# Photoshop for finishing, Lightroom for? ...



## Katherine Mann (Oct 27, 2012)

I am curious about how others use Photoshop in their workflow. 
This is what I do, most often:

Import from the card into Lr changing the metadata copyright settings as I do so.
Dump the absolute duds, deleting from the hard drive
Apply keywords. 
Move to develop
Choose camera calibration.
Apply lens corrections.
In the develop mode, crop, edit to balance the photo - using the sliders I produce the best, balanced photo that I can.
Send to photoshop. 

Copy the background layer - Ctrl J
Run an action to make luminosity channels - 5 lights and 5 darks.
Using selected luminosity channels I run levels and curves to taste, colour balance, further modifying the mask(s) if necessary to get the luminosity and colour balance that suit the photo.
I sharpen using smart sharpen, sometimes using a mask to narrow the range of sharpest focus.
Occasionally I apply an unsharp mask if necessary. 
Save in Ps and back to Lr.

If I have introduced too much noise at this point I will adjust it in Lr.
I export photos that are intended for the web to a folder on my hard drive, or sometimes to Facebook.
If I am printing I use Lightroom.

I guess I do most of the heavy lifting in Photoshop. I find the control finer, and I'm comfortable with Ps. 
I know that many people don't use photoshop at all, and produce stellar work.

What do the rest of you do?


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 27, 2012)

I try to limit Photoshop use as far as possible, otherwise I could spend all day on them!  I will get the photo to 'done' as far as possible in Lightroom, where I have the full range of data available.  I then switch to PS for retouching distractions and other localised edits that PS is better suited to.


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## Su Bayfield (Oct 27, 2012)

Interesting post Katherine. Like Victoria, I rarely use Photoshop since  becoming a Lightroom user. My main use is after editing as fully as I  can in LR, I go to Photoshop to remove things like reflections or to  select and paste images onto a solid background layer (I take a lot of  photographs in museums). I do admire your second step - 'dump the  absolute duds deleting from hard drive'. This is what I find hardest to do 

Su


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## Tony Jay (Oct 27, 2012)

Katherine I generally use Photoshop only when I have to, otherwise it is all Lightroom.

Tony Jay


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## EttVenter (Oct 29, 2012)

I also like to keep PS use to a minimum, and generally only use it for things like skin retouching, or when I need the use of layers to remove things from the scene or to build new things.

Katherine, I'm curious - What exactly this this step:

"Run an action to make luminosity channels - 5 lights and 5 darks."


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## Katherine Mann (Oct 30, 2012)

Ettventer, I have an action which makes 10 channels, each measuring a level of luminosity. So, if you load the Lightest channel by ctrl clicking on it, switch to the layers palette, choose an adjustment which automatically makes a layer with a mask which is the same as your channel, make the adjustment, the changes that you just made are only applied on the lightest luminance levels in the photo. I am explaining the thing rather badly, so I will direct you to this tutorial by Tony Kuyper, who is much better at that sort of thing: http://goodlight.us/writing/luminositymasks/luminositymasks-2.html

You can move through his tutorials to learn more. It is very clear. At the end he offers an action for a small fee which makes the channels automatically but a very good option is to check out this youtube video by Matt Norris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP4r1o7RWVY&feature=related You can find his luminosity channels action on his Blog.  http://mattnorris.squarespace.com/photography-gallery/events/4289071

I have found that using these techniques I have control over the final outcome of my photos that I have never had before.

Note that you can, of course, paint on the layer masks to further define the area that you wish to effect with your adjustments. 

Give it a go. It seems quite complex at first, but isn't really. 

This is the sort of thing that you can possibly get with Lightroom using the adjustment brush, but it is much more accurate, and much finer. 

Have fun!


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## donoreo (Nov 5, 2012)

I rarely use anything other than LR.  My thinking is if I need more, I could have done it better in camera.  Of course there are exceptions, my main reason to leave LR is for "content aware" cloning.  I with LR had that.


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