I can't open photoshop from lightroom

[gabi1200]

I can't open photoshop (v.25) from lightroom (v.12.5) 

I can't open photoshop from lightroom, the option is turned off

Thanks

[AxelMatt · Accepted solution]

When the 'link' between Lightroom Classic and Photoshop has issues, the first step is to try this:

Use the Adobe Creative Cloud Application to uninstall Photoshop. When asked, keep preferences! After this reinstall Photoshop again.

If this doesn't help the nest step is to reinstall both apps Lightroom and Photoshop. Please folloe the steps below:

1. Open the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Client and uninstall both Photoshop and Lightroom Classic. When asked, keep preferences! 

2. Install Photoshop first and then Lightroom Classic. The right order is very important here!

If this doesn't help try the reinstallation with removing the preferences also.

[gabi1200 · Accepted solution]

That helped me, without removing the preferences 

Thanks

[kenucklehead]

I'm having the same issues and just tried all of this (uninstall keeping preferences, uninstall deleting preferences, etc.) but am still experiencing the same problem. Trying to open in Photoshop just causes Photoshop to freeze. Photoshop on it's own if fine. Lightroom on it's own is fine. Getting these two Adobe products to work together, not so much. Any other tips would be appreciated. Just so annoying.

[kenucklehead]

I'm having the same issues and just tried all of this (uninstall keeping preferences, uninstall deleting preferences, etc.) but am still experiencing the same problem. Trying to open in Photoshop just causes Photoshop to freeze. Photoshop on it's own if fine. Lightroom on it's own is fine. Getting these two Adobe products to work together, not so much. Any other tips would be appreciated. Just so annoying.

[kentdesign]

ARe you on Mac or PC and which OS?

[kenucklehead]

I'm on a Mac. Sonoma. Was working fine originally until I did an update to Creative Suite. Now photoshop just freezes ifni attempt to open photos from Lightroom..

[kentdesign]

still soumnds like the link from LR to PS is somehow broken or not responding.

When you tied uninstalling deleting preferences and then reinstalled PS and LR, did you try shutting down the computer after uninstalling and before reinstalling both?

[kenucklehead]

No, I haven't tried that. I'll give that a go as the next steps. Thanks

[kenucklehead]

Nope. No luck. Uninstalled, removing all the settings, restarted, reinstalled. Same problem. 😞

[kentdesign]

I have been searching the site to see if anyone else had reported this issue. If I understand correctly, you upgraded to Sonoma and both PS and LR are working however you cannot open Photoshop from Lightroom?

I do not yet have SOnoma installed, so I cannot follow the links... and I have not been able to find any other answers. I am hoping one of the other community can help..???

[kenucklehead]

Not quite. I don't believe it was related to Sonoma. I believe it was related to an update to Creative Suite. Everything was working fine and then after an update of PS and LR, the link got broken. I have no problems working with Photoshop or Lightroom in any way. But even with PS open, if I'm in Lightroom and ask to edit a file in PS, PS freezed and stops responding, forcing me to restart PS.

[henningmet]

I have a similar problem since the update to 25.7. When I try to open several files (e.g. 5) from Lightroom Classic in Photoshop, it does not work. A single file works. This is quite annoying as I always have to edit many files.
After I went back to Photoshop 25.6, the problem is solved.
And I have Windows 11.

[kenucklehead]

Dayam!! That did the trick! And I'm on MacOS so it's even a different system. It's working properly again! Thanks for the suggestion. I guess Adobe needs to fix what they broke with the newest PS update!

[kentdesign]

I'm not sure if this would help, but there have been reports in the past that the drive that Photoshop uses did not have enough space to open Photoshop and make edits, so can you see how much space you have on whatever drive you were using probably your internal drive. It could be that downloading the whole new creative suite and Sonoma somehow your drive was filled up And not left enough space I believe Photoshop needs something like five times the space of a file the size of a file to even do anything. I'm not sure about that number, but that has been a problem in the past for some people. 

[kenucklehead]

Unfortunately, that's not an issue. Lots of storage on both the drive PS is installed on and the one the files are on. The previous suggestion of going back one update resolved the problem though!

[kenucklehead · Accepted solution]

update. As it turns out, going back one version didn't fully resolve the issue. It seems it had to do with my Lightroom library being located on an encrypted drive. Odd, because it was always on that same drive. Looks like the update caused Lightroom to no longer be able to process from an encrypted drive (I could use Lightroom to open the "original" files (tiffs, jpegs, etc)  no problem but as soon as there were Lightroom edits or raw files or the layering of multiple files, Photoshop froze). The problem was only fully fixed when I transferred everything onto a non-encrypted drive.

[Dodastar77]

A workaround is to use the additional external editor in preferences under the external editor. Set it up, and you must choose the Photoshop application on the right. Name and save it. Use that option in the "edit in" menu. In that same menu, there will be two choices for "edit in Photoshop app."  Use the second one. It should work.

[kenucklehead]

After a lot of fiddling and troubleshooting with a couple of techs, we seem to have identified the issue I was having and hopefully have a solution moving forward. Here's a summary of the issues I had and what troubleshooting was able to identify as the problem:

1. I could not open any RAW files in my LRC catalog with Photoshop without it freezing
2. I could not open and file in my LRC catalog that had LR adjustments made with photoshop without it freezing
3. I COULD open TIF (and I'm assuming JPEGs, etc.) files in my LRC catalog with Photoshop as long as I use the Edit Original option (no LR adjustments).

During troubleshooting, it turned out

1. I COULD open any file in my LRC catalog with Photoshop, even if there are LR adjustments AS LONG AS THE CATALOG WAS ON MY MACINTOSH HD!
2. It turned out everything worked normally with a backup catalog that was found on a backup drive. The only difference is the drive I'd been having the problem with is ENCRYPTED whereas the backkup drive wasn't.

It seems the issue I (and likely many others) was having is that I was working off an encrypted external drive. Now, the weird thing is this same drive worked normally previously and the problems started occuring after an update to PS/LRC. There seems to be some sort of mismatch in PS/LRC software with the current encryption protocols on MacOS. I'm decrypting the drive as we speak and will report back once I can confirm that the issue has been resolved.

[kentdesign]

Wow - that was a very different reason and solution than most would have thought. Thank you for following up to let us all know !

[kenucklehead]

Yeah, I hope this might save someone else from the headaches I went through.

And I'm here to confirm that now that the drive is no longer encrypted, everything works fine again.