Photoshop edits won't show in Lightroom when layers were used and merged

Question

I'm having issues when editing a photo from Lightroom in Photoshop. If i use layers and then merge those layers and save, it will not show back up in Lightroom. If i don't use layers it works. I've resinstalled both PS and LR and I've reset all presets.

richardplondon · Answer

Make sure you have got PS set to include a "compatibility preview" when it saves layered PSD files.

Even if you've merged layers, that is not the same necessarily as a true flattened file since there may still be some transparency able to happen. But you don't need to flatten layers anyway, in order to show your PS edits back in LrC (although any transparency will get rendered as white by PS when it generates this compatibility preview - since that is in effect flattened pixel information).

I think the PS setting is the one highlighted green below:

Sometimes people turn this option off, because doing so economises the file size - but Lightroom and Lr Classic like many other programs, depend on this flattened preview of the layer stack being present. Not being able to interpret a PS document's layers, nor how they are to be combined, they must rely on PS having already done this.

I believe that layered TIFF files will always include a compatibility preview regardless of how this saving option is set.

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