Photoshop

[WEBROCK]

Hi all! Who in this group is a Photoshop expert and might be able to answer a question?

Why is Photoshop reducing the megapixels of a RAW file when you save it as a PSD back into LR? Even if I open a RAW file as a smart object and it saves back to LR, it’s drastically reducing the megapixels but file size increases. This just started happening.

I have even opened up the RAW file from LR into PS, and have done no edits, but saved it to see what happens, and it drastically reduces the megapixels. It shouldn’t.

Does anyone have any idea what could be going on?

Thank you!

[kglad]

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[Conrad_C]

Can you be more specific about how it happens? For example, how many megapixels is the raw file, and how many megapixels is the “drastically reduced” version that comes back from Photoshop?

Normally, that shouldn’t be happening. The only major change should be that it can no longer be raw. The single data stream in the raw file must always end up in an multi-channel (RGB) Photoshop document, even if the raw file is contained as a Smart Object within the new document. That expansion, by the way, will always result in a larger file size, which is unavoidable if you want Photoshop (or any other non-raw photo editor) to be able to work with the image. If you have set up Lightroom Classic to send files to Photoshop at 16 bits per channel, then you should expect the file size increase to be even higher.

But nothing about that process will reduce the number of megapixels. If the number of megapixels is actually being reduced, the cause is something else, which we can probably figure out. But first we need to know more, like exactly how much the width and height in pixels is being reduced during the round trip. Where in Photoshop and Lightroom Classic do you see that the number of megapixels was reduced?

[WEBROCK]

Hi,

Thank you for responding.  My RAW files are about 103mpx.  They are from the Fuji GFX100 II.

My process is as follows:

Load photos into LR

Make some minor adjustments in LR

Right click on photo and choose edit in Photoshop 2024

i do some editing in PS and then I choose Save as PSD

Once that file is in LR, I look at the info tab and that's where it is showing the megapixel count at 42mpx.  

I cannot understand why it's dropping the megapixels from 103 to 43.

Any ideas?

!

[Stephen Marsh]

@WEBROCK 

Can you confirm the before and after width/height in pixels?

[WEBROCK]

Hi,

I think I am seeing the issue.  The original is 11648x8736, but when it open in PS it changes it to 8192x5464.  I can change it to the original now that I see what's happening, but does anyone know why it's not opening in the original RAW size?

Thank you!

[Conrad_C]

It’s a very strange problem that I can’t reproduce. I downloaded a sample Fuji GFX100 II raw file, and everything worked as expected. It reports the original full pixel dimensions both when Lightroom Classic generates the TIFF copy through Edit In, and when opened into Camera Raw on the way to Photoshop, as shown in the picture below.

There might be a clue in your description, though. You said it gets resized to 8192 x 5464 px. The odd clue in there is that 8192 x 5464 px is not the same aspect ratio as the original 11648 x 8736 px.

11648 x 8736 px = aspect ratio 3:25 

8192 x 5464 px = aspect ratio 3:2

So, it is not just getting resized, but it is also either getting cropped or stretched. I originally thought maybe the resizing was being applied through a default in Camera Raw Settings / Workflow / Image Sizing, so I looked at that, but when I tried to enter 8192 x 5464, it would only produce 8192 x 6144 because that preserves the original aspect ratio.

That suggests that there is one more step being added somewhere that is causing both resize and an aspect ratio change (probably cropping), such as a Crop tool preset, some script running at Photoshop startup (like through File > Scripts > Script Events Manager), or something else.