P: TIFF compression settings have no effect when Lightroom sends image to Photoshop for editing

[noalorama5]

Hello, I believe this is a bug..When using edit in Photoshop from Lightroom with TIFF format set, none of the compression settings work. Because when the file is saved in Photoshop (ctrl+s) and comes back to Lightroom it's always an uncompressed TIFF. Every other setting works.Unfortunately I can't tell whether the fault is on Lightroom or Photoshop side..Tested on Win 7 - 64bit with LR 3.6 - 64bit and PS CS5.1 - 64bit, also on Win XP - 32bit LR 3.5, PS CS5. (In both cases camera raw version match) Lightroom 4 behaves the same.I would appreciate your replies, Thank you

[noalorama5]

Come on, anyone? I know there is more important stuff to deal with these days, and it ́s not that crucial, but I just wanted to bring this to attention, becasuse there are new versions of LR and PS still on their way. And this seems to be an obvious bug.

It would be nice to hear from some of you or Adobe. I tried it on 2 different computers and it was the same. If anyone can just try it as well and confirm this behaviour or not. It ́s pretty quick.. Thank you

[c.pfaffenbichler]

If you save a flat file as a Tiff in Photoshop and the file’s size in the Finder is less than the size as indicated in Image > Image Size then obviously it has been compressed – are the files smaller or not?

But you mention ctrl-S, to change the compression settings from Photoshop you would have to do a File > Save As.

[noalorama5]

No, size of the saved file is the same as indicated in photoshop image size dialog. The point is that the image coming from Lightroom should keep the compression settings in Lightroom preferences when it's handed to Photoshop. I found out when I merged 3 images from Lightroom to panorama via edit in ps and ended with one 900 MB file when saved, even though there was compression set in LR. It just doesn't work.

Yes, save as option in Photoshop is a workaround, but this is not the way it's supposed to work I think. I don't want to change compression because I have it already set in Lightroom edit in preferences. Ctrl-S in PS should keep all the settings and hand the file back to LR. It keeps all settings such as bit depth and color space except compression. But thanks for your reply

[noalorama5]

I just tried with LR 4.1 and Photoshop CS6 trials on win7x64 and this bug is still present! Tiff compression setting in LR has zero effect.

For example, I send 4 images with merge to panorama in Photoshop and if I don't want to end up with 700MB+ file I need to do save as with compression in PS which doesn't send the output file back to LR catalog so I need to synchronize folder to have it in catalog. It just breaks the recommended workflow.

Please Adobe, do something with it. Thank you

[Todd-Russell]

Thomas, I have the same issue as posted here in the LR forums:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/46637...

This problem still exists with LR4.1 when using PS CS6, at least on Windows 7 64 bit systems.

In addition, the TIFF ‘Byte Order’ is set to ‘Macintosh’ (Big-endian) instead of ‘IBM PC’ (Little-endian), which is what LR’s Export module uses. So, there is a clear “inconsistency” concerning byte order implementation and a definite “bug” in that the compression setting is not applied when using ‘Edit In’ PS.




Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Team please add to the bug list for correction.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best Regards,

Todd Shaner

[LRuserXY]

Bug is still present in LR 4.4 and LR 5 beta, too (Win 7, 64 Bit, with PS CS6 64 Bit with ACR 8.1b). The compression setting in export works, but not in "Edit in PS".

[Lee Jay]

Doesn't this seem like a problem with the save settings in PS, rather than an LR problem?

[Todd-Russell]

Adobe is the developer of both Photoshop and Lightroom and they wouldn't have added a feature like this in LR if it doesn't work in PS. Does it work for anyone out there?

[Lee Jay]

It seems to work perfectly for me. When I edit with "none" selected under compression, the resulting TIF is 46.8MB. When I do the same with "ZIP" selected, the resulting TIF is 27.4MB. If I edit the ZIPed version and save it from PS, the resulting image is 33.2MB, indicating to me it must still be compressed.

Windows 7 64, LR5.

[LRuserXY]

Interesting...

Perhaps it is related to the operating system (do you use Mac or Win?), and/or the combination of LR and PS, and their versions.

Also: In your case, does LR or PS render the TIFF? Perhaps it works correctly when LR renders the TIFF and this is indeed a communication problem between LR and PS, so that PS does not get the information correctly how to compress the TIFF when saving it.

