# Edit in Photoshop, layer always locked...



## Chris_M (Nov 27, 2011)

I am sitting here processing a series of photos from a shoot I did last weekend, so far as the processing goes, fine so far, no problems.
I have a somewhat Lightroom-related "edit-in" question.

Since the space in which I had to shoot was indoors and rather small, I have to open almost every photo in photoshop to do some perspective correction.
When the photo arrives in photoshop for editing, it is ALWAYS locked!
Now normally that would not be a problem, click and drag to the bin to unlock, however, after the first 40 photos, it does get annoying.

So the question is this:
Is there a setting in photoshop, a trick or a workaround to stop that behavior?


Chris


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## RikkFlohr (Nov 27, 2011)

Chris,

The obvious question is Why are you choosing to do the perspective corrections in PS rather than Lightroom?
Since 3.0 came out I haven't found a really solid reason to use PS Perspective Correct over Lightroom's. 

That having been said, I don't know how you would do it in the Edit In functionality. It would be possible to create a droplet in PS that unlocks the layer and you could access that through the export dialog.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 27, 2011)

Since Rikk's asked the obvious question, how about assigning it a keyboard shortcut?  http://boldperspective.com/2011/photoshop-shortcut-unlocking-the-background-layer/  or make it an action so you can press an F key?

Or what about the Scripts Event Manager (hiding under the File > Automate menu).  You could get that to automatically run the action whenever you open a file.


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## Chris_M (Nov 27, 2011)

*Rikk,*
if by doing the correction in Lightroom, you mean with the Lens Correction Panel,
I am not comfortable using it since I don't know much about it (feel free to point me at detailed information about using it if you like)!


Besides that, on several of the photos, there's various things I need to clone or heal out of the picture,
from flower leaves growing out of an alter boys' yawnimg mouth, through microphone cables,
to complete heads at the bottom of photos that appear to be stood on if I leave them in.
Not having too many problems as yet though with it all.

The problem is, I select, edit in photoshop, and when the image opens in photoshop, before I can do any perspective correction,
I have to unlock the layer, or it won't let me use the Transform or Warp command.

Ok, I was a long-time PaintShop Pro user (since v3.12 16bit, yes, that's back in Windows 3.1 days...),
I've not been using photoshop for my main editor for very long, what are these droplet things I hear about,
and how would I go about making one to automatically remove the layer locking?


*[EDIT]*
*Victoria,*
you posted your reply just as I was about to hit the submit button on this post.

As you can see, I am not THAT familiar with photoshop.
The shortcut you linked to is still something I'd have to do when opening an image, that being the case, I might as well leave it as is.
HOWEVER, that script thingy you mention that runs automatically whenever I open a file sounds like just the ticket.
Can you explain how to make it or point me at a "how to" tutorial?

Generally, if I open an image in photoshop, it's because I am going to use PS for a manipulation,
therefore I do not have the need of a locked layer.


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## RikkFlohr (Nov 27, 2011)

Chris, 

I hear you about Paint Shop Pro. It has, to this day, in my mind (double parenthetical), the best Perspective Correction tool out there! 

Droplets? - Think making a a Photoshop Script that will run automatically from an executable file. You create a list of things you want done by recording a script.Save it as a droplet. Create an Export Preset (that automatically adds the result file back to catalog) and performs an action upon export (last panel in export). There are detailed instructions available if you want to go that far. 

Invest a little time in learning the Lens Correction's manual tab and see if you can become comfortable. That way, all of your P Correction is tweakable down the road instead of locked into a file. 

Victoria's suggestion(s) of creating a shortcut is a good one too.

There are usually many ways to skin a cat.


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## Chris_M (Nov 27, 2011)

RikkFlohr said:


> ...
> There are detailed instructions available if you want to go that far.
> ...


Might as well learn it, it may not be on this job, but I'll get to it,  point me at it...


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## edgley (Nov 30, 2011)

Is it  not safer to duplicate the background layer in PS and make the changes to the dup'ed layer?


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## Chris_M (Nov 30, 2011)

@ Simon

It would be, if I was worried about what I was doing, which I'm not when only doing perspective correction.
But if that's all I am doing, I'd rather not have to click and drag the lock symbol to the bin dozens of times during processing from Lightroom.

Having said that...

