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Question

How to apply filters on top of a layer stack. (PS CS6)

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 27, 2020
2 replies
701 views

Firstly apologies for the poor description of what I am trying and failing to do. It's a problem of understanding that I have had for ever, it seems:

I have a very simple layer stack: original image and a few adjustment layers on top. The resultant image needs a lot of sharpening and noise reduction (the original image is a scan of an old Kodak colour negative). I want to use a High-Pass filter for sharpening and to apply a plug-in for noise reduction. Neither of these 'see' any data if I just apply them to the top (adjustment) layer. At this stage I don't want to merge the layers, so how do I apply the filter and the plug-in?

This topic has been closed for replies.

davescm

Community Expert

Hi

You can't compare raw file sizes on disk with TIFF/PSD. Each smart object increases file size by the size of a pixel layer - which is how it presents in the layer stack.

If you want to keep file sizes down take a look at keeping as much image adjustment as possible in the ACR/Lightroom environment. ACR stores the adjustment instructions as a list a small sidecar file alongside the image. Lightroom does the same and also has a catalogue of images. Both can handle noise reduction and sharpening but neither can handle direct pixel editing.

For those images where you need pixel editing, then you have to accept the file size vs editability compromise that goes with multilayer files and smart objects.

My current camera outputs a 45-55MB unprocessed raw file (content dependant) - which then has a 4-20KB

sidecar file containing the Lightroom adjustments.

Those same images result in 176MB Tiff (unedited) or, after Photoshop editing, typically 400MB-2GB files (although a few go up to 10GB. I disable compression on PSD/PSB files as faster loads are more important to me than disk space.

Personally, I take the view that disk space is relatively cheap and I just accept that modern day imaging requires plenty of disk space.

One thing though, you mention sharpening. I tend to sharpen the initial capture in Lightroom and do not sharpen the edited PSD master files. I leave that final sharpening until print/output time so that the final shapening is applied after resizing for output.

Dave

X

XEyedBearAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for spending time responding to my questions. Can I push it a bit further?

I've been an Lr user since V.1-beta and 'froze' at 6.14, being unwilling to pay further for a subscription (don't get me started!). However, for these analog-based images I guess I have to start with PS because I can't do the colour inversion process in Lr - can I?

I'm scanning these negatives in my Nikon Coolscan V ED, using Vuescan; output is a 48 bit RGB .dng file - following examples I see on YouTube (most notably that on Nate Photographic's Negative Lab Pro). The output from Vuescan requires inversion, colour balancing, curves adjustment, sharpening and noise-reduction. Yes, I can do all of those in Lr, aside from the critical first step - inversion. Also, the noise reduction is most necesssary on those old nehatives, in Lr 6.14 NR is rudimentary and the sharpening has been much improved since, hence the use of PS.

Yes, storage is relatively inexpensive - I've gone from having a total across all systems of about 1.5 GB 15 years ago to something like 12TB today, spread across about 10 drives of various ages and technology. But I don't think I want to get into the world of 400 MB image files and the necesssary upgrade to the rest of my computing resource this would require.

If I could do it all in Lr I would - so could I? Or, even better, in a Linux based solution, like Darktable.

davescm

Community Expert

Select all the layers and convert them to a single smart object. Apply your filters to the smart object.

To re-edit the content of the smart object just double click it.

Dave

X

XEyedBearAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes, thank you - that works well, against my stated problem; there is a side-efect: the resultant .tif is about 250MB in size; the 'original' .dng is about 125MB, so for my approx. 4K negatives which I wish to process I'm going to need about 1.5 TB, implying a 3TB drive, since I don't like filling a drive. But then I need 3 of these (for rotational backups), so I'll have a requirement of about 9TB of disk.

In contrast, my current portfolio of approx. 40K raw files from the last 15 years of digital camera use currently occupies about 7TB on the same basis, including exported .jpegs.

How can I reduce the size of these .tifs, while retaining them as smart objects (un flattened)?

Michael Bullo

Community Expert

Yes Smart Objects have a tendency to dramatically expand file sizes.

Your workflow sounds pretty straight forward. Have you considered using Lightroom? Lightroom eats large collections of images for breakfast. Also, the edits you make to images are stored within a Lightroom database and are minimal in size compared to the equivalent Photoshop workflow.

The noise reduction capabilities of Lightroom are great and it also supports plugins. I guess the big question would be whether it supports the particular plugin that you may need to use.

You mentioned CS6 so I'm guessing you aren't using Creative Cloud. Adobe offer Photography packages of software which include Photoshop and Lightroom starting from $10 per month
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

And no I don't get a commission 😉

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