Today’s Question: With Adobe not updating Photoshop CS6 with the new profiles, but updating them in Lightroom 6 I now have some questions to ask. When I want to edit an image in Lightroom 6 using Photoshop CS6, I get three options:
1) Render using Lightroom (which gets me a file by the name of filename-Edit.psd)
2) Open Anyway (which gets me a file by the name of filename.psd)
3) Cancel
What is happening with 1 & 2? What conversion am I getting with each?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The choices presented to you translate into whether you want Lightroom (the first option) or Photoshop (the second option) to process the RAW capture. In this case Lightroom has a more recent version of Camera Raw, so you are better off using the “Render Using Lightroom” option.
More Detail: The core issue here is that Lightroom and Photoshop do not have the same version of Camera Raw. As you may be aware, both Photoshop and Lightroom use Camera Raw as the processing engine for RAW captures. When both Lightroom and Photoshop are using the same version of the underlying Camera Raw engine, you will get the exact same results when processing a RAW capture in either Photoshop or Lightroom, and all of the same features will be available.
When there is a mismatch between the version of Camera Raw available in Photoshop and Lightroom, you need to choose which version should be used to process your RAW capture. In this case Lightroom will have a later version of Camera Raw than Photoshop CS6 will have, and so you are better off using Lightroom to process the RAW capture in order to ensure that all of the adjustments you’ve applied within Lightroom will actually be applied to the rendered image.
If you’re concerned about the “-Edit” being added to the filename by Lightroom, that is easy to remove. For derivative images that have already been created, you can simply choose the Rename Photo command from the Library menu after selecting an image in Lightroom. To cause Lightroom to no longer add the “-Edit” text to the filename of derivative images, you can change the Template settings in the Preferences dialog.
To change the file naming template for derivative images, first choose Preferences from the Lightroom menu on the Macintosh version of Lightroom or from the Edit menu on the Windows version of Lightroom. Click the button for the External Editing tab in the Preferences dialog, and then choose Edit from the Template popup at the bottom of the dialog.
In the Filename Template Editor dialog that appears, you can then change the settings for the filename template for derivative images. For example, you could simply remove the “-Edit” text from the template if you want to retain the base filename with a new filename extension (TIF or PSD depending on which file format you’ve chosen to use). Then click the Done button to close the Filename Template Editor dialog, and close the Preferences dialog. Images sent to any external editor (including Photoshop) from that point forward will be named based on the changes you’ve made.