Some thoughts on adjustments to a panorama dng created in LrC

[#1]

I made a trip to Machu Picchu Peru in 2015 and on my return, I created a pano of three raw images and had a print made which I have hanging in my living room.

I am considering having a reprint done and I have the dng pano file and would like some thoughts on some further editing. Should I send the three raw files for further editing in Ps. or send the pano.

Some thoughts would be appreciated. See the screen capture of the image and a crop at 1:1.

[#2]

If you send the raw files to Photoshop for editing then the finished product from Photoshop will be PSD or TIF files. I think you know that you can't edit the raw files in Photoshop. Camera Raw will do the conversion during the transfer from Lightroom to Photoshop. I think the best choice would be to work on the DNG panorama in Lightroom and send it to Photoshop as a smart object.

[#3]

Thanks for comments Jim, I am not that skilled with working in Ps and have never used smart objects for doing additional editing. I am willing to explore and need some ideas about what to try to enhance the final file to send for printing, using either LrC or Ps. I know that I eventually have to end with a tiff to send to the printers.

[#4]

The advantage of using the Smart object is that, once in Photoshop it's possible to double-click on the object (in the layers panel) and invoke the real Camera Raw rather than the filter so that you have access to the raw data in the DNG file. Then you can go back to Photoshop and continue working with the converted RGB data and switch back and forth until you get the final results you want and save that as your TIF file. That's why I was suggesting opening the DNG panorama as a Smart object.

If you try opening the raw files in Photoshop to edit them and then those raw files will have to be saved as TIF images and the panorama will have to be created from the TIF files. I suppose that wouldn't be such a bad thing. But I would rather work with the raw data as long as I could.

[#5]

What can I do in Camera Raw that’s not available in LrC?

[#6]

I’ve done DNG panoramas where there were specific edits I wanted to make that had to be done in Photoshop. But if I can avoid Photoshop I’ll do it, printing and/or exporting final files straight from Lightroom Classic, to maintain the maximum editing flexibility that’s available at the raw/DNG stage in Lightroom.

Looking at this panorama (which I have to pause for a second just to look at it and say…wow…that’s spectacular!…), I don’t see anything further that has to be done in Photoshop. Anything I can think of, mostly about evening out the exposure and color balance in places, can be done in Lightroom Classic with gradients. And maybe paint a little Texture into selected areas where it woudl be nice to enhance detail.

[#7]

I would send the DNG Pano to Ps. Depending on what edits you plan on making.

[#8]

Thank you Conrad, I will try your suggetion .