@ Rikk

Thanks to your post, I went ahead and gave it a try, and I'm having some success, the ones I can't get right in LR,
I just do in PS, but there is already a lot less window flipping between LR and PS!
Some corrections as far as I can see just cannot be done in LR, like I've had to warp a few of the photos,
due to uneven structural surfaces, for example,
the Alter was nice 'n' horizontal but the Tabernacle behind it was not exactly horizontal.

Do you know of details of any detailed tutorials on the Lens Correction panels' perspective tool?
The Luminous Landscape video and a couple of other tutorials I went through didn't say much about it.

Like the buzzwords "Chromatic Aberration", I am aware of it, as far as I know,
it happens at the border of high to low contrast areas,
produces a red or cyan 'drop shadow'-like fringe along that border,
I've only seen it once, so even if this is correct, that's all I know about it.
So what do those sliders do, 'defringe' what does that do, what to look out for in a photo, how best to avoid it etc. etc.,
are the kind of detailed tutorials I'm asking about, they don't even have to be LR-specific.

This is an area of photograhpy I know nothing about!


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## Norfolk Lad (Dec 1, 2011)

Chris,
You have asked a lot of new questions here.  I suggest you try lynda.com for tutorials (you can pay for 30 days unlimited access and you can also preview several of the tutorials before paying up) or get a book.  Scott Kelby's Lightroom 3 is a good starter and will teach you quite a lot.  Victoria's book is great once you know the basics.  And if you look at her post above, you can claim a discount.
JW


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## Chris_M (Dec 1, 2011)

*sigh*
Maybe I should change the Location in my "Profile" at the left here to my employment status.
Perhaps then people will stop telling me to spend money I do not have.

THAT is why I come to a Forum and ask questions,
because it costs somebody that might know the answer nothing more than a few minutes at a keyboard doing some typing.
I on the other hand, sometimes have to worry if I'll make it with food until the next social welfare payment,
I do believe I have mentioned this before, on more than 1 occasion.

Yes, I have the software, 2 camera, a reasonable home studio kit, etc. etc. etc., thing is, all that was purchased BEFORE I was  made redundant,
and moved to a country where I have to pay 200 Euro MORE per month for 2 rooms LESS than I had at my last location.

So I ask questions, that I may increase my knowledge, which might, just possibly, help me to find a new job!

Anyway, I'm away now to go change my location to where I really am...


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## Norfolk Lad (Dec 2, 2011)

Sorry,  I noticed your unemployed status mentioned in another thread after I had posted.  You could do worse than read the Starter Kit mentioned in this forum, looking at the help menu in Lightroom, and try watching some of Julianne Kost's videos on the Adobe TV channel - all free.


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 3, 2011)

It's fine Chris, the forum would be pretty quiet without questions!


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## Chris_M (Dec 4, 2011)

I've been, and still am so busy, I haden't even checked my mail and seen there were replies, my apologies.
The problem is, due to processing all thoses photos, I am 2 days behind on a project for my Dreamweaver web design class,
that I should have started on Thursday, and is due on Monday morning. With just a tiny bit of luck, I'll get the site done in time.
At the end, if I pass the exam, I'll be Adobe Certified on Dreamweaver, possibly another little helper to find a job.

Oh yeah, sorry if I sounded a bit ratty in my last post, I'd had a bad day, which yet again cost me money I don't have.

Anyways...


Norfolk Lad said:


> ...
> You could do worse than read the Starter Kit mentioned in this forum, looking at the help menu in Lightroom, and try watching some of Julianne Kost's videos on the Adobe TV channel - all free.



@ Norfolk Lad
I've been using and poking around Lightroom for quite some time now, viewed Reichmann's The Luminous Landscape - Guide to Lightroom 3, _twice_!
one other video tutorial and a PDF on Lightroom, can't remember the names anymore and don't have the time to go look,
and have a printout of Victoria's list of all known shortcuts, which I use a lot also.
So I think I am beyond the starter kit (which by the way was the first thing I read when I joined this Forum),
and I find that help menus are never as good as Google if you actually need help from the help menu of any program.

Free quality video tutorials are always welcome, so thanks for that tip,
I will look up those Julianne Kost videos you mentioned when I have time (classwork comes first).
The problem with books and videos, is time, or lack thereof to watch/read them.



@ Victoria
Yes, it would indeed be quieter, I've noticed the same thing on our Forum lately,
most questions have already been answered, and now we only get a couple of posts a day, if even.

Problem is, when the questions get more specific, they quite often go unanswered (case in point, my "Chromatic Aberration" post above).


