Known Participant

Question

Does round-tripping between Lightroom (v4.4) and Photoshop (v22.5.1) actually work!?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
September 28, 2021
3 replies
792 views

I have lost so much time losing edits due to an issue that I just can not find the answer to anywhere. First of all, I'd just like to clarify that I am not talking about Lightroom Classic. I used that for years (successfully moving between LrC and PS in a round-tripping workflow), and wished I had not moved over to Lightroom (CC, Desktop, Cloud based version or whatever it's referred to now).

With PS app already open, I use the 'Edit in Photoshop' feature on an image in LR. The image pops up in PS as a TIFF. I will make my edits, which usually consist of duplicating layers/frequency sepration/adjustment layers etc. I save the file (not save-as) and close the file.

What I've found it about 15% of the time, the additional modified file does show up in LR. But the majority of the time (the remaining 85%) there is no sign of this amended file in LR. Sometimes the edits are saved in a file that sits in the /Users/[my username]/Lightroom Library.lrlibrary/TemporaryEdits location. But occasionally not. Sometimes the edits are completely lost.

It is absolutely driving me nuts how the results seem so variable and/or unreliable.

I have read about being aware of stacking, or filtered results when viewing in LR, but this just is not the issue for me. Has anyone had this same problem, or does anyone successfully rount trip between LR and PS, and if so, are there very precise steps I need to make in a particular order?

My system/versions are as follows:

Apple Mac Book Pro M1 2020 / MacOS Big Sur 11.6 / Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v4.4 / Adobe Photoshop v22.5.1

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

Saya ingin bergabung menjadi anggota dan admin publik

A

AudiotechnicalAuthor

Known Participant

GGGRRRRrrrr!!!!!! I've just lost about an hour's worth of retouching, as the retouched layered image never popped up in in Lightroom. Once I loaded the 'temp edits' version directly in PS, all my edits were gone, and it was just a flat single layered TIFF.

Man, this is killing me.

Potentially maybe it's the amount of time the image is open in PS that breaks the workflow link. I did nip out the house for the school run while it was open, so my machine went to sleep. But my changes were still present once it woke up. Then the usual close, then save. (Then wait to see if Lightroom gets busy. Which it didn't)

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

Well, your system going to sleep before you've saved any of the PS edits may be a factor, as the instructions do say that Lightroom must remain open while you are using the file in PS. When I have time I'll try forcing a sleep situation to see what happens then.

In my earlier post I mentioned the importance of closing the file in PS, as nothing will return to Lightroom until the file is closed in PS. Can you confirm that you are definitely closing the edited image in PS whilst Lightroom is still active?

A

AudiotechnicalAuthor

Known Participant

Absolutely yes. Lightroom remains open at all times. And the file is closed in PS (of which takes a while to save, as the original approx 40Mb CR3 file becomes a 600Mb+ TIFF) before I would expect to see any activity in LR.

I do not fully Quit/Exit PS though. But I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of your question, and I suspect has no importance.

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

I'm not seeing any issues with the round-trip to PS and back from Lightroom Desktop. I'm using a very similar setup to you (M1 Mac Mini running Big Sur 11.6), and so far it works every time. I've tried slightly different steps, such as closing in PS then selecting Save in the close dialog, and also doing the Save first before closing the file. Noticeably, if doing the Save first nothing happens until the file is then closed in PS, so the "Close" is key here.

It also didn't matter if PS was open or not when initiating the round-trip from Lightroom.

It might help (at least until you're happy that it's working correctly) to create a temporary new album, then add the source image to that new album. Then select that album so that you'll only have that single image available to select. If you operate from All Photos or other filter, the returing image isn't added to any album, making it more difficult to track down.....whereas when working from a specifically selected album the returning Tiff should be added to that same album. So, select the album then select the source image and initiate the round-trip, and after the save/close the Tiff should appear back in that new album, making it easy to spot. If that doesn't work, you'll know there's a definite problem going on.

A

AudiotechnicalAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Jim, thats really great to hear it's working reliably for someone out there! It gives me hope!

I do appreciate your suggestion of isolating a single file in a temp album just to make it easier to understand whether the image has replicated back or not. I will do that, just to be absolutely sure. However, the spinning circle on the little cloud icon (top right) of LR generally informs me that a new image is present. I always see this when the photo has replicated back. I'm fairly sure that on the occasions it does NOT replicate back, there is no activity/spinning circle on that icon.

In addition to this enquiry, of which I've not mentioned yet, but I think now is a good time; When you open in PS, does it automatically appear as a TIFF? Also does it flatten the layers on the TIFF once returning back to LR? When I used Lightroom Classic, I particularly enjoyed that you could instruct PS to open (and save) as a PSD, and also being able to open it again in PS (again from LrC) and all the layers are present. Whats your take on this?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded