# "Edit in Photoshop" doesn't create IMG_xxxx-Edit



## FreddyPhotographer (Jul 15, 2016)

Since upgrading to Lightroom CC (and Photoshop CC), I've been having some serious workflow problems.

In the past, I would hit Command+e to edit images in Photoshop, they'd open, I'd run a series of actions and the last one is [Smart Sharpen; Save; Close].  When I ran that action, it would save the file with the original image name + "-Edit".tiff.  For some reason now, that doesn't happen.  I can't figure out why!

I've re-installed a few times, tried a bunch of searches, forums, etc. and I'm coming up with no results.

What I have to do is re-write the action each time I work in a different folder.  I use Save As and record that to save in the working folder, but it's a PITA.  Also, somehow, I keep losing the saved .tiff files!  If I use spotlight to search for them.. they're gone.  I save the file, close it, go back to lightroom and sometimes apply additional edits.  The next image I edit erases the last one even though it's saved with a _different file name. 
_
I try to get 100 images / night done and this is cutting me down into the 40s or 50s...  a lot of that time is spent wondering what the heck happened to the last image I edited!

The only way to work effectively is to get rid of the last two steps of my final action, then Save As and Close manually.  It's not a big deal, but when I have a target of 2 minutes / image, it really affects workflow!  

Does anyone have any ideas what the heck is going on?


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## DGStinner (Jul 15, 2016)

Have you checked the Edit Externally File Naming template?  Its the very bottom of Lightroom>Preferences>External Editing.


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## FreddyPhotographer (Jul 15, 2016)

DGStinner said:


> Have you checked the Edit Externally File Naming template?  Its the very bottom of Lightroom>Preferences>External Editing.


I have.. it's set to "custom"  and includes the -edit


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## clee01l (Jul 15, 2016)

When LRCC & PSCC are the same version, ACR is compatible.   That means that LR Passes the original RAW file AND the ACR adjustments.  The processing that takes place in PSCC is based upon that RAW file. When you hit "Save" (not "Save As") in PSCC, a TIFF or PSD file is created and cataloged in LR in the same folder as the RAW file.   If before you were using an older version of PS (maybe from CS6) the ACR component in LR was not compatible with the old version of ACR. So, a Tiff/PSD file with LR adjustments was created and passed to PS instead.   
There is a way to reset the default Edit In choice from an incompatible ACR to a Compatible ACR where LR will pause for you to make the choice.  I don't remember how to do that but I think you need to  clear the current defaults so that LRCC interacts with PSCC  and passes your RAW file with ACR Adjustments.


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## FreddyPhotographer (Jul 15, 2016)

clee01l said:


> When LRCC & PSCC are the same version, ACR is compatible.   That means that LR Passes the original RAW file AND the ACR adjustments.  The processing that takes place in PSCC is based upon that RAW file. When you hit "Save" (not "Save As") in PSCC, a TIFF or PSD file is created and cataloged in LR in the same folder as the RAW file.   If before you were using an older version of PS (maybe from CS6) the ACR component in LR was not compatible with the old version of ACR. So, a Tiff/PSD file with LR adjustments was created and passed to PS instead.
> There is a way to reset the default Edit In choice from an incompatible ACR to a Compatible ACR where LR will pause for you to make the choice.  I don't remember how to do that but I think you need to  clear the current defaults so that LRCC interacts with PSCC  and passes your RAW file with ACR Adjustments.




I've looked into this and ACR is the same for both LR and PS.   I reset the warning dialogues under Preferences-General to make sure I wasn't ignoring a warning message, but nothing comes up, so I would assume the versions of ACR are the same.  Also, the CC app tells me ACR is up to date and both LR and PS are the recent updates.  Hopefully I'm missing an ACR update or something and I'll find out tomorrow that there's a mess-up somewhere.  This has been going on for a couple of weeks though (just since the last update).

Unfortunately, it's not creating the .tif or .psd file in the same folder as the RAW file.  When it does do that (if I remove Save As in the action and use Save instead), it seems to save over the last PS edited image.  I know it sounds nuts that I think it's doing that, but I can't figure out what else could be happening.  When I look in the original folder, the last edited PS image is there (IMG_xxxx.tif) but the second last one is gone - it's not in the trash and not in the computer's index at all.


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## Carocat (Jul 18, 2016)

I am having this same issue, I think. I open the image in Photoshop, edit it, save it the way I always have, but then when i go back to Lightroom, there is a blank square and the edited image is not there. they just show up as a grey square. Have you gotten anywhere with it?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 18, 2016)

Carocat said:


> I am having this same issue, I think. I open the image in Photoshop, edit it, save it the way I always have, but then when i go back to Lightroom, there is a blank square and the edited image is not there. they just show up as a grey square. Have you gotten anywhere with it?



And what is '_Save it the way I always have_'? Do you use 'Save', or 'Save as'? If you use 'Save as', what name do you use? We recently had a problem where somebody imported scans, but in the scan software he used a file name with a slash in it. Because slashes are separators in the path that Lightroom uses to locate the image, he saw the same thing: the image showed as a grey square, because Lightroom could not find it to create a thumbnail. If you give an image a name like 'XXX/YYY', then Lightroom will look for an image called 'YYY' in a folder called 'XXX'. Same thing if you use ':' in a name.


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## Carocat (Jul 18, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> And what is '_Save it the way I always have_'? Do you use 'Save', or 'Save as'? If you use 'Save as', what name do you use? We recently had a problem where somebody imported scans, but in the scan software he used a file name with a slash in it. Because slashes are separators in the path that Lightroom uses to locate the image, he saw the same thing: the image showed as a grey square, because Lightroom could not find it to create a thumbnail. If you give an image a name like 'XXX/YYY', then Lightroom will look for an image called 'YYY' in a folder called 'XXX'. Same thing if you use ':' in a name.



