Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Can you clarify what you mean when you say that using a Smart Filter [in Photoshop] can cause problems with a layer-based workflow? The feature sounded great until I read your warning!

Tim’s Quick Answer: The problem with using Smart Objects (including Smart Filters) in Photoshop is that making changes to that Smart Object can cause other pixel-based layers to no longer match the overall image.

More Detail: Smart Objects in Photoshop represent a powerful and helpful feature. However, there is an important shortcoming that can lead to significant problems with layer-based images.

When you create a Smart Object (or apply a Smart Filter) you are effectively embedding an image within the overall document. The benefit of this approach is that you maintain the ability to modify the embedded image, since the original is there as a reference.

For example, let’s assume you’re using the Camera Raw filter as a Smart Filter, as explained in yesterday’s Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter. You use the Camera Raw filter to convert the image to black and white. However, since you used a Smart Filter, you can go back and change the adjustments at any time. So, you double-click the Camera Raw Filter layer and switch the image back to color.

This is all perfectly fine, and it helps illustrate the power of Smart Filters. However, there is a potentially significant problem.

Let’s assume that after using Camera Raw as a Smart Filter to convert the image to black and white, you decided to perform some image cleanup work to get rid of some blemishes and distractions in the image. Wanting to maintain a non-destructive workflow, you create a new empty image layer to use for the image cleanup work.

After performing the image cleanup work, you go back to the Camera Raw Filter layer, bringing up the Camera Raw dialog. At that point you convert the black and white image back to color and apply the change.

At this point the underlying image based on the Smart Filter is a color image. However, the image cleanup work performed on a separate layer was done while the image was in black and white. Therefore, the cleanup pixels are in black and white, but the image is in color, so there is a very problematic mismatch.

So, while Smart Objects in general and certainly Smart Filters in particular can be incredibly helpful, they can cause problems in a layer-based workflow. In the example above, I would want to spend time fine-tuning the Smart Object to perfection so I feel reasonably confident that no further adjustments will be necessary. I would then move forward with any work that required other pixel-based layers, such as to perform image cleanup with the tools in Photoshop that are more powerful and flexible than what is available in Camera Raw.

Today’s Question: I can easily create a mask in Lightroom Classic to create a vignette using a radial gradient. The nice thing is the mask can be edited at any time. But I can’t figure out how to something equivalent using gradient tool in Photoshop. As soon as I save the file and re-open it, I can’t seem to edit the gradient any longer, and have to start with a new mask and new gradient. Is there a way to do what is so easy to do in Lightroom Classic masks?

Tim’s Quick Answer: What you’re referring to is the “live gradient” feature. This is preserved for Gradient adjustment layers, but not for layer masks. To maintain editing ability in Photoshop as in Lightroom Classic I would use the Camera Raw filter as a Smart Filter.

More Detail: The Gradient tool in Photoshop includes the option to use the live gradient feature, as long as the popup on the Options bar is set to “Gradient” rather than “Classic gradient”. This enables you to modify the overall gradient shape with ease. When used with a Gradient adjustment layer, you can return to the layer at any time (even after closing and re-opening the file) and modify the live gradient controls.

When you use the live gradient feature with a layer mask, however, the editing capability is only temporary. As soon as you close and re-open an image that included a live gradient on a layer mask, the live gradient will no longer be “live”. In other words, the layer mask will simply be a grayscale pixel-based layer that you can only modify directly, not using the live gradient feature.

If you want the same flexibility for a gradient mask as is possible in Lightroom Classic, you’ll find the exact same capabilities in Camera Raw. The trick is that if you use Camera Raw to open a raw capture and then save the resulting image, you can’t get back to Camera Raw to modify the resulting image. If you wanted to make changes you would need to re-open the original raw capture and refine your original adjustments.

However, you can also use the Camera Raw filter as a Smart Filter in Photoshop to retain the flexibility of being able to modify the mask. Start by opening an image and with the Background image layer selected on the Layers panel go to the menu and choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters, clicking the OK button in the confirmation dialog to convert the layer to a Smart Object. Then choose Filter > Camera Raw Filter from the menu to bring up the Camera Raw dialog.

You can then use the Masking features to create a variety of masks, including a Radial Gradient or any other shape. You can use this to apply targeted adjustments, as well as the many other adjustments available in Camera Raw. Click the OK button when you’re finished.

If you later want to modify the adjustments, simply double-click the Camera Raw Filter item shown below the Smart Filters thumbnail associated with the Smart Object. This will bring up the Camera Raw dialog, where you can modify the adjustments including the mask. As long as you save the source file as a TIFF or Photoshop PSD file, you’ll retain this editing ability after closing and re-opening the file.

Just keep in mind that this approach of using Smart Filters can create challenges in a layer-based workflow. For example, making changes to the Camera Raw adjustments applied as a Smart Filter can cause other pixel-based layers to no longer match the overall image.

