# Preserving Lightroom adjustments after Photoshop editing



## johnfontana400 (Feb 22, 2020)

I have subscription based Lightroom Classic. Take the scenario where I have imported an image and made adjustments including the use of graduated and radial filters. If I open this image in Photoshop using include Lightroom adjustments, and then edit this image in Photoshop for say spot healing, I would like to save this image back in Lightroom with the original graduated and radial filters still available for further editing. It seems, however, that the Lightroom adjustments are lost in the journey from Lightroom  to Photoshop, and back to Lightroom. Is there a way of preserving the Lightroom adjustments?
(I use spot healing in Photoshop since in Lightroom, spot healing becomes slower and slower if there is a lot of spot healing to do, as on say old scanned negatives)


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 22, 2020)

For further information, I am using Save after Photoshop editing and not Save As. Back in Lightroom, History no longer shows the previous Lightroom adjustments, and selecting a graduated or radial filter does not reveal the ‘buttons’ on the image to re-select the applied filter


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## clee01l (Feb 22, 2020)

johnfontana400 said:


> For further information, I am using Save after Photoshop editing and not Save As. Back in Lightroom, History no longer shows the previous Lightroom adjustments, and selecting a graduated or radial filter does not reveal the ‘buttons’ on the image to re-select the applied filter



The file that comes back for PhotoShop is a derivative of your original. It has all of the LR adjustments “baked in” as well as the edits for Photoshop. Usually you don need further adjustments in Lightroom but you can use the develop module on this image file like you can any other image imported into Lightroom


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 22, 2020)

Thanks for the reply.
I appreciate I can use the Develop module on the file saved from Photoshop. Do you mean to add new adjustments? I want to access the adjustments made on the file prior to transfer to Photoshop. Does ‘baked in’ mean that these adjustments are no longer available for editing.


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## Califdan (Feb 23, 2020)

LR is a non destructive editor where all edits are in a list that is applied to the original photo each time the photo is displayed (or re-rendered, leaving the original image on disk untouched).  PS is a destructive editor (or "pixel pusher") type tool that actually changes the pixel values in the image.  These are fundamentally different approaches.    It is also why, when in PS, you have to do a SAVE or SAVE AS to retain any edits you made that PS session and then when you later re-open the edited version the history panel is empty.  In other words, when you do the SAVE or SAVE AS, PS revises the actual pixel values in the image and saves the image with the new pixel values.  That's what Clee means by "Baked in".  So, when the image shows up, back in LR it like you imported a brand new image with different pixel values.  LR has no idea what you may have done to the image in PS, so showing the slider positions of the image sent to PS would be totally misleading.    Example:

LR = Increase Exposure by 2 stops
LR - Send to PS with LR edits
PS - Deccrease Exposure by 3 stops
PS - Save/exit (send image back to LR)
What would you like to see in LR on the exposure slider?   Showing +2 (what you sent to LR) is wrong as the image is now -1 compared to what you sent to PS and 0 related to the actual pixels in the new image file.  Showing -1 is not possible as LR doesn't know what you did in PS and is wrong as the actual image returned from PS has so far had no exposure adjustments done on it.  I think what you really want is a non desctructive version of PS, or put another way, all the features of PS inside of LR.


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 23, 2020)

Thank you for the further explanation. I now realise that I cannot achieve what I want until there is a non-destructive version of Photoshop! I only use Photoshop for a small number of edits which cannot be achieved easily in Lightroom. I now see that these will have to be done first and then saved to Lightroom, and then edits in Lightroom for the tonal values in the image, cropping, toning etc second, so that I can preserve these for later edit if required.
 I had wondered I’d there was a way to get what I wanted by exporting from Lightroom as a smart object, but this it seems will not work either.
Thank you for the input. Much appreciated.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 23, 2020)

Yes, there is. Kind of. If you send the file to Photoshop as a smart object, then you can still change the Lightroom edits, but in a special way. You cannot access them from Lightroom, but if you send the file to Photoshop again (and choose ‘edit original’), then you can change the edits by double ckicking the smart object layer. Camera Raw will come up which is the same as the Lightroom develop module.