I "Save"d it. Not "Save As". Save usually just saves it back to lightroom. But it showed up as a grey square in lightroom and then I realized it was saving them as "filename-Edit" to the original folder on my external hard drive. This has also been happening since I upgraded.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 18, 2016)

Carocat said:


> I "Save"d it. Not "Save As". Save usually just saves it back to lightroom. But it showed up as a grey square in lightroom and then I realized it was saving them as "filename-Edit" to the original folder on my external hard drive. This has also been happening since I upgraded.



I don't understand. In your original image you say 'the edited image is not there'. Now you say it's in the original folder on your external hard drive, as 'filename-Edit'. That is where it should be, and what the name should be. So what is the problem? That you do not see a thumbnail?


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## Carocat (Jul 18, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> I don't understand. In your original image you say 'the edited image is not there'. Now you say it's in the original folder on your external hard drive, as 'filename-Edit'. That is where it should be, and what the name should be. So what is the problem? That you do not see a thumbnail?



It's never done that. It usually saves back to lightroom where I am able to continue editing. Not create a blank square and then have to go back to my folder and reopen it in lightroom again.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 18, 2016)

Carocat said:


> It's never done that. It usually saves back to lightroom where I am able to continue editing. Not create a blank square and then have to go back to my folder and reopen it in lightroom again.



Sorry, I still don't fully understand what you mean. Images are not "in" Lightroom, Lightroom is a database. It's like an address book. Your address book contains the addresses and other information of all your friends, but your friends are not physically inside that book. Images in Lightroom are like that. The images are in physically in folders on your hard disk (or an external hard disk) and Lightroom just saves the information about that image in its catalog. If you send an image from Lightroom to Photoshop, Photoshop will save the edited image in the same folder as the raw file. Lightroom will then show a new entry of that image in its catalog, just like you added a new friend to your address book.

Lightroom normally shows a thumbnail (preview) of that image. If it only shows a blank square, it may not be able to generate that preview. In that case, first check the following: In the Lightroom preferences, under External Editing, you can define how images that are sent to Photoshop are saved; as tiff or as psd. If you use psd, then go to Photoshop preferences, File Handling, and check that 'Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility is set to 'Always'. See if that solves the problem.

If the problem persists, or if I didn't understand what the problem is, then please post a screenshot of the Lightroom Library module (with that blank square) so we can see what it looks like. Make sure that the thumbnails show details like file names. You can set this in View - View Options. See my screenshot.


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## Gnits (Jul 18, 2016)

Is the version of the Raw converter  the same in Lr & Ps. Sometimes we will upgrade Ps and discover later there is also an option to update the version of Raw.  If they are different, I believe the file handling between Lr & Ps suffers.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 18, 2016)

Gnits said:


> Is the version of the Raw converter  the same in Lr & Ps. Sometimes we will upgrade Ps and discover later there is also an option to update the version of Raw.  If they are different, I believe the file handling between Lr & Ps suffers.



No, the file handling should not suffer. You will get a dialog asking you if you want Lightroom to render the image (so the latest version can be used) or 'Open Anyway' (in which case Photoshop uses its older version of Camera Raw), but neither choice should cause anything like blank squares.


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## Carocat (Jul 25, 2016)

I tried what you said and it did not work. I'll post screenshots with captions 

1. Image in Library Catalog before opening to edit in Photoshop. (LR 1.JPG)
2. After editing image in Photoshop and pressing "Save" in Photoshop, grey box appears by image in LR Library where a copy of the Photoshop edited image would normally show up. (LR 2 - After PS Save.jpg)
3. These are my Lightroom External Editing settings (LR 3 - LR External Editing.jpg)
4. Lightroom File Handling settings (LR 4 - LR File Handling.jpg)
5. Photoshop Export Settings (LR 5 - PS Export.jpg)
6. Photoshop File Handling settings (LR 6 - PS File Handling.jpg)
7. The edited image saves from photoshop into the original folder, which I understand is what it is supposed to do, however, it should also show up as a preview for me to continue editing in LR if I need to. Not being able to continue editing in LR creates an extra step and wastes time to have to go back and find them in my external HD and reopen them with Lightroom (LR 7 - File on external HD.jpg)

Is that more clear?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 25, 2016)

There is a small icon with an exclamation mark in the upper right corner of the image. That indicates that Lightroom can't find the original (in this case the edited) image, and that explains why it can't generate a preview. I also noticed that the name of the edited image is strange. It suddenly contains the path to the disk. That's almost certainly why Lightroom is confused, so now we have to find out why this happens. It's possible you have the same problem as some other people report from time to time; a problem where two folders exist with the same name, but one of them with capital letters and the other in lowercase. Lightroom is case-sensitive, so it does consider them as two folders. MacOS X is not case-sensitive, so it considers them one and the same folder.

Can you show screenshot 2 again, but this time including your left panel with the Folders visible?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 25, 2016)

Another possibility is that you included a slash in the name of the edited image. Slashes cannot be used in filenames, because they indicate a separator between folders. So if you name a file 'AAAA/BBBBB', then Lightroom will look for a file called 'BBBBB' inside a folder called 'AAAA'. Can you post a screenshot that shows what name you use for the external editor? Click on 'Custom Setting' of the template to show the name and then 'Edit', so it shows the name you're using. I don't think that is the problem (because your screenshot shows the name), but just to make sure.


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