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Lesson Info

11:45 am - Lightroom® and Photoshop

So we've seen just about every tool in the develop module, um, for fixing and enhancing your photos. But do you guys think of some other things that you might want to be able to dio based on really what you haven't seen here today? Otherwise, I have lots of things. I could give us an example. I don't Yeah, I I didn't warn you guys. I was gonna put you on the spot on that. So let me just throw out some for myself. Most of my photos I only work in light room these days, but sometimes I do go to photo shop. If I need to do any sophisticated retouching the spot removal tool. I love it. You know, I've gotten to realize that it's more powerful than I first thought, but it's not the patch to right. It's not the new content aware tools that we have. It's we don't have the liquefy tool. We don't have any filters in light room. A negative clarity was about the closest. We come to an artistic filter, anything where you need to make a complicated selection. So if I needed to, for example, um, isol...

ate a tree, I won't go to a photo, but isolate a tree to make a change to I might be able to use the adjustment brush with auto mask but fine detail of the tree leaves or hair. It's gonna be hard for light room to deal with. So for those things, you might still need to go to a photo shop for, um, any time you want to bring together multiple photos like ERM only works in one photo at a time. So if you're creating panoramas bringing multiple exposures together with HDR, creating artistic composites, taking an object out of one photo and putting it into another photo, you would still need Photoshopped or elements for. So those are the things that occur to me, Um, top of mind. So I want to show you what the workflow looks like going from light room to photo shop or elements and back. So the first thing we need to dio is set some preferences, and I differed the conversation on these particular preferences from the Thursday general preference conversation. So if you're on a Mac, you goto light room. If you're on a PC, you'll go to edit and then down to preferences and over to the external editing tab here. Now, when you're working on, let's start with a raw file in light room. When you're working on a raw file in light room and you pass it off to photo shop or elements for a shopper, elements don't work on a raw file. They need a pixel. They need a pixel file. It has to be have to create a copy relating has to create a copy to pass off. And it's gonna be a Photoshopped file or a tiff file. So these settings in here determine what kind of file is going to be handed off to photo shop or elements. This top section here is for if you have the full version of Photoshop light room should detect and automatically show you photo shop up here. This bottom section is for setting up a different editor such as Photoshopped elements. So if you have elements or another example would be coral paint other image editing programs, you have to tell light room where it is on your computer. So in that case, what you would dio is you would click on this choose button. It would take you out to your system, and you would need to find your elements program, file your application your E x e file on a PC, and you would select that. And you would say, Choose here and then light room would be able to work with it. So that's kind of a manual step that you have to go through. But again, for a photo shop like room should detect it automatically. Soas faras file format goes Tiff versus PSD I would say Use whatever you're using today. You know, some people know enough about the to to talk about it for a long time, and I just It's not mission critical. I've always used PS D's. I continue to use PST is nothing wrong with tiffs either. So whatever you're working with today color space, the color space could be a long conversation. So let me suffice it to say whatever you're working with in Photoshop today, if you're aware of it, is, is what you should choose here. Pro photo is the is can represent the largest range of colors, and that's basically what light room works with. So I keep my Photoshopped program. My Photoshopped program also is set in color settings toe work in pro photo. So I'm continuing to maintain that large range. A lot of people are working in Adobe RGB, which is kind of a little bit smaller. That's fine, too. All right, so all said, that's a pro photo bit. Depth is basically the number of decimal plate, not number of, but represents kind of like the decimal places of precision you have in your data. I want the most precision available. In other words, I want to keep all of the detail about my file. All the detail about my photo keep the most flexibility. This is a larger file, but I'm particular in maintaining that resolution really doesn't matter here. It's just kind of for convenience and and really, it does not impact me. But I would say that if you want to put something here, the default is fine or what your printer prints at 300 or 3 60 but it's not worth. It's just not necessary. The additional editor section is the same conversation, right? What kind of file should we pass? Two elements before I get to that? Let me just say that if you chose Tiff here, You would also have this compression option. So with a tiff, you can use it compression to make the file a little bit smaller. It's lossless compression. You won't lose any data or inequality in your photo, so I personally would choose to go ahead and use tiff compression there. Now, when you're working with elements, elements is more limited in what it can handle. And I'm not an elements expert, but I know, for example, that a lot of the filters at least the last version of elements I used a lot of the elements. Functionality does not support 16 bit. So if you send a 16 bit file, you may find that some of the functionality is great out. So it really depends on what you do in elements if in doubt. And, um, you're not you're not a like a super elements user you might want to consider is keeping this in eight bits. So let's go ahead and close this out and talk about actually moving back and forth now. So