Today’s Question: Adobe allows Lightroom Classic to be “active” on two machines at a time. I have three computers, but really only need Lightroom Classic active on any two at a time. Is there a way to “deactivate” Lightroom Classic on a computer and “reactivate” it on another, thereby satisfying Adobe’s limit of two computers at a time?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can sign out of your Creative Cloud account through Lightroom Classic to reduce the number of active computers at a time. The next time you launch Lightroom Classic on that computer you’ll be prompted to sign in again. Just keep in mind that when using Lightroom Classic on more than one computer it is important to make sure that you’re always using the same catalog, such as by keeping the catalog files on an external hard drive along with your photos.

More Detail: The standard license for an Adobe Creative Cloud plan limits you to having applications active on no more than two computers at a time, though you can only run the applications on one computer at a time. If you have a need to use Lightroom Classic or other Creative Cloud applications on more than two computers, you’ll need to deactivate the software on one of the computers to allow another computer to be activated.

In the case of Lightroom Classic this is handled by signing out of Creative Cloud through Lightroom Classic. To do so launch Lightroom Classic on the computer you want to deactivate and go to the menu and choose Help > Sign Out (note that the email address associated with your Creative Cloud account will be shown to the right of the menu command). Click the “Sign Out” button in the confirmation dialog, and Lightroom Classic (and other Creative Cloud applications in your plan) will be deactivated on that computer.

You can then activate Lightroom Classic (or other Creative Cloud applications) on another computer. The next time you launch Lightroom Classic on the computer where you deactivated it, you’ll be prompted to sign in to your Creative Cloud account, which in turn will activate Lightroom Classic again on that computer.

While this process obviously involves a couple extra steps to be able to activate Lightroom Classic on a third computer, it is relatively straightforward and there is no negative impact in terms of your cloud-based services. Just be sure that you are always using the correct catalog files when switching computers, such as by always opening the catalog from an external hard drive.

Today’s Question: I was reviewing my settings in Lightroom Classic for sending photos to Photoshop and noticed a popup for “Photoshop version” that I had not seen before. Clicking it reminded me that I have an older version of Photoshop installed, but my real question is why would I ever want to choose to use an older version of Photoshop when sending an image from Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In general, the only reason to send an image from Lightroom Classic to an older version of Photoshop is if there was a compatibility issue related to a feature or plug-in. I would normally recommend always sending images to the most recent release, excluding a public beta release unless you wanted to take advantage of a new feature there.

More Detail: Not too long ago a popup was added to the “Edit in Adobe Photoshop” section of the External Editing tab in the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic. This is the “Photoshop version” popup, which enables you to choose which version of Photoshop you want to use when sending images to Photoshop from Lightroom Classic.

For many photographers clicking on this popup might reveal that you only have a single version of Photoshop installed, which is perfectly fine.

For other photographers, clicking the popup might remind them that they still have one (or more) older versions of Photoshop that they don’t really need. If that’s the case, and if you’re sure that the latest version is fully operational in terms of meeting your needs and supporting any plug-ins you use, then you can uninstall older versions of Photoshop.

However, in some cases you may want to choose to use a different version of Photoshop than the most recent official release. This could include using an older version of Photoshop if that is necessary to access a plug-in or feature that isn’t supported or isn’t working properly in the latest version. You might also want to choose the public beta (prerelease) version of Photoshop (if you’ve installed it) in order to make use of a feature that is new to that beta version.

Overall, if you don’t know of a reason that you need to use something other than the latest official release of Photoshop that you have installed, then you can simply leave the popup on the External Editing tab set to the latest version. It is only in situations where what you’re trying to accomplish isn’t possible with the latest version that I would recommend using a different version for External Editing from Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: If I apply a Develop preset to images as part of importing them into Lightroom Classic, would the Before view of the image show the original unedited image or the version with the preset applied?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If you apply a Develop preset on import, the Before view will show the version of the image with that preset applied, not the unedited image.

More Detail: When you enable the Before view (such as by pressing the backslash key on the keyboard) in the Develop module in Lightroom Classic, you’ll see the image based on what it looked like when it was imported. For example, if you had applied adjustments to a raw capture using Camera Raw and leave the resulting XMP sidecar file with the raw capture, if you import the image into Lightroom Classic the Before view will show the image based on the adjustments applied with Camera Raw. Similarly, if you apply a Develop preset during import, the Before view will show you the image with the effect of that preset applied to it.

In other words, the Before view doesn’t necessarily show you the original version of the image without any adjustments. Rather, it will show you the version of the image based on any adjustments that had been applied prior to importing or during import through the use of a preset.

Let’s assume, for example, that you had converted a batch of images to black and white, either using Camera Raw before import or by using a preset during import. After applying a variety of adjustments in the Develop module, pressing the backslash key to switch to the Before view will show the black and white version of the image as it looked upon import.

