Is anyone here SUPER savvy at the inner workings of CS5?? What the hell is going on??

[e.rose]

This has been making me insane for 2 days now.

Hopefully I can explain this clearly, but I'm starting to lose track of everything I've been trying.

If all else fails, I'll try to do it again and give a step by step of exactly what I'm doing and maybe someone can help me.

I have an image that I started out with in Lightroom. After doing some editing in Lightroom, I exported to Photoshop.

After doing some Calvin Hollywood trick to the image, I was satisfied with how it looked and then exported the image... only to find out it looked like a ROYAL mess in the JPEG.

It was less contrasty, much more grainy, the blacks were faded... it was just horrible all around.

At first I thought that maybe I had pushed the file information too far with my editing, so I went BACK to Lightroom... started all over again... did a less extreme edit and exported to Photoshop *again*.

Same crap happened.

So ignoring the fact that this file is no longer "retouched" because I got so frustrated with having to do it over and over and over again to get the same crappy results... and forget about how sh*tty the lighitng is (I'm terribly aware), here is what it looks like:

This is a screen shot of the image in Photoshop... it's still a .psd at this point:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8...5df1eae1_z.jpg

Then after I saved that .psd and reimported into Lightroom, this is what the Lightroom preview looked like:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8090/8...55b1db54_z.jpg

Then when I tried exporting the .psd as a JPEG through Lightroom, this was the result:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8097/8...689da780_z.jpg

And just to see if maybe Lightroom was my issue, I went back into Photoshop... opened the .psd file, and exported from *there* as a JPEG and *this* was the result:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8386/8...44ee0613_z.jpg

It's the same exact thing as what Lightroom was exporting... NEITHER of which are what the .psd looks like open in Photoshop.

I have been going crazy trying to figure this out.

I checked my color space settings in Photoshop and they're all set to sRGB... unless there is some unknown colorspace setting hiding somewhere unknown to me...

After tinkering a bit, I realized that it was happening after flattening the image (which would make sense as to why the JPEGs look like that, but not the .psd, since Photoshop flattens the image before exporting the JPEG)... And THEN I realized... that if I flattened the image *without* the Calvin Hollywood effect, everything looked fine.

Then just to see what would happen, I deleted the layers for the Calvin Hollywood effect and simply merged the layers up into a new layer. After I did that, I did a high pass filter with the radius set to 5... and then set that layer to "Overlay".

When I then flattened the .psd file, after adding the high pass filter, set to overlay, the madness happened *again*.

So it has *something* to do with overlay mode.

And not only that, but I thought I'd try to get around it by doing what I needed to do, flattening the image, and then fixing the contrast issue with Levels, but when I flattened the image *again*, it went from looking fine to crappy again.

So it has to do with layers set to "Overlay" as well as any layers that were the result of a layer being set to "Overlay".

I hope this is making sense.

It's making me nuts.

What in the royal hell is going on?! I don't think I've ever noticed Overlay layers giving me an issue before, and now suddenly it's screwing everything up!

I don't know what else to try, short of reinstalling Photoshop... could that really even be the issue?

 

[Judobreaker]

I doubt reinstalling would solve anything...
I'm not sure what the actual cause of the problem is here, so far I can't seem to recreate anything of the like (I have CS3 here at work, could try CS6 at home later).

I can think of a temporary workaround for you though...
Create a new layer on top of all the others and go to edit>apply image...
That would give you a flattened version of your current working file in the top layer, there's a good chance this will give you the correct result.

 

[EIngerson]

Is it only this photo?

 

[The_Traveler]

I'm not sure what the actual cause of the problem is here, so far I can't seem to recreate anything of the like (I have CS3 here at work, could try CS6 at home later).

Create a new layer on top of all the others and go to edit>apply image...
That would give you a flattened version of your current working file in the top layer, there's a good chance this will give you the correct result.

I agree with Judobreaker to use that workaround.
There was another post about this very thing recently. My guess is that there is a bug in LR in how it handles odd between layer effects.
Although I've never had that kind of problem myself, I typically sum up all the layers into a merged top layer so I can see the entire change as compared to the original and that may have spared me the problem occurring.

