problems with presets & going between LR & CS3

[monkeyman2279]

i have come here upon the advice of someone on the fred miranda forum. here is a link to my original question http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/579432/'

but ill restate again here in hopes that maybe ill better be able to explain everything.

heres my situation. ive had a couple of portrait session with some highschoolers. had a great time, got some good stuff, etc. the only problem is that theyve had just awful skin...

what i would love to be able to do is have my RAW files that i bring into LR, pick a pic, send it to CS3 via the "edit in CS3 command", heal the skin, maybe smooth the skin and sometimes liquify clothing thats sticking out, THEN bring that back into LR (16bit TIFF or PSD) and have my presets act the same, so that i have lots of options to show people on the spot, without some of the more harsh presets freaking everyone out with the skin.

basically i just want to have create a base image with nice clean skin that i can later season, to taste, in LR.

as it stands, no matter how neutral and zero'd i try to make the raw image that i export, when i bring it back, the presets just act very differently.

if you read the thread i posted, you will see someone post an example which is almost exactly like what i saw.

so is there a way to get the newly created -EDIT file to "act" like the raw file?

someone mentioned smart objects in PS3, but thats way beyond me.

so any help would be greatly appreciated.

thank you for your time and God bless.

 

[Clicio Barroso]

So is there a way to get the newly created -EDIT file to "act" like the raw file?

MonkeyMan, it would be great if you provided a real name *and* your equipment configuration, as per rules of this Forum.
Anyway, try to convert your Edit.psd to DNG in LR.
It will not behave exactly like an original RAW, because all develop presets become relative with a non-raw file, instead of being absolute (much more elbow space for corrections).
So I think presets (made to work in absolute values with raw files) will never act exactly the same with both files, but in most cases pretty close.
Hope it helps!
:!:

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Welcome to Lightroom Forums Steven! It's great to have you here!

Equipment specs really do help give specific advise, which is why they are requested. You'll find information on setting up your signature here and screenshots here.

Smart objects in CS2/CS3 are great, but they won't help in this situation, I'm afraid.

The processing on tiff/jpeg etc is completely different to the processing on a raw file. Your best bet is to create 2 sets of presets which give basically the same result - one set for raw files, and one set for everything else.

How are you showing the seniors their pictures? Within LR?

I'd be inclined to make your white balance/density adjustments, do your retouching, and then export everything out to low res jpeg. Then when you're showing the seniors their pictures, you'll be using the same file format - so your newly created 'jpeg presets' will work the same on every image.

 

[monkeyman2279]

victoria,

thanks for the welcome. yeah, signature should be updated now.

creating a DNG file seemed nice except that i cant save that in CS3 to take back in LR with my new edits, unless i save it as a TIFF which means that i havent solved anything...

i guess all i can say is that i dont get WHY this doesnt work. unfortunately im not too technical with the actual nuts and bolts of things like PS and LR. this would make more sense to me if you were throwing away information, like when you go to 8bit jpeg from RAW...i just figured that when you, supposedly, arent losing anything by going 16bit, you could make a TIFF or PSD look and react like a RAW. i guess not. certainly this is something that we will be able to do one day, right? please say yes...

i think ill start looking into tweaking the presets to get the RAW look for all my TIFFs

 

[DonRicklin]

Steven. Your sig says LR V1.1, why not the current 1.2?

Don

 

[monkeyman2279]

Steven. Your sig says LR V1.1, why not the current 1.2?

Don

hey don,

ive just been in the middle of a lot of pictures lately and i didnt want to take the chance of something funky happening with all my old catalogs (since it kinda has). i plan on updating both my laptop and desktop (alienware) as soon as things slow down. for the record, i did however update my ACR in PS.

 

[DonRicklin]

Fine with me. Just wondering. Some don't because of issues and if you were having some with 1.2, we'd want to know what.

Take your time. Don't blame you for waiting 'til you get to a better spot to upgrade.


Don

 

[Victoria Bampton]

make a TIFF or PSD look and react like a RAW. i guess not. certainly this is something that we will be able to do one day, right? please say yes...

I'd love to say yes, but it's incredibly unlikely. Raw files are linear, tiffs/psds/jpegs are not. We're talking about the difference between apples and pears.

