Suggestions on file formats for back and forth between LR & PS?

[crimbfighter]

So I've been doing a lot more lately than I used to in PS for things like curves adjustments, local adjustments, blending, etc. When I open the images from LR to PS it converts to .tiff, which creates massive image files (140-190mb each) which is just needlessly eating up hard drive space. When I have 70+ images from a shoot and 30 to 40 of them I bring into PS for adjustments, you can do the math on how much space that eats up over time.

I honestly haven't taken a dive into the menus in LR too much yet for options, but is there a better way to set this up so I'm not creating these huge .tiff files for every image I bring into PS from LR?

I also currently do not convert to .dng upon import so I'm working with the .NEF files when editing.

If you wish you edit your images in PS after you do your thing in LR, you can export the images as a JPEG If you wish to edit in PS all you need to do is export them to another directory and then open them in PS, and the pictures will not be so big, the reason they are big in TIF format, that is because TIF is 32 Bit VS JPEG is 16 bit.

No. JPEG is not 16 bit. JPEG is defined as three channels of 8 bit each. Editing a JPEG is a bad idea. The point of moving a TIFF or PSD from LR to PS is to retain full information for editing before creating an archive JPEG.

Joe

Thanks for the thought donny, but I agree with Joe. A jpeg looses way too much data to make it useful for future editing once the transformation is made.

Cannot LR send the file to PS without saving to disc first?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. I would imagine that since LR is non-destructive, it has to create a new file in order to be able to package up the original image with all the edits to sent it to any outside program and I doubt NEF or RAW files could be altered to contain the edits in a way where another program could usefully extract them. So in the end, converting the files to a universal format is probably a must for any back and forth with another program.

 

[dennybeall]

If you have gone through your photos and trashed the ones not worth keeping then the ones that are left deserve to be stored in a lossless format so you have the ability to do anything you want with them later. I personally save originals in tiff with layers intact.
Storage is just too cheap to not retain all there is to retain.

 

[john.margetts]

Cannot LR send the file to PS without saving to disc first?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. I would imagine that since LR is non-destructive, it has to create a new file in order to be able to package up the original image with all the edits to sent it to any outside program and I doubt NEF or RAW files could be altered to contain the edits in a way where another program could usefully extract them. So in the end, converting the files to a universal format is probably a must for any back and forth with another program.

it is certainly possible. I am a Linux user and use UFRaw as a RAW converter and that will send the converted RAW file to Gimp without saving anything to disc. I then get the option in Gimp to save the file for the first time in any format I want.

 

[donny1963]

So I've been doing a lot more lately than I used to in PS for things like curves adjustments, local adjustments, blending, etc. When I open the images from LR to PS it converts to .tiff, which creates massive image files (140-190mb each) which is just needlessly eating up hard drive space. When I have 70+ images from a shoot and 30 to 40 of them I bring into PS for adjustments, you can do the math on how much space that eats up over time.

I honestly haven't taken a dive into the menus in LR too much yet for options, but is there a better way to set this up so I'm not creating these huge .tiff files for every image I bring into PS from LR?

I also currently do not convert to .dng upon import so I'm working with the .NEF files when editing.

If you wish you edit your images in PS after you do your thing in LR, you can export the images as a JPEG If you wish to edit in PS all you need to do is export them to another directory and then open them in PS, and the pictures will not be so big, the reason they are big in TIF format, that is because TIF is 32 Bit VS JPEG is 16 bit.

No. JPEG is not 16 bit. JPEG is defined as three channels of 8 bit each. Editing a JPEG is a bad idea. The point of moving a TIFF or PSD from LR to PS is to retain full information for editing before creating an archive JPEG.

Joe

Thanks for the thought donny, but I agree with Joe. A jpeg looses way too much data to make it useful for future editing once the transformation is made.

Cannot LR send the file to PS without saving to disc first?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. I would imagine that since LR is non-destructive, it has to create a new file in order to be able to package up the original image with all the edits to sent it to any outside program and I doubt NEF or RAW files could be altered to contain the edits in a way where another program could usefully extract them. So in the end, converting the files to a universal format is probably a must for any back and forth with another program.

I never said to do post with Jpeg's RAw gives you more room for adjustments, that is what i was trying to get accross..

 

[greatchimney]

They have a good tut here if you want to follow it.

How to jump from Lightroom to Photoshop (and back again) - Laughing Lion Design - Learn Photoshop & Lightroom

 

[Scatterbrained]

So I've been doing a lot more lately than I used to in PS for things like curves adjustments, local adjustments, blending, etc. When I open the images from LR to PS it converts to .tiff, which creates massive image files (140-190mb each) which is just needlessly eating up hard drive space. When I have 70+ images from a shoot and 30 to 40 of them I bring into PS for adjustments, you can do the math on how much space that eats up over time.

I honestly haven't taken a dive into the menus in LR too much yet for options, but is there a better way to set this up so I'm not creating these huge .tiff files for every image I bring into PS from LR?

I also currently do not convert to .dng upon import so I'm working with the .NEF files when editing.

If you wish you edit your images in PS after you do your thing in LR, you can export the images as a JPEG If you wish to edit in PS all you need to do is export them to another directory and then open them in PS, and the pictures will not be so big, the reason they are big in TIF format, that is because TIF is 32 Bit VS JPEG is 16 bit.

No. JPEG is not 16 bit. JPEG is defined as three channels of 8 bit each. Editing a JPEG is a bad idea. The point of moving a TIFF or PSD from LR to PS is to retain full information for editing before creating an archive JPEG.

Joe

Thanks for the thought donny, but I agree with Joe. A jpeg looses way too much data to make it useful for future editing once the transformation is made.

Cannot LR send the file to PS without saving to disc first?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. I would imagine that since LR is non-destructive, it has to create a new file in order to be able to package up the original image with all the edits to sent it to any outside program and I doubt NEF or RAW files could be altered to contain the edits in a way where another program could usefully extract them. So in the end, converting the files to a universal format is probably a must for any back and forth with another program.

I never said to do post with Jpeg's RAw gives you more room for adjustments, that is what i was trying to get accross..

Reading your post would imply that you are saying someone should export jpegs from Lr for editing in Ps. That's just not good advice. Also, TIFF files are only 16bit, unless you're dealing with HDR TIFF files which can be 32bit. Opening a jpeg in any sort of editing program and then saving it again will result in a loss of data, as the image data is re-compressed each time. Beyond that the data simply isn't there anymore to work with in Ps, limiting you to smaller adjustments.


As for how I work my images, everything is saved to an external drive upon import. I have external RAID enclosures that are connected via e-SATA connectors to my tower. My Lr catalog doesn't retain the images, just the previews. When I send to Ps it is sent as a TIFF. When I save from Ps I save as a TIFF. My uncropped TIFF files from the A7RII run right around 102MB per images. A fair sized file for sure, but not too much to worry about really, given how inexpensive memory has become.