CR2 to PSD or Tiff bad result

[green_photog]

<p>I use LR3 mostly for editing and I'll convert all CR2 to PSD in bridge and important them to LR3.<br>

However, before any editing is done, I notice that the CR2 pictures look more saturated than the same PSD image. And when I apply filters to the CR2 image, they come out fine while the same LR filter will always make the same PSD images look overexposed.<br>

I switched to TIFF and it's the same result as PSD. I though PSD should look the same as CR2 but apparently that's not the case. Am I missing something here? Thanks.</p>

[john_wheeler6]

<p>Hi Green Photog<br>

You may be missing something yet I know that I am missing something too. A good understanding of your workflow and why you do it that way.</p>

<p>From your description it sounds like you are importing through Bridge (and therefore effectively Adobe Camera Raw or ACR) doing a conversion to PSD and then after that importing both the Raw files and? the PSD files for adjustment in LR. If that is not the case, then I need a lot more clarity in the description of you workflow.</p>

<p>In general though, here are some ways that things can look different:<br>

1) In the Raw conversion process, you need to be using an version of ACR that is up to date and matched with the version/update of LR that you are using so that the engine is matched.<br>

2) Importing once through ACR and then importing Raw files into LR separately can end up with different results if your import options are not identically set up (e.g. Auto Tone or presets)<br>

3) When you convert to PSD the image is assigned both a bit depth (8 or 16 bit typically) and also a specific color space e.g. ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB, sRGB. This is determined by your settings in Adobe ACR. When importing Raw files to LR, they are converted to effectively ProPhoto RGB which is a wide gamut color space. If your conversion to PSD through ACR is set to convert to a smaller Color Space such as Adobe RGB or sRGB, then they will look less saturated. Importing PSD files into LR will retain whatever color space was originally assigned so could look quite a bit different than the CR2 Raw file that was converted to LR's ProPhoto RGB space.<br>

4) If you did the conversion to PSD with only 8 bit depth, adjustments made to the PSD file in LR will have much less latitude. So you could see the same slider adjustment in LR behave quite different because of that and also because the PSD file may be starting with a much smaller Gamut Color Space</p>

<p>So those are some reasons. What I don't understand is why you take the workflow path you do. There may be much easier ways to meet your needs without what appears to be going through two different Raw Converters as well as a PSD just to do you editing in LR. Can you see why your description might be confusing? Then again, it could just be me : )</p>

[green_photog]

<p>Thanks, John for the detail response.<br>

1. I use LR3 95% of the time but I do have some PS only plugins like Noiseware or Nik software. Because once you ran the plugins, everything will be in PSD. So I convert everything from Cr2 to PSD and selectively run the plugins.<br>

2. My normal workflow is to batch convert all Cr2 to PSD in Bridge, 16 bit, sRGB. Then import them to LR3. My Bridge, PS CS5 and LR3 are all up to date.<br>

3. I chose this workflow for the sake of convenience. Because if I ran the noiseware on one Cr2, it’ll be saved as PSD. Now I have the same picture but in both Cr2 and PSD in LR which I find confusing. I would rather run the plugins and overwrite the original file. I backup all Cr2s so if I do mess up after running the plugins, I can retrieve the Cr2 from backup.<br>

4. Another reason for not wanting to deal with Cr2 and PSD simultaneously in LR is that if all the settings are identical, I can copy and paste adjustment in LR very quickly. Mixing Cr2 with PSD will make global adjustments in LR not as easy.<br>

5. Since both LR and PS use ACR, I expected them to render Cr2 the same. I have double checked the settings, auto-tone is not checked in both LR and PS. The preset in LR is default.<br>

6. The biggest problem with PSD in LR is that the filter will all look overexposed while they’ll look just right if applied on Cr2.<br>

7. I just experimented by batch processing some Cr2 into TIFF in Canon DPP and importing them to LR3 and they look identical to the PS PSD or TIFF.<br>

8. If you have a better LR workflow from Cr2, I’m all ears.</p>

[john_wheeler6]

<p>Hi Green Photog<br>

Here is an alternative workflow</p>

<p>- Import Raw files into LR directly and work with the Raw files with 16 bit depth and the ProPhoto RGB Color Space (much larger Gamut than sRGB). Do all your adjustments from these Raw files<br>

- For just the 5% of the cases where you need Photoshop do the Edit in Photoshop with the options to leave it in 16 bit and ProPhoto RGB Color Space. This can be done either as TIFF or PSD file which is the file type that is brought back into LR when done editing in PS. If having a side by side CR2 and PSD/TIFF files for 5% of your images is too confusing you can a) stack the two images b) mark and then filter out the original CR2 file c) remove the CR2 file from the LR catalog.</p>

<p>Hope that helps</p>

[green_photog]

<p>Hi John,<br>

Thanks a lot, I'll give your workflow a try.</p>