Lightroom and Edit in photoshop in TIFF files.

[kontrol]

I import all my photo in Lightroom, and keep them raw (dng). Since I'm becoming more and more confortable with Photoshop, I edit my photo more with it (Sharpening is way more effective). But as I just noticed, a TIFF file is around 46mb, depending of the amount of data (layers etc), when the dng is about 16mb. I was wondering if there was any way to compress the TIFF a litle bit, without loosing the layers? I think I once saw an option to save it to ZIP from Photoshop, but I wasn't able to see it again. And I'm not sure Lightroom would manage that.

[herbert]

Hi Mathieu,

Unfortunately Lightroom cannot understand layers. If it could it would be photoshop. So instead photoshop has to save a flattened copy of the image as a single top layer. This is used by Lightroom for all it's processing.

So if you open a file in photoshop, make a few edits and then save the file will double in size due to the extra layer added. There is no way around this issue.

You should be able to find the save options for tiff files in the photoshop edit>preferences dialog. You can add compression for tiffs. There will be the option to "maximise compatibility". This tells photoshop to save the flattened layer into the file. If you remove this option the files will be much smaller. However Lightroom will not be able to read them.

Regards,

Alex

[kontrol]

The modification I made to my TIFF file yesterday had layer. And it was previewing in Lightroom just fine. And when I reopened the file, my layers were here.

So how is Lightroom now able to manage layer? I didn't play much more than that after my tests.

[herbert]

Hi Mathieu,

Lightroom does not read layers. It reads a flattened copy of the image that is put into the file by Photoshop. This takes up a lot of room since it is a raster version (i.e. has each pixel described) of the image. So if your image was 3000x4000 pixels after going through Photoshop it will contain an extra 3000x4000 pixels just so Lightroom can see what you have done to the image.

I think that if you flatten your image in Photoshop then there is no need to add a duplicate flattened copy. The file size will therefore be smaller. However you lose all your layer work and the ability to go back and change anything.

Alex

[kontrol]

So you mean that in my TIFF file I have the image with the layers AND a flatten image. So I have one image "too much" so it can be seen by Windows or Lightroom.

So If I don't wan't to loose my layers, that's the only way I can store them?

And if I do Lightroom modifications on my TIFF files, it's done on the flatten image, and not the TIFF files right? So if I reopen it in Photoshop, the Lightroom modification won't be there?

[herbert]

Yes.

You should see Lightroom as the first stop for editing. It does the raw file conversion using global edits. Get the colours and exposure right. Then go into photoshop and do local edits if necessary. For example selective masking, colour corrections, touch ups, cloning, etc. You should not have to change the colour again too much and so will not need Lightroom edits anymore.

90% of the main colour work can be done in Lightroom. Some people don't bother with photoshop at all.

You can then use Lightroom for bulk output like image resizing and printing. However for one off prints I find photoshop to have more control so I'll use it instead for single images.

If you do edit in Lightroom a photoshop tiff file I suppose you can round trip to photoshop again but it will pass through camera raw and so appear in photoshop as a single image (no layers).

An alternative would be to edit the original raw, open in photoshop the new edited raw and your old edited tiff and copy the layers from one image to the other. This may work depending on the type of layers and how many colour changes you have made.

Alex

[Glenn NK]

I agree with Herbert - do the initial edits in LR, and what some call the "cheater" edits in PS. I use PSE for "touching up" images of flowers where the background is ugly or distracting.

Glenn