Whats the best way to work with Virtual copies and PS

[BOUNCINGNRG]

Hello,

I work quite a bit between lightroom and PS and i'm trying to see if this is the most efficiant way to work between them.
My workflow is to import all my RAW files, do most of my adjustments in LR and them export to PS to do any selection's and creative sharpening, then i'll save and work on it again in LR ( B&W conversions, cropping etc) via virtual copies. I will then export all to my website for the clients to purchase. I will also export the cropped and converted one that look the best and export to PS to do a type of photomontage simular to this http://www.gadzinowski.com/images/thumb/phpThumb.php?src=../content/menu/2-2-6.jpg&h=378&q=9' (not my photo but its the same layouts)

Can anyone pick holes in this and pls give me some more sujestions on making it more efficient.

Cheers
Mark

 

[parintele]

Seems fine and make sense except one thing i like to approach different.
Some things are better when done on RAW file, once you passed thru PS and converted to tiff it is not possible in order to acieve the same quality OR if it is possible it is not as easy.

For example, working on WB will not be possible in the same way or with same results, using the same "numbers"...
There are also tools that work better directly on raw and you should do it before converting to tiff.
Also , indirectly related to above, use of some PRESETS you made will not provide the same result.

In order to see some examples, please do the next exercise:

Take sevaral pictures, difrerent types regarding colors, subject, etc... export to PS and save, so you have 2 versions of the same image, looking perfectly similar, one RAW and one Tiff for each image.

Then try to apply the same modifications to both versions of the same image. you will see some differences.

Also, a much more obvious way is to use a preset, Lightroom Presets/creative-Aged photo would be a good one, first which come into my mind...

YOu will observe for sure that the preset does not work the same for both images.
Trying to replicate the same result on Tiff by not using the preset but manually adjust or adapt the preset will also prove to be difficult and sometimes you can't do it no matter what...

That might depend on the image itself and generally, depending on the image itself, various algorithms used for raws will not "work" for tiffs, no matter how much you try to manually adjust the corrections....


SO, my conclusion is sometimes you can not do some things after you passed thru PS and work on tiffs..sometimes even if you can is not as fast or simple or the result will not be as good.

Your way of doing things is good and make sense IN GENERAL, it works the same and provide the same quality in some circumstances, probably most of the time. BUT depending on what you do, is good to know sometimes you MUST work on RAW first and then apply PS adjustments..IF you need various copied with the same PS processing you can use the same masks, selections or filters inside PS....this way you will not be forced to work several times on the same image inside PS.....





Please use the Lightroom presets

 

[BOUNCINGNRG]

Thanks for the thourough responce. I did do some examples with applying effect tot eh raw and jpeg and i can see a difference, which did distress me as i like to offer my clients different effect for there shots and the thought of having to pp each image in PS 3 or 4 times was scary.

I have a read though the 'Lightroom 2' book at lunch in the book store and there is a section called' Photoshop as a sandwich filler', what is says it that i make the virtual copies i need, then create a optimized colour of the raw photo and make a PS edit based on this copy. Then i sync the setting between the virtual copy and the PS edit copy, and from what i understand this will apply the PS edits on to the RAW virtual copy.

I will try this in the next few days and hopefully it will work.