P: Add Layers to Lightroom

Well said TK.

Here's my 2 cents worth. I personally do not desire layers, per se' in LR. However I do desire a more robust targeted adjustment tool and the ability to retain PS layers. Let me explain:

1) I applaud the improvements to the targeted adjustment tool in LR4. Especailly the ability to target sharpening, noise and WB. What is now needed is some more options on the brush used for targeting to simulate some of things one can do with PS Layer Masks. e.g., something for "refine edge", perhaps a way to draw a line around the target area rather than painting with a brush, and something like the magic wand.

2 I posted this elsewhere but here it is again. If I edit in LR, then go to PS and add a layer for some reason the new PSD or TIFF file shows up in LR. If I just right click it and go right back to PS, my layers are still intact. However instead if I edit in LR then right click it to go back to PS my layers are all flattened. I'd like LR to not flatten out my PS layers but rather just add a new layer for the 2nd set of LR adjustments so that when I return to PS my original layers are still there.

Thanks

I look forward to LR4. I did take a quick look a couple of months ago but as it wouldn't use my existing catalog without re-importing everything, decided to wait for the final release. Reading the link TK, shows there is a demand for better retouching tools so will download the latest beta for another peep. -:)

>Here's how Lightroom is destructive just as Photoshop is: For instance, when you clone one area over another, the target pixels get destroyed. Ouch!

That, like much of your post is incorrect and shows a huge misunderstanding of the processing. There are no pixels affected until you render the data (original, be it raw or existing rendered data plus instruction of edit used to create new set of pixels). The area you see in the preview is simply what will, I repeat will result only if you render the data to a new iteration. It is not destructive, it has no effect on pixels that as yet have been rendered.

There is no inconsolable difference between "pixel editing" and "parametric editing".

Here's how to turn Photoshop into a parametric editor: Record all users input (mouse movements and clicks). Replay all user input as needed (rendering always starts from an original that never changes). Allow user input recordings to be deleted. Allow the parameters for the tools that receive these recordings to be changed. Voilà, non-destructive image editing in Photoshop. But the pixels get pushed, you say? Only for the rendering of the output. As you can always remove user input sequences, you can always go back to the original.

Here's how Lightroom is destructive just as Photoshop is: For instance, when you clone one area over another, the target pixels get destroyed. Ouch! But don't fear as we are only modifying a working copy that is used to accumulate changes so that we obtain the final rendering. We never change the original source, so we can always go back to it and/or use only part of the changes we apply to it (on the working copy). Same as above.

So, please, let us lay to rest this myth of some things being possible for a pixel editor vs a parametric editor. Surely, there is a performance challenge. Generating final renderings by replaying user-input on original sources takes the longer, the more complicated changes you allow. But, for instance, it would be quicker to replay one long clone brush stroke than fifty healing spots, all aligned as pearls on a string to mimic the long clone brush stroke.

Conceptually, Lightroom already uses layers. One can think of its image pipeline as using a curves adjustment layer, followed by a HSL adjustement layer, ..., followed by adjustment brush layers, ..., followed by a sharpening adjustement layer. The LR UI just does not expose the layers to the users. And that's reasonable, AFAIC. I don't see Lightroom becoming a compositing tool, the watershed to Photoshop has to be somewhere and compositing is where Photoshop rules. Hence, Lightroom does not require layers and can try to allow image adjustments without using a layer metaphor.

Adjustment brushes, for example, can be thought of using layer masks (containing the brush strokes) and layers with the working image copied but with all brush settings applied. But all the complexity of creating a layer, creating a layer mask, changing the layer and then brushing the mask to show parts of the new layer on the working copy is hidden to the user. I feel that Lightroom should continue to hide complexity this way.

In summary, no layers for Lightroom but not because there is an inconsolable difference between pixel pushing and parametric editing, but because the complexity of layers is kept in Photoshop land. By the same token, of course, this means that better retouching support is possible and should be implemented rather sooner than later.

But if what you really want is improvements to local adjustments (even more than in LR4) and particularly more flexible cloning, there's probably a consensus.

>just an explanation that pixel editors and parametric editors are different kinds of tools.

I fully understand that but don't accept that that precludes having both in the one application. As I said before vector and bitmap editing exist side by side in many applications don't they.

Well it seems there's no likelyhood of my wishlist becoming true anytime soon then.

"...the feelings it would generate"? No emotions here, just disagreement with the suggestion. As for "heresy", again no - just an explanation that pixel editors and parametric editors are different kinds of tools.

>If you want better localised adjustments and better cloning, just ask for them?<

Please can I have better local adjustments... and more controllable cloning please?

I really didn't think it would be such a big ask to add layers in LR nor did I realise the feelings it would generate. I use Lightroom to import and process my raw files and to organise them. They invariably require further work and so I edit them in PS. Lightroom isn't some sort of holy cow that mustn't be touched for heaven's sake. It's a tool and I maybe naievly thought that taking some code from PS and adding it to LR wouldn't be a big thing. Turning Lightroom into a better featured image processor and editor isn't heresy nor, I suspect, as difficult as some suggest.