 

[monkeyman2279]

is there such a thing as a neutral or zero'd white balance.

what i mean is by default LR does a few little tweaks to the file youre looking at such as +5 blacks, +5'brightness, +25 contrast and a medium contrast tone curve.

so should i just leave WB as shot or change something to it if i were to make it more like what the sensor saw?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

As Shot is basically the white balance that the camera thought it should use if it was creating a jpeg, and that value is tagged in the metadata of the raw file, so Lightroom reads and uses it. If you shot using a custom white balance which was perfectly neutral, then As Shot should be neutral. That's the closest you're going to get to a 'zero'd white balance' for a raw file anyway. If you set any other figure, it'll be right for some light and wrong for others.

LR does a few little tweaks, you're quite right. Actually, it does a whole heap of major tweaks that you don't even see. If you could look at a raw file (which you can't, because it's just 1's and ''s), it would a miserable flat mess. The blacks/brightness/contrast/tone curve are the defaults for good reason - I certainly wouldn't flatten them all if I were you.

So Steven, just run past me what you're trying to accomplish here? Are you thinking you'll zero everything out or something?

 

[Mark Sirota]

is there such a thing as a neutral or zero'd white balance.

what i mean is by default LR does a few little tweaks to the file youre looking at such as +5 blacks, +5'brightness, +25 contrast and a medium contrast tone curve.

Your question is somewhat confusing. The blacks, brightness, contrast, and curve have nothing to do with the white balance.

The "As Shot" white balance is probably the closest thing to "neutral or zero'd white balance". There has to be *some* white balance; As Shot just uses whatever the camera was set to (or whatever the camera chose, if the camera was set to automatic). The other possible choice is "Auto", which lets Lightroom choose the white balance based on the contents of the file.

You can select the "General - Zeroed" preset to zero the blacks, brightness, contrast, and curve rather than applying the defaults. Or you can change the defaults, or create a develop preset of your own.

 

[monkeyman2279]

As Shot is basically the white balance that the camera thought it should use if it was creating a jpeg, and that value is tagged in the metadata of the raw file, so Lightroom reads and uses it. If you shot using a custom white balance which was perfectly neutral, then As Shot should be neutral. That's the closest you're going to get to a 'zero'd white balance' for a raw file anyway. If you set any other figure, it'll be right for some light and wrong for others.

LR does a few little tweaks, you're quite right. Actually, it does a whole heap of major tweaks that you don't even see. If you could look at a raw file (which you can't, because it's just 1's and ''s), it would a miserable flat mess. The blacks/brightness/contrast/tone curve are the defaults for good reason - I certainly wouldn't flatten them all if I were you.

So Steven, just run past me what you're trying to accomplish here? Are you thinking you'll zero everything out or something?

im trying to get as close to zero on everything as possible because, in the little bit of testing ive done, exporting a zero'd file to PS and bringing it back in LR to apply presets, seems to have a less extreme effect on the look of the file, than, say, exporting a RAW to PS with the default look that makes the file look presentable in LR...yes, a zero'd file is quite ugly...no doubt about it.

i cant put my finger on it, but the colors seem to take a big shift when i bring a TIFF back into LR, so i was wondering if LR was some subtle WB tweaking going on, like the other little default tweaks that make a file look decent. y'all seem to think, like i was, that "as shot" is the best i can do.

oh, btw, in case i didnt answer you earlier, yes, i show seniors their stuff in LR.

i sure hope that one day we will be able to, more or less, edit a raw file OR a file that acts like a raw file...that would truely be sweet

 

[Kiwigeoff]

i sure hope that one day we will be able to, more or less, edit a raw file OR a file that acts like a raw file...that would truely be sweet

Do you use DNG or the native raw from your camera? DNG maybe an option to consider, still goes to PS as TIFF or PSD though.

 

[Clicio Barroso]

creating a DNG file seemed nice except that i cant save that in CS3 to take back in LR with my new edits, unless i save it as a TIFF which means that i havent solved anything...

Steven,

I don't get it. I think I don't understand what exactly is your need, or why (or what) is not working.
Look what I just did: processed a RAW in LR, sent it to edit in CS3 (a PSD copy), retouched it in CS3, saved and back in LR. LR reflected the edits I had done in CS3. Then I converted this PSD file to DNG.
So now I have two files, one the original RAW and the other the edited DNG. I can apply develop presets to both; some of my presets will give me different results between the two, but most presets are close enough in results, so the differences go almost unnoticed.
Anyway, I happen to have created a "zeroed" preset with all sliders to zero and WB to 52''k. I use it all the time to start my developing on important pictures.
Hope this blahblah of mine is helpful in any way!
:?

