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Sharishan
Participating Frequently
November 6, 2021
Question

Photoshop Camera Raw 14.0 throws away masks

  • November 6, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 2117 views

After hours of working in Camara Raw 14.0 for Photoshop 2022, retouching a photo (and frequent saves in between to xmp), I opened the final result as an object in Photoshop. To my surprise ALL the work I did in masks was gone once the image was opened in Photoshop. Spot removal and all adjustments I did on the Edit-tab had been saved, but I lost 5 hours of mask retouching work. Re-opening the object in Camera Raw did not bring back the masks, nor did reloading the xmp. I tried re-opening the original CR3 in Camara Raw, with the same result. The masks were simply not saved to the xmp-file. 


I've just updated to Photoshop 2022, so I'm new to the masks feature, but I've been working for years with Photoshop Camera Raw and the adjustment brush and such. I've never had this problem, nor did I do anything out of the ordinary before opening the photo as an object. 

Is this a know bug? Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I work on a Macbook Pro 2019 with Monterey 12.0.1 freshly installed, the Camera Raw version is 14.0.0.950.

This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

SPL22
SPL22
Participant
November 8, 2022

100% CORRECT. Camera Raw allows us to mask, and it has awesome masking tools.PS has the same but not as good in my opion. Anyway, yes when creating a mask in Camera Raw 15, there is ZERO way to SAVE it. ITs unbelieveable Adobe would fail to see this. Why cant I open a .dng for example, Raw opens up, then I make a nice mask and press, open. Then in PS, the mask is GONE. Its a F***N joke to be honest. Why have maksing in RAW in the first place?

 

    J
    jerryh827445
    Participant
    June 26, 2024

    I just began to lose my masks in ACR via Bridge.  It is OK in ACR from within Photoshop. Tried snap shots, for each mask, but no go.  All my Adobe software is current.  As a Bridge/ACR user I am dead in the water. 

    J
    jerryh827445
    Participant
    June 26, 2024

    Also FWIW when I open the image in Photoshop from ACR open object the mask is lost.

    V
    Vernes5DE8
    Participant
    April 26, 2022

    We have the same issue in our office. We work on 20+ PC's and ever since we updated to Adobe 2021 we have this issue. The problem is that most PC's have literally the same configuration, the same work is done on them, but the issue is not consistent. Sometimes we will edit 100's of files without problems, yet on some days literally half the masks will be gone. 

      E
      Ethereal_positivity15C2
      Participating Frequently
      April 14, 2022

      Did you ever resolve this problem? 

      Out of approx 100 images processed and saved ("Done" button), up to 20 images will not have the masks present once reopened. Other adjustments are saved fine,  just not the masks. Absolutely no masks present, even though they should be saved into the XML file. I lost an entire days work before I realised it was happening.

      Is this a well known issue, or something simple I’m missing? It has only happened since the new Masks tools have been updated.

       

      Photoshop V 23.3.0

      Camera Raw V14.3.0.1072

      Catalina

      Macbook 2016 i7

       

      S
      SharishanAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 16, 2022

      Hi @Ethereal_positivity15C2, so happy to finally receive a response and find that at least I'm not the only one having this problem. The sad news is: no, I have not resolved this problem and it has happened a couple of times to me since. I've not heard from anyone else having this problem until you just responded to my post. But then again, I've not looked in to this problem for months.

      Like you, I lost hours of work and that resulted in me getting weary of using the new masks. So I haven't used them a lot and haven't had a lot of opportunity to troubleshoot and find out where the problem lies. 

      If you ever find the solution, could you please let me know? I'll keep you posted as well.

      E
      Ethereal_positivity15C2
      Participating Frequently
      April 16, 2022

      Hi Sharishan

      Sorry to hear you haven’t resolved it.

       

      It’s interesting that you seem to have had the same problem for a while now as ACR has surely been updated since you first noticed the problem. Also I see you are on Monterey, and I am on Catalina still, as I did wonder if it could be somekind of “write permission” linked to Catalina / added security, but I think that’s not likely.

      I have now moved to Lightroom for larger projects that I work on, as that “Saves” the masks with each adjustment, in real time as far as I understand it. I worked in the stand alone Camera Raw interface for 10+ years and it’s only since January 2022 that I’ve had this issue, as I was on Mojave up to December 2021. In the past, I would create masks and make changes for 200+ files at a time, then click “Done” and it would save all those changes and masks to the XML. Now though, I can click “Done” and then re-open the same files only to find some have the masks missing. To add to that, if it does succesfully save a mask, I can then re-open the same file again, apply some other adjustments to say ”Exposure” etc, re-save/Done, and the masks will be erased or missing when closed and re-opened again, even though I didn’t edit the mask. It’s like it gets ”Forgetful” about saving certain masks, and even over writes the file to record “no mask present” or to that effect. I cannot tolerate that as I have tight deadlines and as I said I have lost a few hours work before.

       

      I will keep you updated if I find a solution. I think one would have to do some dedicated tests with some tests files and see if one can replicate the issue and hopefully find a pattern, if there is one. But I won’t be using it for major work projects for the foreseeable, as it has made me lose all confidence in ACR.

       

      I realise it’s not ideal, but do you have access to Lightroom?

       

      Also these were Nikon D810 Raw Lossless files.

      S
      SharishanAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      November 6, 2021

      Update: I've taken a look at the xmp-file, and I think I see mask info, but I'm not familiar enhough with the code to be sure. I also think the indentation looks off, so maybe it could be a syntax error? See below for a sample. (Alas, the indetation didn't survive the cut and paste.) I'm really hoping this means my work is recoverable. Could anyone help me look into this, please?

       

      <crs:RetouchAreas>
      <rdf:Seq>
      <rdf:li>
      <rdf:Description
      crs:SpotType="heal"
      crs:SourceState="sourceAutoComputed"
      crs:Method="gaussian"
      crs:HealVersion="2"
      crs:SourceX="0.397605"
      crs:OffsetY="0.620128"
      crs:Opacity="1"
      crs:Feather="0.3"
      crs:Seed="2">
      <crs:Masks>
      <rdf:Seq>
      <rdf:li>
      <rdf:Description
      crs:What="Mask/Paint"
      crs:MaskActive="true"
      crs:MaskBlendMode="0"
      crs:MaskInverted="false"
      crs:MaskSyncID="3A63C40E7B224D30BD050AD00CF560F2"
      crs:MaskValue="1"
      crs:Radius="0.003497"
      crs:Flow="1"
      crs:CenterWeight="0.5">
      <crs:Dabs>
      <rdf:Seq>
      <rdf:li>r 0.003489</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.388467 0.620128</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387954 0.620837</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387669 0.621793</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387473 0.622798</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387375 0.623834</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387331 0.624879</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387282 0.625923</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387329 0.626967</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387418 0.628005</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387553 0.629032</rdf:li>
      <rdf:li>d 0.387614 0.630075</rdf:li>
      </rdf:Seq>
      </crs:Dabs>
      </rdf:Description>
      </rdf:li>
      </rdf:Seq>
      </crs:Masks>
      </rdf:Description>
      </rdf:li>

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