How useful this is depends on the kind of edits you want to do in Photoshop. Not all types of edits can be done on a smart object without rasterizing the object (and then you will lose the edits again).


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 23, 2020)

johnfontana400 said:


> I now see that these will have to be done first and then saved to Lightroom, and then edits in Lightroom for the tonal values in the image, cropping, toning etc second, so that I can preserve these for later edit if required.


FWIW, I'd do these the other way round if you're starting with a raw file. Lightroom first and then Photoshop as a final step. The reason being, the raw file has a lot more data for Lightroom to work with, so you'll get a better result editing the raw file than the PS'd TIFF/PSD.


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 23, 2020)

This is a good point that hadn’t occurred to me. Till now, my over-riding wish has been to preserve my image quality and the capacity to non-destructively edit and re-edit that image, so that my best images are available for re-tweaking, if my tastes change. However, being objective, it is probably rare that that happens. I am more likely to move on to new projects and images, leaving the older ones in their ‘finished’ state. I guess I have to decide on my modus operandi - Photoshop or Lightroom first.
This, for me, has been an instructive thread. Thank you.


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## dmward (Feb 24, 2020)

One option that you could experiment with is to do your preliminary edits in LR, then import into photoshop without applying LR edits. Do your spot removal etc. on the PSD and return it to LR, then apply the LR edits to the returned file using the LR copy or apply previous options for transferring LR adjustments from one image to the next.


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 24, 2020)

Thanks, dmward
How would I apply the LR edits to the returned file using the LR copy? could you explain the process?


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## clee01l (Feb 24, 2020)

I find that about 95% or more of my images imported into Lightroom are finished in Lightroom and only a very few that need Photoshop processes that are not available in Lightroom are ever sent to Photoshop.


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 24, 2020)

It's ok, dmward. I worked out how to copy and paste settings, thanks


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## johnfontana400 (Feb 24, 2020)

Cleo01l, it's the same for me, BUT I sometimes scan in film negatives that, even with meticulous care in development, need spotting. In Lightroom, if there are a number of spots to be dealt with, LR just gets slower and slower to the point of unuseable.


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## mcasan (Feb 24, 2020)

clee01l said:


> I find that about 95% or more of my images imported into Lightroom are finished in Lightroom and only a very few that need Photoshop processes that are not available in Lightroom are ever sent to Photoshop.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



Specially now that we can have Profiles that have all sorts of capabilities such as LUTs.     A good combo of a Profile and a Preset can definitely save lots of time and reduce the need to head elsewhere for editing.


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 24, 2020)

johnfontana400 said:


> Cleo01l, it's the same for me, BUT I sometimes scan in film negatives that, even with meticulous care in development, need spotting. In Lightroom, if there are a number of spots to be dealt with, LR just gets slower and slower to the point of unuseable.


Scans are the general exception, because they're generally not raw files - and if they're not raw files, then you can edit those originals at any time in PS and then edit in LR without losing anything.


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## Conrad Chavez (Feb 24, 2020)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Yes, there is. Kind of. If you send the file to Photoshop as a smart object, then you can still change the Lightroom edits, but in a special way. You cannot access them from Lightroom, but if you send the file to Photoshop again (and choose ‘edit original’), then you can change the edits by double ckicking the smart object layer. Camera Raw will come up which is the same as the Lightroom develop module.
> 
> How useful this is depends on the kind of edits you want to do in Photoshop. Not all types of edits can be done on a smart object without rasterizing the object (and then you will lose the edits again).



That’s the basis for the method I use, for both raw files and film scans. But it’s limited because it’s still one way: Any changes made to the Smart Object in Photoshop stay in Photoshop, because they aren’t sent back to Lightroom Classic. So the Lightroom Classic original and the embedded Smart Object in Photoshop can get out of sync.

To provide a way to get any ACR corrections back to Lightroom Classic, I Option-drag an image from Lightroom Classic into a Photoshop document window, to Place it as a Linked Smart Object. This means Photoshop is now looking back at the same original file referenced by Lightroom Classic, not embedding a copy. Linking instead of embedding also makes the Photoshop document smaller, but the real advantage is that now the metadata can be sent back and forth between Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.