 

[runnah]

What are you doing in lightroom that you can't do via the raw editor in PS?
All that back and forth is going to cause some issues.

 

[Judobreaker]

Can't be a Lightroom-only problem as she had the exact same results in Photoshop.

e.rose, would you mind posting the .psd file so I can have a look at it?
I'm kind of intrigued.

 

[runnah]

Can't be a Lightroom-only problem as she had the exact same results in Photoshop.

e.rose, would you mind posting the .psd file so I can have a look at it?
I'm kind of intrigued.

I think its the going between the two that is causing the issue. PSDs have a boatlod more info than a jpeg and if you keep going back and forth between the two loss is expected.

 

[Judobreaker]

Well she said she exported a jpg from the psd straight out of Photoshop, seems unlikely to me that Lightroom could cause problems there.
If the original file is opened in Photoshop and seems to be correct I can't imagine the export having much to do with Lightroom.

I could be wrong though...

 

[runnah]

Well she said she exported a jpg from the psd straight out of Photoshop, seems unlikely to me that Lightroom could cause problems there.
If the original file is opened in Photoshop and seems to be correct I can't imagine the export having much to do with Lightroom.

I could be wrong though...

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

 

[o hey tyler]

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

Because LR is better with handling multiple images.

 

[runnah]

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

Because LR is better with handling multiple images.

Subjective!

 

[KmH]

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

Because LR is better with handling multiple images.

Oh? Would you please elaborate on that? Are you referring to Lightroom's Develop module?

Perhaps the issue is Lightroom 4 and CS 5 use different Process Versions of ACR, though LR 4 can be configured to use the same PV that CS 5 uses.
LR 4 - PV 2012 - ACR 7
CS 5 - PV 2010 - ACR 6

It was less contrasty, much more grainy, the blacks were faded

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...allery/319836-lightroom-process-versions.html

 

[runnah]

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

Because LR is better with handling multiple images.

Oh? Would you please elaborate on that? Are you referring to Lightroom's Develop module?

In my vast LR experience (30 mins, just now), I do say I like having the library open on my second monitor.

 

[e.rose]

I doubt reinstalling would solve anything...
I'm not sure what the actual cause of the problem is here, so far I can't seem to recreate anything of the like (I have CS3 here at work, could try CS6 at home later).

I can think of a temporary workaround for you though...
Create a new layer on top of all the others and go to edit>apply image...
That would give you a flattened version of your current working file in the top layer, there's a good chance this will give you the correct result.

Create a new *blank* layer, or merge up to create a new layer? Cause merging up results in the same.........

Can't be a Lightroom-only problem as she had the exact same results in Photoshop.

e.rose, would you mind posting the .psd file so I can have a look at it?
I'm kind of intrigued.

You're right... it has nothing to do with Lightroom. The problem occurs after I edit in Photoshop.

How do I upload a .psd?

What are you doing in lightroom that you can't do via the raw editor in PS?
All that back and forth is going to cause some issues.

It's not that. I start *all* my editing in LR, and I've never had an issue. There isn't any back and forth at that point. Only forth... I imported the RAW files into Lightroom... did some edits... exported to photoshop... edited file... problem occurred after flattening, merging, saving as JPEG...

I guess my question is why even use LR? Import the raw directly into PS and use that RAW editor.

Because LR is better with handling multiple images.

Yeah... it's easier for me to deal with multiple images... plus I just *like* Lightroom. HAHA.

--

I got so frustrated last night that I reinstalled... it's still happening, but it's not *as* bad. As of right now I'm able to get to where I want to be using Levels and Curves after merging up and and that seems to be working alright. I wasn't able to do even that though, before reinstalling.

But of course, now that I've said that, I'll finish editing the set and I'll go to upload them for the client and they'll STILL look like asshat, because that's how my LUCK ROLLS. :lmao:

 

[bhop]

Seems like it could be a color setting (menu) to me.. or maybe one is cmyk and being converted to rgb or vice versa?