If you want to get to the image without any adjustments, you can click the Reset button at the bottom of the right panel in Lightroom Classic. Even then, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have an image with no adjustments at all, because it is possible to change the default adjustment values for Lightroom Classic. And, of course, if you had clicked the Reset button just to see the image with the default adjustment settings, you could always use the Undo command (or go back in the History section of the left panel) to undo the Reset command and get back to the adjusted version of the image.

Today’s Question: I’m confused. If I’m shooting in manual mode but I enable auto ISO on the camera, am I really still in manual mode? Isn’t it not really manual because the camera is changing the ISO setting?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If you set your camera to manual exposure mode but with auto ISO enabled, I would say you are using a semi-automatic exposure mode (similar to aperture priority) rather than a true manual exposure mode.

More Detail: In my view there are three categories of exposure modes on cameras. Manual mode means you are controlling all exposure settings. Semi-automatic means you are selecting one or more exposure settings and allowing the camera to select other settings. Fully automatic means you are leaving all decisions about exposure settings up to the camera.

Based on this way of thinking, if you enable auto ISO when using the manual exposure mode, you aren’t using a true manual exposure mode.

If you use aperture priority mode, you select the lens aperture setting and the ISO setting (with auto ISO disabled) and you let the camera choose the shutter speed. If you’re in shutter priority mode you’re selecting the shutter speed and the ISO setting and allowing the camera to select the lens aperture. In both cases you can use exposure compensation to refine the overall exposure result.

Manual exposure mode with auto ISO enabled is exactly the same as the aperture priority and shutter priority modes, except for which value you’re letting the camera choose. You dial in the lens aperture and the shutter speed, and the camera chooses the ISO setting.

Having said all that, in my view this is really an issue of semantics. As far as I’m concerned, all that really matters in terms of the exposure for a photograph is what settings were used for lens aperture, shutter speed, and ISO setting. The only real question is how you’re going to get to those settings. Regardless of whether you’re using an automatic, semi-automatic, or fully manual exposure mode, what really matters is what final settings you arrive at.

In other words, as far as I’m concerned there’s no shame in using an automatic or semi-automatic exposure mode, and there should be no great pride in using manual mode. What really matters is what the final exposure settings are. Whatever process you find most helpful for getting to the right exposure settings is perfectly fine as far as I’m concerned.

Today’s Question: Is there a way in Photoshop to resize a group of images in batch so that they are all the same size on the long side, without horizontal versus vertical images having different dimensions on the long side?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can use the “Resize to Fit” setting with the Image Processor command, which you can access either from within Photoshop or from Adobe Bridge.

More Detail: If you use the Image Size command (Image > Image Size) you will need to specify both a height and width setting, meaning you’ll need to be sure to use the intended pixel dimension in the Width field for a horizontal image or the Height field for a vertical image. With the “Resize to Fit” option of the Image Processor command you can specify outer dimensions for batch resizing, so that for example all images will have the same number of pixels on the long side, regardless of whether an image is horizontal or vertical.

You can batch process images with Image Processor from directly within Photoshop, such as by opening the images you want to process, selecting File > Scripts > Image Processor from the menu, and choosing the “Use Open Images” option in section one. However, I think it is easier to get started from Adobe Bridge.

To use Image Processor from Adobe Bridge, select the photos you want to process, and then from the menu choose Tools > Photoshop > Image Processor. That will open the Image Processor in Photoshop, with the images that had been selected in Adobe Bridge automatically selected as the images to process.

You can then select the options for saving the images, such as to save as JPEG images if you’ll be sharing online. For any of the available file formats you can turn on the “Resize to Fit” checkbox and then enter the outer dimensions in the W (width) and H (height) fields. For example, if you want the images to be sized to 2,000 pixels on the long side you can enter 2000 in both fields.

Once you’ve configured the settings in the Image Processor dialog click the Run button. The images will then be processed based on the settings you’ve selected, including having been resized to fit the dimensions you specified.

Today’s Question: I thought you had said previously that you didn’t use or recommend the pick and reject flags in Lightooom Classic, but then you suggested adding a reject flag to photos you think are outtakes but that you’re not comfortable deleting. Did I misunderstand, or did you change your mind about pick and reject flags?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I generally do not recommend using the pick and reject flag features in Lightroom Classic because they are not part of an established metadata standard. However, I do use the reject flag to temporarily mark photos intended for deletion.

More Detail: There are two key reasons I prefer not to use the pick and reject flags in Lightroom Classic.

The first is that I prefer not to make a binary choice between “approve” and “reject” for my photos. Rather, I prefer to use star ratings, which provide a relative ranking for approval of photos.

