How can I create a shortcut or action to save as JPG

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 9, 2022
2 replies
1994 views

I use Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CS6. When I press Ctrl-E in Lightroom and choose "edit a copy with Lightroom adjustments" there is no format option (I selected TIF rather than PSD when setting up the external editor). And the problem is that when I want to save in Photoshop the default is TIF not JPG so each time I have to select JPG.

So my question is how can I create an action in PS or set up a shortcut which will make JPG the default. The problem is that I need to save many versions of each photo so I don't want an action that will overwrite with the same name. Ideally the action would stop at the point where I can still edit the filename (so just before pressing "Save") but when I tried this I could not stop recording the action at this point.

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

Earth Oliver

Legend

A gentle reminder that 6 or 7 years after its introduction, Export As can still not be added as an Action.

Adobe, FIX THIS!

D Fosse

Community Expert

If the file is finished in Lightroom you can Export directly to jpeg there.

Jpeg can never be a Save default in Photoshop, because the jpeg format specification lacks support for almost anything you can do to a file in Photoshop. A jpeg will in all but a few special cases be a copy with discarded properties.

The jpeg format does not support 16 bit depth, layers of any kind, transparency, or alpha channels.

However, you can set up an action that saves a copy to jpeg. If you assign an F key it's just a single keystroke. But before you do, you need to decide what to do with the full original with all properties intact.

N

nickc7863073Author

Participant

Thank you D Fosse for this. But to be clear I am talking about the Save As command. When I used Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 5 I could opt to edit externally in Photoshop as JPG (for some reason Lightroom Classic CC doesn't give me a JPG option for external editing, only TIF or PSD). And then when I wanted to "Save As" from Photoshop the default format was always JPG. The problem is I need to save many versions of each photo I edit and now each time I go to Save As the default is TIF and I have to change it which is very tiresome. I tried setting up an action but it is impossible to stop recording the action until the file is saved ie after I have amended the filename. So I can have an action to save a copy as, say, xxxxV1.jpg but I need to save several versions of the same photo so I would need a separate action for xxxxV1.jpg, xxxxV2.jpg, xxxxV3.jpg etc. Perhaps I should explain that the photos are for various news sites which require different watermarks, dimensions, etc.