Lightroom & Photshop

[3Dogs]

Having recently purchased Photoshop, I am looking for help on establishing the best workflow in incorporating it with Lightroom. Let's say I want to do most of my edits in Lightroom, but want to use Photoshop to remove an unwanted object. How should I go about doing this while maintaining my original RAW in Lightroom. ie- something along these lines:

- Open RAW in Lightroom.
- Make adjustments in Lightroom as necessary (exposure; brightness; contrast; detail etc etc)
- Possibly make a virtual copy before launching into photoshop?
- Possibly save as dng?
- Launch into Photoshop
- Remove unwanted object with layers
- Compress 'layers' into one level to return back to Lightroom
- Bring fixed image back into Lightroom?

I could be way off in what I describe above.. but that is the reason for the question. What is the best way to go back and forth, but primarily use Lightroom for most of my editing and leave Photoshop for the things that can't be done easily in Lightroom.

Thanks

 

[MLeeK]

DNG is an envelope file and can be used to keep your adjustments and editing layers intact and is wise in the event you need to come back to make changes. I keep my layers intact until I have completed the session and adjusted and sharpened for ordering. At that point I compress or save as jpeg and then the session gets archived.
I have to ask why you are returning the image to LR after PS. Is that just for cataloging purposes or ?

Just make sure your workflow is also color managed and you are converting (wherever appropriate for you) for printing and internet use. LR works in ProPhoto colorspace and PS will also work in ProPhoto as long as you do not convert. That's fine, but for printing and internet you need to convert that to sRGB somewhere along the line.

 

[KmH]

Photoshop Camera Raw and Lightroom both use essentially the same edit rendering engine ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) to do Raw image file edits.
Lightroom's main advantage is image database management, not editing.

CS 6 Camera Raw and Lightroom 4's Develop module both use ACR 7.
CS 5 Camera Raw and Lightroom 3's Develop module both use ACR 6.