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twhizzle
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2020
Question

Different color handling RAW - PSD?

  • November 18, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 957 views

Hello,

 

I have developed RAWs (.CR3 from Canon EOS R5) of a recent shooting, basic exposure adjustments as well as HSL and color grading. Now I wanted to do a detail retouch of one of the photos in Photoshop (skin retouch mainly), so I made a snapshot in order to preserve the settings, then reset the development settings to have the original RAW, and exported it to Photoshop via Edit in -> Edit in Photoshop 2021. Did my skin retouch (mainly patch tool, color matching, dodge & burning) and then hit save, so the PSD was saved back to Lightroom. So far, so good.

 

Then, I wanted to synchronize settings between the developed non-retouched RAW and the PSD, in order to give the retouched PSD the same exposure/contrast/color as the RAW. Strangely, the tonality and colors are slightly off.

 

I have tried it with different photos, getting the same result over and over again: the tonality and color between RAW and PSD does not match. As long as I have not done any development adjustments, tonality and color is the same between RAW and PSD (i checked it with the reference view), but when I do adjustments, both files are handled differently.

 

Is there any setting in Lightroom or PS that might be causing this, or is this just the way it is?

 

I wonder how I should handle this when I do a shooting of which I retouch only a few of the photos (--> PSD!) and leave the rest untouched (--> RAW!). They don't match in tonality in color then, which is not really what I'm looking for in a series of photos from a shooting.

 

I have included an example. I hope it is visible that they do not match exactly. It's best visible in skin tone and the background (especially the orangey arc thing behind his head to the right).

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

Thomas

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5 replies

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 19, 2020

What kind of skin retouching do you do? If it is fairly simple skin blemish removal, Lightroom Classic itself can do it just fine. Not as nice and smooth in interface as in Photoshop but it allows you to stay in raw entirely. If you are doing more complex smoothing and liquify-style clean up that is a photoshop only thing.

 

The problem really is that Lightroom does not have the concept of layers where you can layer a set of edits on top of everything else. Edits are always global and so their effect does depend on the source and you can't simply put on a layer of color/grading on top of everything else and expect it to look consistent.

    T
    twhizzleAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 19, 2020

    Retouch depends on the subject... liquify is something I might use sometimes, but not alway... but generally it starts with blemish removal (which would be possible in LR, I know), then I use dodge&burn to smoothen out the skin (sometimes it looks a bit "stainy") and reduce eye bags, remove unwanted shadows and enhance face features. Then I do some color matching, most of the time it's matching the eye bags to the color of the surrounding skin, sometimes teeth whitening, ... it really depends on the subject and what the goal is. But all in all, this is something I prefer to do in PS with layers.

     

    It's just that in a series of photos, not all get retouched, so I have a mix of RAWs (the non-retouched photos) and PSDs (the retouched ones) from one shooting, and to me, color grading and styling is something that is a finishing touch, which I like to do in the end and use the convenient tools of LR (I color grade one photo to the desired styling, save it as a preset and then put this preset on all of the photos and just do some minor exposure/highlight/shadow tweaks as each photo requires).

    Todd Shaner
    Todd Shaner
    Legend
    November 19, 2020

    Here's a video by Julieanne Kost that explains what you can and can't do using Smart Objects.

    https://jkost.com/blog/2017/12/working-with-smart-objects-in-photoshop-cc.html

     

      Just Shoot Me
      Just Shoot Me
      Legend
      November 18, 2020

      You need to send the Edited RAW file to Ps. Re-add your LrC edits then send to Ps and do your skin touch ups.

        T
        twhizzleAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        November 18, 2020

        @Just Shoot Me Thanks for your response.

         

        I have to try if that works, but, to be honest, for me it would make more sense to do the skin retouch BEFORE I do color-grading. In the example above, the tone and color shifts are not too drastic, but when I have a more drastic color grading, I wouldn't want to do a retouch on that.

        Or, another reason, if the model (or me, for that matter) is not happy with the color grading, it can be easily changed if all the color grading is done AFTER retouching. But if I, as suggested, retouch an already color graded file and I need to change color grading thereafter, I have to do the whole retouch again after applying a new color grading... I don't know, but to me, that doesn't make much sense, as retouching takes quite some time, compared to doing some color and tonality adjustments.

        Just Shoot Me
        Just Shoot Me
        Legend
        November 18, 2020

        The way you are now doing it you are dealing with 2 totally different image file and not only that but 2 different File Format. RAW and PSD, Never will they be the same. Adding LrC (Adobe Camera RAW) edits to a PSD file will never look the same as adding them to the RAW file the PSD came from unless you make those ACR/LrC edit before you send the file to Ps for further editing.

         

        That is the Whoile point of both LrC and ACR (along with simply PS can't READ RAW files it must always go through a RAW file Editor).

          D Fosse
          Community Expert
          D FosseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          November 18, 2020

          "Then, I wanted to synchronize settings between the developed non-retouched RAW and the PSD, in order to give the retouched PSD the same exposure/contrast/color as the RAW. Strangely, the tonality and colors are slightly off."

           

          You cannot do that. The anatomy of a raw file and a rendered RGB file are very different. The same numerical adjustments will mean different things.

           

          You see the same thing in Photoshop when you apply the very same adjustment to an sRGB file, an Adobe RGB file and a ProPhoto file. It means different things, so the results are different.

            T
            twhizzleAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            November 18, 2020

            @D Fosse Thank you for your response.

             

            I am curious, how would one handle this in order to have a consistent look within a series of photos? As described, most of them are RAWs, but when I do skin retouch, I do it in PS, so the retouched files are PSD.

             

            I use ProPhoto RGB.

            JohanElzenga
            Community Expert
            JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            November 18, 2020

            Please embed screenshots using this icon so that others do not have to download them to see them.

             

             

            The reason why you see differences is probably because you sync the raw profile too, but PSD files cannot have a raw profile.

             

            -- Johan W. Elzenga
              T
              twhizzleAuthor
              Participating Frequently
              November 18, 2020

              Hi Johan,

               

              thank you very much for your response.

              I will add the photo here as you described it.

               

              I have tried it without syncing the raw profile (deactivating "Treatment & Profile" in sync settings, I guess?), but the result was even more off...

              I really hope this is a mistake that I make (and that I am going to find out about) and not the way things are because that makes it very fiddly to have the same look through a whole series of photos when there are some RAWs and some PSDs.

               

              Thanks again.

               

              Thomas

               

               

              Thomas

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