 

[monkeyman2279]

i really appreciate all you guys and girls trying to help. thank you.

i dont think DNG is the solution. i guess the basic problem isnt what LR is sending out, its whats coming BACK into LR and how it behaves differently verses the way the original raw does.

if you look on the 2nd or 3rd page of that fred miranda link, you can see a posted example of the way a preset handles RAW vs TIFF.

unless there is some breakthrough (and i pray that there is), ill either have to do things the old way by picking the preset, sending it to PS and then doing my blemish removal (and having to do that for each time myself or a client changes their mind)

OR

do my best as a colorblind fellow and figure out a way to tweak my presets to work with TIFFS that have already been edited for zits, etc.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I may be stating the obvious for you here, but if you're setting everything to zero'd, you're kind of defeating the object of shooting raw. You may as well just shoot high quality jpeg and be done with it. Then all your presets will behave in the same way. So silly question of the day... why exactly are you choosing to shoot raw?

To see what the difference is between a preset applied on a raw and on a jpeg/tiff/psd, try this really easy test. Shoot 1 image raw + jpeg. Apply +25 contrast and +5' brightness to both images. BIG difference. That's the reason presets don't work the same on both.

One thing that might help - can you post WHAT sliders your presets actually adjust? We may be able to see where it's going so far adrift.

 

[monkeyman2279]

the biggest reason i shoot RAW is because they tell me thats what i have to do to be really professional...

besides, all the cool kids are doing it...

just kidding.

but seriously, i look at raw like a seat belt or insurance. i sure dont plan on using it, but its there if i need it for some jacked up exposure or a truely funky WB issue. besides, at least when i shoot raw i get to decide what the TIFF or JPEG look like.

btw, im talking about zero'ing everything in LR not camera, since RAW, by default is zero'd in camera, correct?

heres also my reasoning for TRYING these workarounds with the sliders, to tweak everything back to normal for my wild presets...

im assuming that all of my presets react to the raw with everything set to zero (its natural state, right), so if i process something with (for example) +25 anywhere, the presets adjustments get added on to there, meaning ive got further to come back, if thats even possible.

unfortunately, i havent had time to look to see if the opposite is true...by seeing if everythings so flat and muddy to start that some of these push the image too far.

also the reason for shooting raw is the access to 16bit vs 8. i figure if im going to push some of my files as hard as i do any headroom is appreciated.

believe me i dont have to follow your example. the fact that they act differently is the whole problem here. i just still cant wrap my head around WHY. i know its a different file (apples to pear), but i just understand why we cant make a file from the raw, that acts like the raw later, except with fewer zits.

to jump outside of photography for an example. this reminds me of the common cold. "you mean we havent gotten this one licked yet" we put a man on the moon, but we still get colds.

now i know the virus problem is ultimately more complex than that (ive been to school and ive got doctor friends), but on the surface its shocking that we cant do anything with it, except kinda sorta treat the symptoms.

so back to this. of all the amazing things we can do with our cameras and these 2 amazing programs PS and LR...all the mind bending things we can do, and i stumbled into the 1 thing that would make my life (and im sure everyone else's) soooo much easier and its an impossibility. apparently what im asking for just cant be done. for right now the best thing i can do is treat the symptoms.

btw, if anyones interested in seeing some of the presets i use and how they effect sliders, go to inside lightroom and check out things like "3''" "colour bleach bypass". those arent subtle presets and when they get applied to anything other than RAW they get exagerated even more so.

 

[Mark Sirota]

tim talking about zero'ing everything in LR not camera, since RAW, by default is zero'd in camera, correct?

Well, no, not exactly. I think this is the core of your misunderstanding.

A raw file is not an image file, like a JPEG or TIFF is. You can't look at it, there's nothing to see. You need some software to process it into an image file.

There's no such thing as a raw file "as shot". Every raw converter (and that includes the software in the camera that creates the in-camera JPEG) will interpret the raw data differently.

Adobe Camera Raw is the raw converter used by Lightroom. It assigns a default value of 25 for contrast and 5' for brightness, but those are arbitrary numbers. Those are the numbers that the Adobe developers felt were appropriate for each camera. There's nothing magical about zero in this case. They could have just called that same setting zero, and allowed for negative values in the slider instead, with the same result.

It's the same thing for the "sliders" in your in-camera raw converter. Those probably allow for settings like "low", "medium", and "high" for various settings. These are just arbitrary values as well, there's nothing inherently "zero'd".