The second reason is that pick and reject flags are not on par with other standard metadata fields. This creates an issue where reject flags assigned in Lightroom Classic and saved to metadata don’t appear in Bridge, and reject flags assigned in Bridge won’t appear in Lightroom Classic even if you import the metadata from the disk.

However, I don’t consider these issues to be a problem when it comes to marking photos as rejected, which in my view means marking photos for eventual deletion. In other words, in this context the reject flag is temporary, and if I were to lose those reject flags it would just mean that I lost track of photos I had intended to delete, which I wouldn’t consider to be a major problem.

So, in my workflow when I’m reviewing photos to identify favorites versus outtakes, I use a reject flag to mark the photos I intend to delete. When I’m done with my review process, I can take another look at the photos I marked for rejection to make sure I really want to delete them. If so, I can then use the Delete Rejected Photos command from the Photo menu in Lightroom Classic to batch delete photos with a reject flag in the location I’m currently browsing.

Today’s Question: As a follow-up to the question about removing images from the Lightroom Classic catalog, you said that “in this case” [removing a derivative image from the catalog] you would remove the photo from the catalog rather than deleting from the disk. Isn’t it better to always choose the option to remove from the catalog but not delete from the disk just in case you later realize it was a mistake?

Tim’s Quick Answer: If you are removing a photo from the Lightroom Classic catalog because you feel it is not a good image, then I recommend deleting the source file. If you’re not comfortable deleting a photo, then in my view you shouldn’t remove it from the Lightroom Classic catalog.

More Detail: Yesterday’s question related to wanting to remove derivative images from the Lightroom Classic catalog, while keeping the source photo the derivative was based on in the catalog. In this circumstance I think it makes sense to remove the derivative image from the catalog since it will be managed as part of a separate project outside of Lightroom Classic.

When the photo in question is an original capture rather than a derivative created for a particular project, I don’t recommend removing the photo from the catalog unless you are also going to delete the source file. From my perspective, if you are using Lightroom Classic to manage your photos and you remove a photo from the catalog, you effectively will no longer know that the photo exists. In other words, the photo is taking up space on your hard drive, but you won’t see the image in Lightroom Classic.

In other words, removing photos from the catalog without deleting the source file can lead to a situation where you have clutter in your folders with extra hard drive space being used up, and where you are not aware of those images because they aren’t in your catalog.

For these reasons I suggest only removing original photos from your Lightroom Classic catalog if you consider them outtakes that you won’t ever put to use. In that case, I recommend deleting the source files from the hard drive as part of the process for removing the images from the catalog, which means clicking the “Delete from Disk” button in the confirmation dialog after choosing to remove a photo from the catalog.

If you’re not comfortable deleting the source file, I recommend keeping the image in your catalog, and marking it in some way so you know it is an outtake. For example, you could mark such outtakes with a reject flag in Lightroom Classic, and as appropriate set a filter so you’re only seeing the images you didn’t reject. You could then later decide to delete those rejected photos, for example.

Today’s Question: I sometimes have images I am preparing for a project, but that I don’t need to keep in Lightroom Classic. This usually involves sending an image to Photoshop to work on. Afterward the resulting image is in Lightroom Classic of course, but is there a way to avoid that? I just want the final image saved in a project folder, and not have it in the Lightroom Classic catalog.

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this scenario my recommendation would be to follow the normal workflow for sending the image from Lightroom Classic to Photoshop, move the image to a project folder within Lightroom Classic if you’d like, and then remove the photo from the catalog without deleting it.

More Detail: In most cases when you want to send a photo from Lightroom Classic to Photoshop you will want to continue managing the new derivative image within your Lightroom Classic catalog. Even if you ultimately don’t want the derivative image in your catalog, I recommend using the same initial workflow.

So, in Lightroom Classic you can select the image you want to edit in Photoshop, then from the menu choose Photo > Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop. This will send the image to Photoshop, where you can use any of the tools and features to finalize the derivative image. When you’re done simply save the image and close it.

At this point the image will be alongside the original within the Lightroom Classic catalog. If you want to move it to a project folder, you can do that directly within your catalog. Simply drag-and-drop the image to the desired destination folder within the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module. If you’d like, you can also create a new folder in any location by clicking the plus button to the right of the Folders heading and choosing “Add Folder”.

After you drag-and-drop the derivative image to a new folder location, you can remove it from Lightroom Classic if you’d like. Just be sure that you haven’t applied any adjustments in Lightroom Classic after creating the derivative image in Photoshop, as those won’t be retained in the source file on the hard drive.

To remove the derivative image from Lightrooom Classic you can simply right-click on it and choose Remove Photo from the popup menu. In this case you would click the “Remove from Lightroom” button (rather than the “Delete from Disk” button) because you are simply removing the image from your Lightroom Classic catalog without deleting the source image file.

Moving forward, of course, you could open the derivative image on your hard drive directly into Photoshop to perform any additional adjustments you may need.