Lightroom and Photoshop

[keith_plechaty]

<p>I have two Photoshop CS3/Lightroom 2.7 questions.</p>

<ol>

<li>When I stitch raw images together for a panorama, should I suppress all of lightroom's adjustments (Sharpening, noise reduction, exposure adjustment, etc), export to Photoshop, stitch together, then once the panorama is back in Lightroom use lightroom's adjustment tools?</li>

<li>When I need to edit a raw image in photoshop, same question as above, suppress the adjustments, edit in photoshop, and then once back in lightroom use the lightroom adjustment tools?</li>

</ol>

<p>Thanks.</p>

 

[digitaldog]

<p>I don’t think so. I figure you’d want to describe the best rendering settings for the eventual stitch. Once you render an image in Photoshop, you’re basically (you should be) done in Develop. Develop is really for processing raw data. </p>

[dbcooper]

<p>1. I'd apply the LR adjustments equally to all the images that will be stitched, so that the stitching blends smoothly. You can do that with the 'Copy' and 'Paste' buttons on the lower left panel in the Develop module. Output sharpening from LR is probably unnecessary for this purpose (before stitching), and may be detrimental to the stitching process. OTOH, I don't see anything wrong with RAW pre-sharpening as long as it's applied equally to the pre-stitched images.</p>

<p>I don't see anything wrong with adjusting the stitched image in LR. PS is certainly more capable for final adjustments if you need the tools, but you might find LR easier and simpler. Just be sure to export from LR to PS and back in a lossless, compatible format (dng, psd, tif).</p>

<p>2. I much prefer LR's UI to ACR. YMMV.</p>

<p>Although LR's primary purpose is as a RAW converter, it'll do adjustments to any compatible image. If LR's designers didn't intend external editing, they wouldn't have included the 'Photo/Edit In' menu function in the 'Develop' menu. For file management purposes, keeping a copy of your stitched images in LR may be the best solution if you manage your other images with the LR database.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>When stitching panoramas, it is more important to be consistent than to be "right". Adjusting an image can't add anything, just take away. If you are otherwise consistent - manual exposure, manual focus and not zoom - leave everything in 16 bit mode and do the tuning on the stitched image. You can do some adjustments in Lightroom or just use the defaults, but do the same to each image in the set. The stitching program should make fine adjustments to align and blend the images. Photoshop can do elementary stitching, but a program like PTGui is much more effective.</p>