Month: December 2023

Today’s Question: When I tell Lightroom Classic to edit a photo in Photoshop, it no longer asks if I want to edit it with Lightroom adjustments or if I want to edit the original file. It just sends the file directly into Photoshop with the edits I’ve already made in Lightroom Classic. Why is that?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You will not be asked what option you want to use when you send a raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic. Rather, when you send a raw capture to Photoshop the adjustments applied to the image in the Develop module will always be applied, and a derivative image will be created based on the settings on the External Editing tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: If you use the Edit In commend to send a non-raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic, you’ll be asked how you want the file to be processed. You can make a new copy based on the source image that is flattened if you choose “Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments”. You can create a copy that includes layers and other features from the original by choosing “Edit a Copy”, but the adjustments from Lightroom Classic won’t be visible while you’re working in Photoshop. You can also choose “Edit Original” to open the source file in Photoshop, in which case the adjustments from Lightroom Classic won’t be visible while working in Photoshop.

If you send a raw capture to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic, you aren’t able to edit the original since you can’t save the updated image as a raw capture. Instead, the image will be created as either a TIFF file or a Photoshop document (PSD) file based on the option established on the External Editing tab of the Preferences dialog.

By saving the derivative image as a TIFF or PSD file, you’ll be able to preserve all features you took advantage of in Photoshop, such as adjustment layers, additional image layers, layer masks, and more. Since this is the recommended workflow, and you’re not able to save an updated raw capture file, you aren’t prompted by Lightroom Classic about what to do when you send a raw capture to Photoshop.

Today’s Question: How do I change the overlay color for the Remove tool in Photoshop to something other than the default color (pink)? Can it be done?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can change the overlay color for the Remove tool in Photoshop by clicking the gear icon on the Options bar and choosing a different color from the Color popup. You can also adjust the opacity for the color overlay with the associated Opacity control.

More Detail: The Remove tool is relatively new to Photoshop and it provides image cleanup based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology. When you paint on the image with the Remove tool (which I recommend doing through the use of a separate image layer created for image cleanup work) a color overlay shows the area of your brush stroke. This makes it easy to be sure you’re painting completely over the object you want to remove from the photo.

The default color for this overlay is magenta, which I consider to be a good default because magenta tends not to be a color that is very common in a lot of images. But obviously there are also many photos where a magenta overlay wouldn’t be the best choice, such as when you are attempting to remove an object that has a color relatively close to magenta.

Fortunately, you can change both the color and the opacity of this overlay. Start by selecting the Remove tool from the toolbar (it is on the same button as the Spot Healing Brush tool, so you can right-click on that button to bring up a popup that includes the Remove tool). Then on the Options bar click the gear icon. That will bring up a popup panel where you’ll find a popup for Color and a popup slider for Opacity. You can select any color you’d like from the popup, and then adjust the opacity to your liking.

The updated settings will remain in place unless you change them, or if you reset the tool, or if you reset preferences for Photoshop.