For this to work, the real first step is to use the Save Metadata to File command in Lightroom Classic to export the metadata to an XMP file. That way, when Photoshop places the image, it reads in the Lightroom Classic adjustments. If you decide to edit the linked Smart Object by double-clicking it in Photoshop, when you’re done Adobe Camera Raw will write out the changes to the XMP file and return to the Photoshop document. Then back in Lightroom Classic you can make those ACR edits show up by manually choosing the Read Metadata from File command. Using this method, edits can flow both ways. Any pixel-based edits in Photoshop, including spotting and Content-Aware-Fill, I do on layers in front of the linked Smart Object from Lightroom.

This is not a perfect solution. For one thing, it’s definitely an advanced technique. It involves a lot of discipline, manual steps, and states to keep track of.  It requires being very comfortable with Photoshop Smart Objects, Adobe Camera Raw, the Lightroom Classic history panel, the Photoshop Properties panel, and how Lightroom Classic and ACR exchange metadata with other applications. That’s why I didn’t write out the exact steps, it’s very long. Also, Lightroom Classic can end up thinking there are metadata conflicts and this can cause a History panel/Develop preview glitch (resolvable by re-selecting the top History step).

I would love for Adobe to automate all that, but even that wouldn’t fix the biggest remaining  problem which was already discussed: If you make a change to the Lightroom Classic original (such as a contrast or color change) and send those changes to the Photoshop version to update it, the pixel edits you made in Photoshop no longer visually match the image and have to be redone. Or you can add adjustment layers in Photoshop to try to make the edits match the changes from Lightroom Classic, but that gets complicated.

But I still like to use this method, because it means that if I realize that the image needs non-destructive tweaks after seeing it in the context of the Photoshop document, I can either make the changes in Lightroom Classic and send them over (via Save Metadata to File), or I can make them in ACR in Photoshop and send them back to  Lightroom Classic (via Read Metadata from File).


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## prbimages (Feb 25, 2020)

Another possibility: if you have a Photoshop file with a raw file embedded as a Smart Object (e.g. if you used _Edit In -> Open as Smart Object_ in Photoshop), you can force Photoshop to re-embed the raw file after making changes in Lightroom Classic.  In Photoshop, right-click on the layer name of the Smart Object, and in the pop-up menu choose _Relink to File_. Then navigate to the original raw file, choose it, and it will open in Camera Raw within Photoshop; just hit OK and your Photoshop document will update.

Not as sophisticated as Conrad's method, and just one-way, and it also needs the XMP file to communicate Lightroom's changes, but conceptually a bit simpler (maybe).



johnfontana400 said:


> I now realise that I cannot achieve what I want until there is a non-destructive version of Photoshop!


Well, that is what Lightroom is supposed to be  It's just unfortunate that some things don't work quite as well as they do in Photoshop, so we still have to make the decision on the best tool for any particular job.


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## johnbeardy (Feb 25, 2020)

Conrad Chavez said:


> I would love for Adobe to automate all that....



I have used linked smart objects since their introduction but find them awkward to create, so over the years I have made two or three "proof of concept" attempts to automate their creation from LR. I don't think I am that far away (basically LR generates a PS Javascript which it then calls) but I have also felt that any third-party solution would lack robustness.

Note that the Alt-drag method is limited to Mac. Adobe have failed to implement drag and drop from Lightroom on Windows, so you first need to Ctrl R to open the file in Explorer, then alt drag it into Photoshop.



prbimages said:


> Another possibility: if you have a Photoshop file with a raw file embedded as a Smart Object (e.g. if you used _Edit In -> Open as Smart Object_ in Photoshop), you can force Photoshop to re-embed the raw file after making changes in Lightroom Classic.  In Photoshop, right-click on the layer name of the Smart Object, and in the pop-up menu choose _Relink to File_. Then navigate to the original raw file, choose it, and it will open in Camera Raw within Photoshop; just hit OK and your Photoshop document will update.
> Not as sophisticated as Conrad's method, and just one-way, and it also needs the XMP file to communicate Lightroom's changes, but conceptually a bit simpler (maybe).



That's the pragmatic solution that I prefer.  It's cross-platform, preserves metadata, is saved back into Lightroom, and it doesn't require you to play around matching document sizes.

John


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