Inspiring

Answered

File Size

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
March 29, 2019
5 replies
1790 views

From Lightroom I went to Photoshop to remove some blemishes on an image. I know I can do this in Lightroom, but out of habit, I right clicked on the image and selected edit in Photoshop). The original .DNG file was about 15 MB in size. The resulting .TIF file was about 92 MB in size. Why was it so much larger in size and is there a way to reduce that file size without degrading the TIF image?

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Correct answer JoeKostoss

mrdavie99 wrote
... I know I can do this in Lightroom, but out of habit, I right clicked on the image and selected edit in Photoshop)....

You answered your on questing in your OP. Old habits die hard. Firstly, storage space is inexpensive, so I don't worry about size if I get the image I am looking for. Secondly, I save Photoshop files as PSD rather than TIF. lastly, break that old habit; go to Photoshop only if Lightroom fails to give you the results you desire.

D Fosse

Community Expert

To put it bluntly:

If you worry about file sizes, you're in the wrong business.

JoeKostoss

Correct answer

Community Expert

mrdavie99 wrote
... I know I can do this in Lightroom, but out of habit, I right clicked on the image and selected edit in Photoshop)....

You answered your on questing in your OP. Old habits die hard. Firstly, storage space is inexpensive, so I don't worry about size if I get the image I am looking for. Secondly, I save Photoshop files as PSD rather than TIF. lastly, break that old habit; go to Photoshop only if Lightroom fails to give you the results you desire.

mrdavie99Author

Inspiring

I’m marking your answer correct as Lightroom does just fine allowing me to remove blemishes and tiny birds in distant views. In fact Photoshop is daunting to me when I try to post process with it in lieu of Lightroom. I’ve been plodding through Photoshop CC For Photographers (Martin Evening). I started to crop my image and got lost trying to lock it’s aspect. I know Photoshop is very powerful but I screw up images just trying to utilize its tools. It is sort of of like playing a computer-based car racing game and trying to avoid crashing into a wall, over and over.

D Fosse

Community Expert

A raw file is one channel at (usually) 14 bit depth.

After demosaicing and rendering into an RGB file it's three channels at 8 or 16 bit depth. So that's a x3 factor just from the two new channels.

A 16 bit file is roughly twice the size of an 8 bit file (disregarding metadata etc).

RGB formats may apply data compression to reduce file size from the uncompressed original.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Tiff images are inherently larger, and there is nothing you can do about that. In the Lightroom preferences you can choose whether to save 16 bit or 8 bit tiff images. If you choose it 8 bit the images will be quite a bit smaller. However, they will still be larger than the original image.

mrdavie99Author

Inspiring

I’ll try 8 bit and compare printed results.

ManiacJoe

Inspiring

Assuming that your original file's color depth is greater than 8-bit, you most likely will want to stay with a 16-bit TIF file. Turning on the loss-less file compression obviously helps. Personally, I save the files coming out of Photoshop as PSD files.

Tony_See

Inspiring

So the only function in Photoshop was to remove a couple of blemishes?

Was the bit size of the TIF file unchanged on export ?

mrdavie99Author

Inspiring

With Lightroom the precess is streamlined. I tell it to edit file in Photoshop and when I exit Photoshop it asks if I want to save it back to Lightroom. It may be default settings in Photoshop.

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