# LR "ruin" photos after editing in PS



## Stain (Oct 9, 2011)

I have this problem from title. It happens with images taken in low light conditions with high ISO. I develop them in Lr with noise reduction and everything else what is needed. after that I choose edit in PS where i took some actions to improve my image. When I  save my image, it is added to lightroom catalog as tiff file and look's like I want to, but only for few seconds. It happens only with images taken in low light conditions with high iso. When I take same image from finder in OS end open it in PS with same settings from LR and edit it in PS with same actions and save without LR, image looks jut fine....?


It look's like on those specific images LR do something I just can't define :hm:


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 12, 2011)

Hi Stain, welcome to the forum!  Sorry for the delay in getting to your thread.

It sounds like you've got some settings being applied - either defaults, an import preset, or Auto settings.

To narrow it down, select one of the photos in the Develop module and press the Reset button.

If that doesn't fix it, hold down Shift and press the Reset button (which has become Reset Adobe).

Tell us which of those 2 options fixes it, and we should be able to tell you what to turn off.


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## Stain (Feb 29, 2012)

Neither one of these options has not helped in resolving my problem  :hm:


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## Stain (Mar 1, 2012)

Ok, here is example: first photo was exported from LR as JPG and the second one is the same image opened in PS direct from OS and save as JPG....

 

open them in the separate tabs and then swich between tabs to see the diferences


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## Stain (Mar 1, 2012)

This is much better example:


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## Stain (Mar 2, 2012)

I do need some help, please...  :hm:


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## clee01l (Mar 2, 2012)

Stain,  Victoria is probably very busy ATM working on publication deadlines. I have looked at all of your images above.   It is not clear which image was LR only and which image was LR>PS>LR.  And frankly, I see very little difference between versions.  If I understand your workflow, you are not reimporting the image, but letting LR create and catalog the image as a TIFF and use the Edit-In function to pass that to PS.  Is this correct?  No re-importing is necessary or is used?

When you use the Edit-In function, LR creates and catalogs the TIFF image before it calls PS and passes the TIFF image and control to PS. The image has to already exist in LR before PS can open it.  When you finish with PS and click save, control is returned to LR.  The image that you see briefly once control is returned to LR is the preview the LR made before it called PS.  LR detects the changes made by PS and re-reads the image to produce a new preview.  So if anything is is changes that you are making in PS that affect the image in the TIFF.  And as I said earlier, I don't see a significant difference in my browser.  Do you use a color management tool to calibrate your monitor?  Are you only seeing these difference in LR or Do you see them in preview or Safari?  Have you tried other browsers like Chrome and Firefox that are not color managed?


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## Stain (Mar 2, 2012)

First of all thx for your answer...
Let's start: First I import Raw images from CF card, I make some adjustments in LR (WB, Exposure, sharpening, lens correction) than I choose Edit in: PS. In Ps I do b/w conversion, vigneting, dodge/burn etc.., after that i just close my image. And I end up with tiff file in LR ctalog (and on the disk). Image or the preview of image that I see in LR is the first image that i post(file name: lr) that is the image i export from LR as jpg file. And the second one is image i took from the disk (os finder) opened in PS resized and saved as jpg (file name ps) I can see diference in PS in OS (preview) and in any browser I try. Sometimes is not so big diference it is just little lighter and sometimes is like in the second pair of images (you can see some kind of "grid")


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## clee01l (Mar 2, 2012)

By reopening the TIFF that was last Saved in PS again in PS to great the PS.jpg, you may be getting caught by the problem inherent in all Pixel editing applications. Especially if you are compressing the TIFF and then creating a lossy 8 bit JPEG.   The Images that you are posting are JPGs of the same TIFF file, One was created through export in LR and the other was created with the "Save As" in PS. Any difference between the two results are going to be reflective of how LR and PS create JPEGs  And of course each JPEG could have been created with a different level of compression. 
After your round trip to PS and back, the TIFF file that exists on the HD is the one changed by PS. LR only keeps a pointer reference to its location like it does with your master originals.  Remember LR is a non-destructive editor. It never alters the original and in the case of the TIFF file, LR starts with the master RAW file, applies adjustments and "bakes in" these adjustments while creating a new file (TIFF) to losslessly contain the results.

As an aside, You probably do not need PS in your workflow at all.  Based upon your description of which image is which The first image (LR) has better treatment of the dark areas, always bringing out more low light details that seem to get lost in the second image.  (The forum software BTW strips off any file name information on every file that is uploaded).  Since becoming a LR user, I use LR exclusively for 99,7% of my photos. The other 3/10% are images that require layers, HDR, or Panorama merge.


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## Stain (Mar 2, 2012)

Yes, we can talk about wich one is better but that is not point  I like one with less details in dark area and that is the way I want my image to look like  
I just try to export jpg from LR but full size and I end up with image I want, same image but resized look diferent lighter with "grid", and I think that something is wrong there....


