Camera Labs

As I'm not willing to follow every upgrade-step of Adobe I use currently LR3 for cataloging, simple processing and exporting. PS CS4 is for more demanding edits.
I use both programs like that: When I have selected one image in LR3 that need some extra processing in CS4 I use the “export to PS” command. LR3 then produces a 16 bit tiff (in my case), starts PS, and off we go. This has the benefit of using the improved RAW-conversion faculties of ACR 6.3 (in LR3) vs. ACR 5.x (in PS CS4).
BUT:
Whatever I've done so far in LR3 (like say a +1EV exposure compensation) gets cooked into the tiff and thus transferred to PS. Unfortunately there is some loss involved in the "cooking"/transferring to tiff as I discovered the hard way. So you should do no fancy processing in LR3 before transferring it to PS or else you might end up with unrecoverable damage (not to the NEF, mind you).
This in principle is also true if you have upgraded to PS CS5, but then there is no reason to use the RAW-converter of LR3 any more.

Any thoughts on that?

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

What about DNG? Does that work better in this case?

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- Wout -
Nikon D80 with 18-70 DX, 70-300 VR, 35 1.8 DX
Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with 488RC0 midi ballhead
Lowepro CompuRover AW and Nova 200 AW

Nope, there's no escape from the "cooking" unfortunately.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

although i can't use raw i have encountered the same problem with lightroom, export to ps saves the development stuff done in lightroom, thats why i transfer my photos to hard drive, import to lightroom, do development, and export to new location on hard drive, than if i want something edited more i can simply take the original and edit, and save it in the export folder of lightroom, and delete/keep the other originals..

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Thomas,

Perhaps I am missing something in your post but I don't understand your cautionary tale as isn't the point of exporting to TIFF is so that you can work on the file in PS, as PS doesn't operate on RAW files.



Also, I am confused by this statement, because why would one opt to not do fancy processing within the raw converter where you have more control, and then export the processed result to PS?

Yeah, perhaps it's a bit over-simplistic.
But my hunch is that if you plan on doing some "fancy" processing (with the help of PS) just use LR to get the exposure and dynamic range right.
Because after "cooking" you don't get headroom or shadow detail back in a way that you can from the original RAW.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I think that if you use the option “open as smart object in Photoshop” from LR3 there is no cooking involved. With the smart objects you can always revert back to camera raw and make adjustments. If you close the file in Photoshop you end up with a separate cooked TIFF file, your original is preserved with the adjustments made in LR.

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Radu
Canon PowerShot S100
Canon 50D , SIGMA 10-20 f3.5 ,Canon EF 24-105 L IS USM, Canon EF 100/2.8 macro Canon EF 50/1.4 ,Canon EF 85 f1.8,Canon EF-S17-85 4-5.6 Old Tamron 28-300 inherited from my Canon Rebel G film camera
Canon580EXII
http://www.errre.net

What you are actually getting is an upgradeable "rendered" image, the raw file is actually included with the PS file from therein and the original LR raw file will no longer be updated.

For me this is the strength of LR3, cataloging & simple processing and it forms the mainstay of my workstream. However, I did upgrad to CS5 and therefore dont have the same issue but work with the NEF file directly, only converting to a tiff etc when saved. I agree with you entirely the PS is for the more demanding edits and artistic touches, well thats how I use it within my sphere anyway.

Therefore, for the way I work there is a reason to use the RAW converter of LR3

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Alan
D4 & D700


http://www.alanwilliamsphotography.co.uk
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