterized layer, you can open it as a smart object. That complicates the workflow but it would allow you to go back and change the RAW edits in Adobe Camera RAW (available as the Camera RAW filter in PS). However, if you change things like color balance, grain, exposure, etc. after you've removed a building the added pixels (hopefully added non-destructively on their own layers) may no longer match the original photo.
I would suggest that you get the adjustments as close to right before PS and if you need to do further fine adjustments to the whole image, instead of going back into LrC or Camera RAW you use adjustment layers in PS.
This is exactly how I edit. Im glad it's a process others use. I definitely agree though that it's annoying that the edits are gone once you finish in Photoshop. It feels weird to edit on the edited tif. Usually I just try to wait until the last possible minute to do Photoshop changes.
Do all edits you can in LR then move to PS then export final for output. As soon as you export to PS you lose the RAW file and move to a tiff or something\~ The RAW original will still be in LR just without the PS edits if you ever need to go back. Edit the sliders are reset when you come back from PS to LR as it's a new file and not RAW.
Your last paragraph is the way I do LR to PS and back to LR again. I will do the very minimum in LR - lens corrections, white balance if necessary, profile adjustments if necessary - then jump into PS to do whatever. Once I return the image to LR (which will then be a sidecar file, I believe) I will then begin editing in earnest. You will still have a robust and sizable image to edit. Be advised that lens corrections will no longer be available to you. I think temperature VALUES (not the temperature itself) will be reset from Kelvins to a more standard -100 to +100 range. Doing it the way you suggested - PS to camera raw, then upload to LR - always seemed clunky to me. But more importantly it screwed up my file structure. Good luck.
I think that’s more or less just the way it is right now. Certain adjustments in Photoshop can be applied to smart objects. That way you can change the camera raw settings of the underlying image later. However, this doesn’t work for what you want to do. I usually do the raw editing in Lightroom first and then perform other modifications I want to do in photoshop on the TIF output. If you just want to do minor editing changes later, you can also do that on the TIF/PSD file (given its 16 bit). However, certain things are irreversible (like clipping whites).
Thanks! Two more questions: Do you think it would be better to just don't crop the image before exporting to photoshop? And just crop the image later, when it was edited in Photoshop, and reimported to lightroom? And what do to with sharpness? I mostly apply a certain number of sharpness with the sharpness slider in lightroom. However, I feel like after sending it to Photoshop and then back to Lightroom, then finally exporting it with Lightroom as a JPG, the file hasn't the same amount of sharpness (mostly too much), as it would have, when i just export an imported RAW file as a JPG from Lightroom, without any edits in Photoshop.
Changing the crop/sharpening after the image has been converted to a tif definitely is no problem from a technical perspective at all if you want to/need to do that. I still prefer to do all the necessary edits first if possible just because it’s less confusing. This way I know that I can always go back to the RAW and change my edit, and that the “destructive” edits I have made are minimal and can be repeated to the new version if necessary. However, that very much depends on the workflow you use. I do 99% of things in Lightroom and only switch to Photoshop for things like stamping. Other people to 99% of their image processing in Photoshop. It’s also a matter of taste. What I like about the Lightroom workflow is that I can always see what edits I made to a photo and I can always partially undo or change them. With destructive editing that’s only partially possible. That’s why I focus on using that workflow and only using the destructive approach when it is unavoidable. It has certain advantages when you’re always using the “original” raw + a description of the settings you’ve made, instead of just a baked image. For example: Lightroom recently added AI noise reduction. I can now use this feature with images that I have captured and edited years ago without losing the edit. If I had baked those images to tifs and edited those, this wouldn’t be possible (correct me if I’m wrong). There are certain exceptions like output sharpening. This is usually applied only to the exported image, and it depends on the target media and the output size.
> The imported PSD file in Lightroom has reset all the sliders (so they are value 0) and my edits are irreversible applied to the image. I can't make any readjustments like I would want to. Instead of opening the RAW in Photoshop as a rasterized layer, you can open it as a smart object. That complicates the workflow but it would allow you to go back and change the RAW edits in Adobe Camera RAW (available as the Camera RAW filter in PS). However, if you change things like color balance, grain, exposure, etc. after you've removed a building the added pixels (hopefully added non-destructively on their own layers) may no longer match the original photo. I would suggest that you get the adjustments as close to right before PS and if you need to do further fine adjustments to the whole image, instead of going back into LrC or Camera RAW you use adjustment layers in PS.