[Todd-Russell]

Using LR5 beta I did an Edit In PS CS6 'Let LR Render' and then I Saved As a 2nd file from inside PS with no compression, and Saved As a 3rd file with ZIP compression. Very strange results:

LR Render with ZIP: 106,208 KB
PS Save As with ZIP: 118, 880 KB
PS Save As with No Compression: 124,625 KB
LR Render with ZIP & Save As with ZIP in PS: 118,880 KB

I would have expected the two ZIP files to be identical. All three have identical document sizes (120.3MB), resolution (5616x3744), 16 bit mode, and ProPhoto RGB profile. My LR Preferences External File Handling is set for 16 bit, ProPhoto RGB, ZIP Compression. Any ideas?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Photoshop is writing more metadata into the file than Lightroom, so the files it writes will be slightly larger due to that metadata.

[noalorama5]

It never worked for me, even on clean OS install. What I know, it only works when ACR version is different, so LR renders the TIFF itself. Looks like it's more of a PS problem then.

[Todd-Russell]

118,880 KB - 106,208 KB = 12,672 KB or about 12.7 MB.
Chris, that's a lot of metadata–What kind of PS metadata are you referring to? The file I tested is from a Canon 5D MKII CR2 with only default LR adjustments applied.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm trying to provide you with some additional information. I don't know why the sizes differ, exactly. Also, the metadata may vary with your system setup and steps you've applied in editing the image.

[Todd-Russell]

I checked the files using EXIFToolGUI and there isn't a significant difference in the metadata, so there's something else going on that remains a mystery.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

that's odd, they come from the same company. they should be able to compatiable with each other. and tiff compression vb.net is an easy job for them too.

[DHill]

I think I can see what's happening. When I had incompatible versions of LR and ACR (LR5 and PS CS5 - no idea what ACR version that is but pre-LR5), the 'edit in PS' option in LR led to a box asking if I wanted to render with LR. Choosing this option exported a tiff to PS with the settings chosen in the LR preferences (e.g. ZIP compression), which came back into LR upon closing in PS. Perfect.

Now, I'm trialling PS CC with LR 5. The 'render with LR' option doesn't appear, and the file shows as .nef (not .tif!) in PS. When I subsequently save it, it's saved as a tif but with no options to choose compression settings. Significantly less than perfect.

Or am I missing something or doing something wrong?

My objective is to save all my tiffs with ZIP compression, without having to do a manual 'save as' which interrupts the round trip from LR --> PS --> LR.

[Todd-Russell]

This issue is still present with LR5.3 and ACR8.3 when opened in PS CS6. CTRL +S (Save) saves the TIFF file with NONE for compression. I would imagine it's the same with PS CC. Did you compare file sizes with CTRL S and then a 'Save As' with a different name selecting ZIP compression?

[LRuserXY]

It is normal (and intended) that it is displayed as .NEF in PS. This is the normal way it should work when LR's and PS's ACRs are compatible: LR does not pass a pre-rendered TIF, but instead only passes a reference to the original raw to PS, plus the development settings. The ACR of PS is then responsible for rendering the image. When that is done, the original filename is disyplayed in PS (the image is now just in-memory, and is not yet a TIFF or PSD). Only when saving, PS uses the file type (PSD or TIFF) specified by LR to save the actual file (the image name displayed in PS changes accordingly).

What is still not normal is that the compression settings are ignored in the last step by PS (or perhaps they are not correctly passed by LR to PS).

[DHill]

Suspected as much with your first para (though still prefer to have the 'render by LR' option), and completely agree with your second para - that's the problem.

Would be great to get a comment from the LR and/or PS teams to give their thoughts on this (when they're back from their holidays 😉 )

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom explicitly tells Photoshop to save the TIFF images with no compression when Lightroom opens the images in Photoshop for editing. Photoshop is just doing what the Lightroom team told it to do.

[DHill]

Thanks very much, Chris - but then why is there an option in LR (Edit > Preferences > External Editing tab) that enables you to explicitly choose ZIP or LZW compression for files to be edited in PS?

It's this option that I've set to ZIP compression, but which seems to be ignored ...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It sounds like the Lightroom team made some changes (incompatible with their earlier wishes) that they failed to communicate to the Photoshop team. I'll have to check with them once I get back to the office.

[DHill]

Thanks again, Chris. It would be great to have this functionality (as great as it was when I was using 'incompatible' versions of LR and PS! - maybe I should just cancel my CC subscription 😉 ).