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## clee01l (Mar 2, 2012)

Most people are interested in pulling out detail in low light situations If you want less detail in the shadows, you can do that inside of LR without needing PS. 

Stain, I probably can not help you further. Perhaps I really do not understand your issue.  Whether you use LR, PS, DPP or any other post processing tool you will always get slightly different results because of the different algorithms used each tool to apply the various digital filters.  You will drive yourself crazy if you try to make apples equal oranges and this is what I think you are bothered by here.  There are too many variables in the mix (RAW, TIFF, JPEG) to identify and isolate a problem.  

Perhaps Victoria will re enter the thread or some one else will see this with different eyes than mine.


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## Stain (Mar 3, 2012)

clee01l said:


> Most people are interested in pulling out detail in low light situations


 
Yes, I understand that, but that is not the point. And yes I do understand that it is not easy to understand my problem. Let's try again:
My workflow: I shoot RAW images and import from CF into LR as Raw (what I see inside of LR it's just preview of a raw image) I do rating and some basic corections inside LR such is WB, exposure, tone curve, sharpening, lens corections etc....

I set up my external editing:   if I understand how this works, the LR create copy of image (TIFF file) based on this settings and based on my corrections in develop module? 

So I open file (from LR choosing "edit in") in PS and produce image (B/W conversation, some vigneting, unsharp mask and so on) and I end up with image that looks exactly like I want image to look, ok? I close my image and find it in LR catalog next to my Raw file. Image look fine just for few seconds ( I think it last until LR produce preview of image) after that image become lighter that it was in PS. 

When I export full size JPG or full size TIFF from LR the file looks as it shoud look (the way I see it in PS after I finish editing) but if I do export smaller file but comression stil on 100, the image I export look lighter.... and sometimes I can see some grid like in those pictures above, photo with the cross...


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## erro (Mar 3, 2012)

Just curious whay you can't do all your editing inside LR? B/W, vigneting, sharpening etc are all available inside LR. Or is there something else you do in PS that can *only *be done in PS?

Also, if you edit in PS I would suggest that you use 16-bit to maximize the quality. Using 8 bits you can possibly end up with some posterization artifacts.


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## Stain (Mar 3, 2012)

Why everyone trying to rearange my workflow? I am much more comfortable to work inside PS than LR. I know that most of actions I use on images can be done inside LR, but I just love to work in PS, I trust in PS much more than LR. I find LR great for basic editing, organizing and exporting various kind and size of images, but when it came to final editing I just love to work in PS.

Sometimes I work with 16-bit, and ProPhoto RGB but I still have the same problem...


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## Happy Haggis (Mar 3, 2012)

I don't think anyone is trying to change your workflow, just making suggestions. Your problem seems to be a difficult one to resolve and people are merely offering alternatives that may help.


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## erro (Mar 3, 2012)

As I wrote: "just curious". If you prefer PS then by all means use PS. But if it creates problems, then....


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## erro (Mar 3, 2012)

Is the problem only related to B/W photos? Or do you have the same problem with color photos too?

PS have some settings for B/W under "Color settings" such as "Gray dot gain" and "Black point compensation". Maybe they have an effect? I don't really know what they do, though.

How do you make your B/W conversion? I guess you send the imaga in color from LR? In PS you then create a B/W version, but how? Is it still an RGB-color image but with no color? Or is it a grayscale image? What image mode do you use? Maybe that has an effect?


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 5, 2012)

Do you add any noise/grain when in PS (or LR for that metter) ?  I had a similar problem to what your experiencing and it turned out to be a 'film grain' that I had added in PS. When the image was resized on export the jpeg algorithms seem to 'react' with the grain and my photos looked lighter and sometimes had faint patterns.


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## Stain (Mar 5, 2012)

@Erro & Happy Haggis


I'm sorry because of my words, I know that everyone are trying to help, but I'm little frustrated becouse of this problem.


Problem is adressed only to B/W images, but not to all of them. I use PS because I have some action to create diferent kind of B/W that I love.  I send color image from LR, to PS as I wrote above (TIFF, Adobe RGB, 8 or sometimes 16bit, 240dpi, compression "none") I made conversion by changing in to the LAB color.... and reverting to RGB, so images came in PS as Adobe RGB an leave PS as Adobe RGB...


@Sizzlingbadger


Yes, sometimes I use some grainy action, I'm going to do some test today to see if there is the problem...


thanks to everyone!


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 13, 2012)

Hi Stain, sorry for disappearing.  Cletus was right, I have been hidden away trying to get my book finished in time for Lightroom 4's release.  How did you get on with testing your grain action?  The noise levels were the first thing that jumped out at me.


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## Stain (Mar 16, 2012)

Hi Victoria, I have been offline for a few days 


Yes it's look's like if I use a lot of grain and bit more sharpening in PS it results with the problem. Especially when I work on photos taken under low light conditions... It is look like I have to pay more attention on those photographs.


Anyway thanks for trying to help.


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