I'm gonna take this photo here, and I'm just going to just to make sure this example works exactly as I wanted Teoh. But turn off the vignette. Now, with this photo, this is a raw file. I want to take it into photo shop and get rid of the poll here, even though the pole to me is an important part of this photo. But it's just so cool that I like to do it so I would have right click in the photo and I'm gonna say edit in and light rooms. You know, I have edited Photoshopped here. And if you set up elements as I explained in preferences, you would see elements here is well, so I click on edit in photo shop and wait for Photoshopped to open. Read all the names here. I wonder I always wonder if I can get through how many names I can get through, but Photoshopped seems to be getting faster at opening up, so I don't get so far. Okay, so it's opening up this file and when it opens, I'm just going to do my Photoshopped work, as I normally do. So I'm gonna go ahead and duplicate the background layer Controller Command J. I'm gonna get the last so tool with an L. Obviously, I'm not teaching photo shop here and I'm gonna do this very quickly because we've got lunch coming up. And I know you guys want to see other things, but I can't help but try to do a decent job just because I love when I do a good enough job for this to work. So all right, that's just gonna have to dio. So if it doesn't work really well, it's my fault, not photo shops. I'm going to do a content aware fill here, which is I think you and CS five. So it's not brand new. I'm gonna do a shift. Um, shift delete is a shortcut. To get to it or shift backspace on the PC, I'm gonna use content aware fill. I'll say OK, and a little bit of suspense to see what it's gonna dio controller command D to de select. Not bad. It's done a much I've seen it do a much better job. It didn't fill in as well as it could have here, but that was my fault in the selection. Normally it does a perfect job, and I just have to break up the pattern in the clouds a little bit. Okay, so I've done whatever photo shop work. I need to do so. The next step is just to do a file safe light room already has a a way to name the files. You could do save as but you only have to do a file save. I'll collapse Photoshopped Now back here in light room. Where is my Okay, So back here in light room. I've got my original and I've got my Photoshopped file. And I can tell if I look at the film strip here as I hover over. I guess I set Might as a tiff. I talked about tiffs last. So as I hover over you see that I have my original file name dash edit dot tip. So the original file original file dash at it dot tiff. So light room automatically imports the Photoshopped file back into light room, and it stacks it with the original. So in this case, I see one of 32 of three. I had created another virtual copy for something else. Normally, what you're going to see is one of two and two of two, and nicely it puts the photo shop file as number one. This is a case where I would keep this that collapsed. Okay, Because I don't want to accidentally export. But the raw file, the original this is now this Photoshopped file or tiff file is now the master photo that I'm gonna continue to work on. Right? So that's the simple part of the whole thing. I'm gonna introduce a little complexity right before lunch, but raw file, right? Click edit in. Go straight to photo shop. You do a file save and it's right back. Yeah, Quick question. Because I have an older version of photo shop. I get this massive dialog box regarding rendering in camera raw. I've been open anyway, she's in that selection. But do you want to say anything more about? Sure. So, yeah, if you're Photoshopped and camera are not is up to date is light room. You are going to get this dialog box that says, what do you want to do? Ok, if you say open anyway, how can I say this light room passes the file off to two photo shops version of camera raw, which may be older. Okay, So if you've used some new technology in your development in light room and it's being passed off to a significantly older version. Let's say you're back on CS three. You may not get a complete rendering of, you know, evolved work, but if you have, so that's that's the downside of open anyway. The downside to saying render using light room is that it will automatically create a copy of your file before you've even done a file save. So if you're just opening up into Photoshopped to just look at it quickly and you really don't want to save a copy on your hard drive open anyways, a better option. But that may have just gotten a little bit too confusing. What I dio, I say render using leg room. Okay, it does create the copy automatically occasionally have to delete an extra Photoshopped file. But by saying render using light room, you're making sure that you're taking advantage of all of the latest light room technology. Okay, so I had a raw file as I went to photo shop like room had no choice but to create a copy of my file and bake in my light room work. It couldn't pass the raw file of Photoshop, had to pass a copy with the light room work baked in. You saw this photo when we first started out with it because I can't see it here. When I first started out with it before I did any work on it looked like this, right? So it's this worked version that we got a copy of that went to Photoshop. Let's take a look at going back into Photoshopped now with this Photoshopped file. So this photo shop file is my master file. Let's say that back here in light room, after I do the photo shop work, I decided to convert this the black and white. So here in light room, I just hit the wiki a shortcut to convert to black and white. I have a photo shop file now with a black and white instruction hovering over it. Okay, No big deal. It's just like a raw file with an instruction hovering over. It's just a photo with light room instructions hovering over it. If I now decide I want to go back into Photoshopped to do more work, all of a sudden I have to make a decision. Okay, so I'm going to right click in this photo and I'm gonna say edit in Photoshop and I get a dialogue that I didn't get before. Okay, when I was a raw file, it had