File Saving Workflow

[gerardo2068]

I use Lightroom 3 to organized my library. I have thousand photos (family photos, travel photos, practice photo-shoot photos and more). Although I have many photos I'm a beginner, most photos are snapshots. My normal workflow to the ones I want to do some advance editing is I adjust the RAW file to my like as much as I can in Lightroom then I export it to photoshop for some more editing. I set it up so it would export as PSD file to photoshop. I know the advantage to saving it as PSD is that you can save the layers and be able to adjust the layers in a later time. The only draw back is that I look at the file and I see it takes so much space! I'm wondering if I know I don't want to do much editing later, can I set it up to edit as JPEG?

Can you share your workflow for this situation?

How much quality I would loose by exporting it as a JPEG? Would it matter?

Any other advice, tip, iso on this will be greatly appreciate! Thank you so much.

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[Peano]

If you save as a jpeg, it won't have layers, and it'll be compressed.

I save layered psd files. Hard disks aren't expensive, so size doesn't matter.

[rokvi]

(lossless) tiff and psd files are reversible jpeg are not. Get an external HD they are pretty cheap now days.

[gerardo2068]

That's what I figure and I have a lot of space still, I was just wondering. Learning by just doing research so I wanted to see other photographers feedback thank you for your input!

[jolieteddie]

I export to photoshop (elements, actually) as TIFF files (which I add to the Lightroom catalog) and then create jpegs if need to send along to someone else, but I don't usually add the jpegs to my Lightroom catalog.

I use the PSD format for projects that more than a single image, e.g. additional graphics, multiple graphic elements, diagrams, etc. that I create in PSE. That way I my photographs are either RAW (NEF) or TIFFs. If I see a PSD file I know that it is a different kind of project file.

[gerardo2068]

I see, that makes sense. Good workflow

I don't have projects as I do this for hobby.

For simple workflow I set up Lightroom to export as PSD and that's all I save coming back from PS.

But many times I feel like I'm finish with a photo

Would it be better to flatten the image and save it or I should always leave all the layers? Also would that affect the final file size at all?

Thanks

[Peano]

Would it be better to flatten the image and save it or I should always leave all the layers? Also would that affect the final file size at all?

That will reduce file size but you lose the option of subsequent editing of layers. For that reason, I don't flatten psd files.

[gerardo2068]

Thanks