Anyways, I gotta split, and try to get my class project finished.
...As if.......


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## Norfolk Lad (Dec 4, 2011)

Right, since I got into this debate, I'll do what I can to reply to your question about chromatic aberration ("CA").

You have a Canon camera, I see.  I don't know what lens you use but it is possible that the lens is supported in the Lens Correction feature.  Go to the Lens Correction panel and click on "Profile" (if not already active) and then on "Enable Profile Corrections."  If you are lucky, it will immediately fill in the details of your camera and lens.  If not, click on "Make" and choose Canon.  If your lens still does not come up, select "Model" and see if it is listed there.  If it recognizes your lens, it will apply some corrections automatically (distortion, vignetting and CA).  If not, you'll have to go over to the manual panel, where I see you have been working on distortion.

In the manual panel, you can play with the various perspective sliders.  No harm will be done and you can reset each one to zero by double clicking on its name.  Try the same with the vignetting sllders.  If you want to include a vignette in the final exported version, do the lens correction here but use the "Effects" panel for the intentional vignette one you hav applied all other edits.

Now for the CA question.  Zoom in to 1:1 or 2:1 view on your picture and navigate to a corner (bottom usually as the top may be just sky).  Look for the dreaded magenta and cyan colouring on edges and use the sliders to correct it.  Again, it's a question of playing with them until you get it right.  No harm as you can always reset by double clicking on the name of the slider.   As for the "Defringe" control, I tend to leave it set at "Highlight Edges" as that is where the trouble is most visible and it does not soften the rest of the picture.  Or you can leave it off.  I've not seen much guidance on this control.

 Note that even if your lens has been found in the profiles, in some cases you will still need to fine tune using the CA slider in the "Profile" section.

I've done a bit of looking around for suitable free tutorials and I come back to Julianne Kost.  This http://tv.adobe.com/watch/getting-s...oom-3/lens-correction-perspective-correction/ deals with the lens correction panel pretty well.  But the first half of the tutorial is about the crop tool.  Useful too, perhaps.  Sorry, she does not have a lot to say about manual CA correction.  Actually, there is more on the subject in the LR Help menu that anywhere else and that actually incorporates the JK video mentioned above!

Hope this is of some help.


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## Chris_M (Dec 5, 2011)

@ Norfolk Lad

I'm pretty much down with the perspectivel now, thanks to Rikk suggesting it, and me just diving in at the deep end,
just wish there was an option for the user to change the color and/or location of the gridlines on occasion.

As far as the automatic profile corrections go, I am aware of the function and my lenses are supported,
and have in fact a preset I made that applies the profile correction, which I use as an import preset.
Unfortunately, it seems although my Tamron IS supported, the profile is not being automatically applied to photos with that lens,
but it's not a big deal, I can handle it.

Thanks for the info on the CA!
I will have to look into the causes and 'how best to avoid' issue in more depth when I have time,
perhaps when class breaks for Christmas, although as said, I've only seen it once, then again,
unless it jumped out of the picture and slapped me in the face, I may have missed it.

Also, I'll *definately* be browsing that link you posted during the break.

However, for the moment, it's back to classwork,
_and hoping that the person that hired me for the church shoot actually gets back to me, and more importantly, pays me_!
No reply from him to calls, texts or emails so far, and the photos are processed and ready for his approval.


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## Jim Wilde (Dec 5, 2011)

Chris_M said:


> ...just wish there was an option for the user to change the color and/or location of the gridlines on occasion.



Chris, although you can't change the colour of the gridlines, you can change the gridlines overlay. Before you start using the manual lens perspective correction sliders, simply open up the crop tool *and leave it open while you play in Lens Correction.* That allows you to use the O key to switch the grid overlay to something more to your liking, and that overlay stays in place for as long as the crop tool is open.


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 5, 2011)

Chris_M said:


> Unfortunately, it seems although my Tamron IS supported, the profile is not being automatically applied to photos with that lens,
> but it's not a big deal, I can handle it.



The good news is you can fix that!  If the Tamron is supported and available in the list, choose a photo shot on the Tamron, select the correct profile, and then in the setup pop-up just above, select Save as New Lens Profile Default.  From then on, when you turn on lens corrections and it finds that lens, it'll apply the right profile.


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## Norfolk Lad (Dec 5, 2011)

That's very helpful to learn, thanks Victoria.  Jeremy


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## Chris_M (Dec 6, 2011)

Yes, two nice tips, thanks Jim & Victoria...


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