P: Is there an easy way to save as JPEG when working between CS5 and Lightroom 3?

[cedarhouse]

After importing raw files into Lightroom, I want to work on some of them in Photoshop, then save it back to Lightroom as a JPEG file - not a huge TIFF. I used to be able to do this in previous versions, but not in CS5 and Lightroom 3. It is a pain to have to go re-import everything I work on. Any solutions?

[Brett N]

Hello David,

I see what you're talking about here. The problem seems to be with Photoshop CS5. I tested with Lightroom 3 with CS4 and it works. I'll log a bug on this.

[cedarhouse]

Thanks

[cedarhouse]

Brett,
Do you think there will be an updated fix to this anytime soon?

[J453]

David, I looked at the bug notes. This behavior occurs when the file is 16-bit and saved as a JPEG. In this case, Photoshop wants to use the Save "As a Copy" option because we don't want to automatically overwrite/lose the users 16-bit data. The workaround is to convert the image to ‘8bits/channel’ mode, and uncheck the ‘As a copy’ option in the ‘Save as’ menu. The saved JPEG should then be saved and imported to Lightroom.

Can you let me know if these steps work as expected?

Note: In Photoshop CS4 and earlier, the user was forced to convert to 8-bit before saving as a JPEG was enabled - so that's why you didn't see this happen in earlier versions.

[cedarhouse]

Yes, that worked! That relieves a lot of frustration. Is there a way to set my default to 8 bit so I don't have to manually change the mode every time?

[J453]

In Lightroom, choose Preferences>External Editing. Set the Bit-Depth to "8 bits/component"