Did that help at all?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

That was very neatly explained Mark!

 

[Clicio Barroso]

It assigns a default value of 25 for contrast and 5' for brightness, but those are arbitrary numbers. Those are the numbers that the Adobe developers felt were appropriate for each camera.

Mark,

Thanks for your answer!
Just to clarify my point; when I say a have a 'zeroed" preset, it means all sliders in "'" and WB in 52''k.
Why?
Because 25/5' C/B, or Black 5, or Color Noise Reduction on by 25, etc,etc,etc don't reflect my way of working. It's one of the many interpretations of my RAW file, not right, not wrong.
Zeroed is another interpretation. It is more interesting for my work, because I want to set Black and White points myself. I do not want any noise reduction on my ISO 1'' fullframe file. And so on.
As you say, there is no image before we get it processed, so I process it my own way!

 

[Mark Sirota]

Clicio, I agree, I usually start processing individual images the same way. I upload with WB as shot and Auto Exposure, as that helps me make my picks. But once I've made my picks, I usually start with "General - Zeroed" and work from there.

 

[monkeyman2279]

Well, no, not exactly. I think this is the core of your misunderstanding.

A raw file is not an image file, like a JPEG or TIFF is. You can't look at it, there's nothing to see. You need some software to process it into an image file.

There's no such thing as a raw file "as shot". Every raw converter (and that includes the software in the camera that creates the in-camera JPEG) will interpret the raw data differently.

Adobe Camera Raw is the raw converter used by Lightroom. It assigns a default value of 25 for contrast and 5' for brightness, but those are arbitrary numbers. Those are the numbers that the Adobe developers felt were appropriate for each camera. There's nothing magical about zero in this case. They could have just called that same setting zero, and allowed for negative values in the slider instead, with the same result.

It's the same thing for the "sliders" in your in-camera raw converter. Those probably allow for settings like "low", "medium", and "high" for various settings. These are just arbitrary values as well, there's nothing inherently "zero'd".

Did that help at all?

yes, that helped quite a lot with the zero information, mark. thanks.

here is what i still dont "get". ive got this RAW file that is sitting on my computer...lets call the little guy "1". now LR can take that info in 1, do a song and a dance (process it for me to visually see)and it magically appears in front of me on my screen looking and behaving (with presets) a certain way (lets say a visual interpretation of these zeroes and ones)... i will call 1's behavior "x".

now, i know RAW is not the same thing as a tiff, jpeg, psd, etc. but i just find it kinda odd that i cant make a file FROM "1" that behaves like "x"...especially since im taking 12bits of info and working in a 16bit enviroment.

now im not saying i dont believe it...its just the part that leaves me scratching my head. i think im just too dumb in these matters for it to click. :roll: feel free to keep all agreements to that statement to yourself :lol:

please dont take all of this as saying that i havent learned anything from y'all. its just 1. the nuts and bolts havent clicked and 2. it makes me a sad panda...cause it was be so freakin' sweet to be able to actually edit pixels (heal, clone, liquify) a RAW-ish copy.

 

[Mark Sirota]

Okay, I just tried this myself. I exported a raw file as a 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF, and re-imported that file using the General - Zeroed preset. Initially, the two files look identical, as I'd expect.

Then I've played with changes.

It seems to me that everything works the same on both files except for white balance. I suppose that's because white balance is baked into the file once it is converted from raw and exported. Is this what you're trying to ask about?

It might be worth asking Adobe whether this is the expected behavior for white balance on non-raw files.

 

[Clicio Barroso]

It might be worth asking Adobe whether this is the expected behavior for white balance on non-raw files.

Mark,

This is the expected behavior.
RAWs can accept absolute values in WB ( as 38''k, or 93''k).
Processed (non-raw) files have the WB already set, so the values are relative (less powerful for sure), and behave different, +1'' and -1'' instead of an absolute value in Kelvin.
This is getting interesting!

 

[Mark Sirota]

That was my thought as well, Clicio, but it's not obvious to me that this is impossible.

Existing presets with hardcoded absolute WB values seem to be translated into relative values when applied to the TIFF, but they seem to be the wrong relative values.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it probably is impossible. Upon translation, the translator cannot know the original WB setting, so it cannot answer the question "relative to what?" This might be possible if presets could be stored with relative values instead of absolute, but that's not possible today.

2nd Edit: This means that Steven *can* do what he wants here, so long as the presets in question do not include white balance.