the bacon, the adjustments and create a copy. Now it's saying, do you wanna work on the original photo shop file? Not the original raw file, the original photo shop file? Or do you want to create another photo shop file with those black and white instructions baked in? Okay, so what I generally recommend is that you edit the original photo shop file and I'll click on edit and you'll see, uh, tried to increase the size of the screen here. You'll see that when I did edit in edited Photoshopped at it original that I'm working on the color version right in light room. We've got a black. It's black and white so that black and white instruction is waiting for us back in light room. So I'm gonna do a command w to close this. Go back to like Irma just reinforces again. So this is a color photo shopped file with a black and white room, black and white instruction on top of it. So I go edit in Photoshop, I'll say edit the original. I'm still working with a color version here, and I'll just make some obvious change here. Let's go ahead and just put a wacky curve on it here. And then I'm gonna do a file save and I go back to light room. I could close this command w go back to light room so my wacky curve has been applied, but but the black and white instruction is sitting on top of it. Okay, So I just past the original to photo shop and back while the black why instruction sits on top of it. Now, if your head is already starting to hurt, I know. And what I recommend that the issue comes in when used to light from work, and then you do photo shop, work, and then you do like homework on top of the Photoshopped file, and then you want to do more photo shop work. You know, you have these layers that either need to get baked in or these copies that need to get made. So the best way to avoid this entirely or for the most part, is to do all of your light room work first and then go to photo shop or do all of your photo shop work and then your light room develop work to not just keep skipping back and forth between doing some of your work in light room some of your work in Photoshopped. So in this particular case, if I had wanted to avoid that situation, what I would have done is instead of converting this to black and white here in light room, once I had that photo shop file, I would have just continued to work on it. And Photoshopped, you know, everything would be in that Photoshopped file that make a little bit of sense question. So if you took this photo of the original one with the purple in it and you just send it to photo to Photoshop a little bit of something. But you didn't yank the powerful then did a, you know, 1/2 an hour, five minutes worth of development work on it, including black and white and all the rest of stuff. Then you went into photo shop again, yanked powerful and chose that last option where it's as edit original. Right? Right. So then you come back in, and now you have the original with the powerful gone. But all your development work still sitting on top of it. Is that right? I'm sorry I lost you halfway through that. No, I think I just, you know, s So what I'm saying is, so if let's say I did some Photoshopped were first. Okay, So So right away in light room before I did any light from work, I got myself a student. Photoshopped. Right? Okay. Okay. And I go and I, you know, do something. It doesn't matter, but I don't yank the powerful. Okay, okay. Save it. Go back out, then, Um, do, you know, make it black and white and changed exposure in light room? Okay, then I say, Oh, but I forgot to yank the powerful. Um, Okay, so I turned to black here. Now, you know, you're like, Oh, I want to get the powerful. So you had it in photo shop, and you choose that bottom option, like, there you go. Edit original. Right? Exactly. So that's gonna be in color. Correct, correct, correct. And nominee. Yet now, in a yank out the Who That didn't happen. This area's okay. So now you ain't got the powerful right? And now you send it back, right? Is it is that black and white now is a servant being back away? Lighter? Yeah, because exactly that's exactly it. Because what we had in light room was a photoshopped file with a black and white instruction above it. When we say edit original Photoshopped file meaning that Photoshopped fall goes to photo shop, and when it comes back, it slides right back in with the black and white instruction on top of it. Okay, Now, let me just just emphasize this back in light room. I'm not going to go through the process again, but I want to just say that I mean, here's a good example, right, Portrait photographers. The question is, you may have lots of actions and touch up routines in Photoshop What I would suggest, of course, you import everything into light room, you're gonna always work from within light room. But right away, either right, click an edit in Photoshop and do your retouching work, and then come back and do the rest of your development work here in light room, or do the bulk of your development work first and then go to Photoshop, But don't Don't just go back and forth. One last thing. I have to cover it. And that is J pegs. What if you're working on a J peg instead of a raw file and this won't take long as this will let me just find a J peg. All right, So I'm gonna go g for grid, and I'm gonna remind you how to do a search going to goto all photographs here to search my entire catalog. I'm going to do a metadata search in the library filter bar. And in this first column, I'm going to search on file type. So now I can click on J Peg. I can see I've got lots of J pegs here. We'll take this one de for developed. So if your original is it J peg rather than a raw file. When you right click and say, edit in photo shop or elements, you have to make the decision right away. But I want to make this decision easy for you. You could edit your original JPEG in Photoshop. I recommend that you do not do that. Leave your original J peg as something pure untouched. Don't bake in photo shop. Work into your JPEG. So I recommend that with a J. Peg, You're going to get this dialogue right? Right away. But go ahead and edit a copy. Keep the same workflow at it. A copy with your light from adjustment supply.