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Participant
November 23, 2018
Question

Stop Lightroom from auto-importing PSD's after clicking edit-in Photoshop

  • November 23, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 1864 views

Is there any way to stop PSD's from being added to Lightroom, after clicking edit-in Photoshop off the RAW image? For me, It's highly annoying, and it ruins my flow of selects. I'm probably being a little picky, but I just don't want the PSD's to consistently add themselves all the time.

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    4 replies

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 2, 2023

    The request is legitimate, even if it was met with pretty solid resistance in this thread. I'd want that option myself, but I realize I have a non-typical workflow because we use dedicated DAM software for RGB master files. So I'm not a heavy user of Lightroom's catalog functions, that part of it is mostly taken care of elsewhere.

     

    I use Lightroom mainly as a high-volume raw processor, for which it is still vastly more efficient than a Bridge/ACR workflow. But I keep my raw files strictly separate from my RGB masters, to the point where I have them on separate physical disks.

     

    I'm just mentioning this to point out that there are scenarios where you want Lightroom to not automatically catalog your RGB files. I'm sure there are other scenarios too. Enough, IMO, that there should be an option in preferences. I'm fine with it, I can work around it. But it can sometimes be a small nuisance. Just saying.

    Participant
    May 2, 2023

    I agree. If I just want to export an image quickly, Lightroom thinks it's smart and auto-imports it for me. I don't want it to! Please allow us the ability to turn off auto-importing of "edit in Photoshop" > Save as JPG.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 2, 2023

    Have you tried this: Edit in Photoshop, use 'Export as JPG' in Photoshop rather than 'Save as' and then close the Photoshop image without saving it. That should do what you want.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    Just Shoot Me
    Legend
    November 23, 2018

    None that I can find.

    Why don't you want them added? If you select "Stack With Original" in the External Editing tab of the LR Preferences they show up right next to the original which makes them easy to find and ignore if you so choose.

    fierce_teacher98A1
    Participating Frequently
    December 1, 2022

    hi there! sorry for bringing up the old question, but I have the same problem. I don't want them added because I believe they increase the size and weight of the LR catalog. Isn't that so? And my catalog is already overweight. So what I do now is I manually remove the PSD files from LR. But it's extra work. Maybe there's a way to at least select all the PSD files in LR with a single move and remove them? any advice would be highly appreciated! 

    Community Expert
    December 1, 2022

    I suppose the question boils down to: what are images going to Photoshop for. The normal assumption is that a modified image will be coming back to the Catalog, because if the Catalog didn't need a modified image, it would not have sent one out for modification.

     

    One option in PS may be to Duplicate the document in PS that has come from LrC. Then to close the latter unsaved, in which case LrC will treat this as a cancelled edit and will not import anything. Then the duplicated PS document can be saved or not saved, and LrC will not know anything about it either way.

     

    Another approach may be to produce your desired end result file from inside PS using "Save to Web and Devices" - exporting a JPG copy out, usually - and then to close the working document unsaved. Again, LrC will regard this as a cancelled edit. This would be appropriate when one was (say) annotating or redacting an image for a given momentary usage, and did not need to keep the working PSD or TIFF used to do that. 

     

    The other option has already been proposed: to Export the image to TIFF format, but in doing so to select the Photoshop executable in the Postprocessing section of the LrC export settings. Thus a new file is saved into the chosen place and PS is told to open that file up for editing. This way the Catalog will not know or care when you later save changes in PS, back to this same file or to a different one.

     

    The export settings give you control over location and naming - if you want,. it can be in the same folder as the imported starting file and it can be given a "-edit" suffix. Or maybe some other location and/or suffix might be better. IMO it is always a good idea to distinguish files that are imported to LrC (where the Catalog will care if you move, delete or modify them behind its back) - vs files that LrC is not managing and 'watching'.

    john beardsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    November 23, 2018

    You can try using Save As in Photoshop, or switch to using Export and making PS the post processing step .

    But LR/PS are working as they do for a reason, allowing LR to control the whole photographic workflow. Think twice before going against the underlying concept.

    Just Shoot Me
    Legend
    November 23, 2018

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/john+beardsworth  wrote

    You can try using Save As in Photoshop, or switch to using Export and making PS the post processing step .

    But LR/PS are working as they do for a reason, allowing LR to control the whole photographic workflow. Think twice before going against the underlying concept.

    On my system using Save As still returns the, in my case, TIFF file back to LR. Excluding the "Edit" text name change normally included when sending an image to PS.

    IIRC in previous versions of LR/PS using the Save As option did NOT return it to LR. Adobe has changed that in recent versions, at least on my systems.

    john beardsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    November 23, 2018

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/Just+Shoot+Me  wrote

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/john+beardsworth   wrote

    You can try using Save As in Photoshop, or switch to using Export and making PS the post processing step .

    But LR/PS are working as they do for a reason, allowing LR to control the whole photographic workflow. Think twice before going against the underlying concept.

    On my system using Save As still returns the, in my case, TIFF file back to LR. Excluding the "Edit" text name change normally included when sending an image to PS.

    You know, that's how I thought it was supposed to work, but I thought recently it had stopped doing so.

    So the OP's direct answer is to use Export, and the post processing step.