Many Lightroom users also use Adobe Photoshop.  The two programs can work hand in hand. Lightroom is great for organizing images and making basic corrections while Photoshop has advanced tools for repairing problems and compositing. I’d like to show you a cool tip on how to apply a filter non-destructively. This means you can jump back in at any time and easily edit or adjust.

To Apply the Filter

  1. Make sure you have Lightroom and Photoshop installed.
  2. Select an image in your Lightroom Library that you want to send to Photoshop.
  3. Choose Photo > Edit In > Open in Photoshop as Smart Object. This will take the selected file or raw image and send it to Photoshop.  Any adjustments you’ve already applied in Lightroom will travel with the image.
    A new Photoshop document opens and the selected image is set to a Photoshop layer.  The layer is already a Smart Object which means you can make nondestructive adjustments using the original full-quality file, but any changes will be saved to the new Photoshop document.For example, you can double click on the layers icon to open a raw file into the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box.  This lets you add any adjustments such as an Upright adjustment that you might have forgotten in Lightroom. Click OK to save the changes.
  4. To apply a filter, make sure that a layer is highlighted in the Layers panel and choose the filter from the filter menu (such as Filter > Athentech Imaging > Perfectly Clear V2).
  5. Modify the filter settings to taste and click OK.
  6. Now, let’s return the file to your Lightroom Library.  Simply close the file and save your changes.  The PSD file (Photoshop’s native file type) or TIFF file  is automatically added into Lightroom.
    You can use the Develop module or any of Lightroom’s other tools to modify the image. To control what type of file is created, open your Lightroom preferences and click the External Editing tab.  Either TIFF or PSD files are compatible with a Smart Object workflow.

To Re-edit an Image

If you want to modify the Smart Object file, that’s easy. This means you can jump back from Lightroom to Photoshop for quick changes.

  1. Just select the TIFF or PSD file in your library.  It will be stacked with the original image.
  2. Now choose File > Edit.  This time choose to Edit the Original image.
  3. The layered file opens in Photoshop and you’ll see the smart filter.  Simply double-click it to edit.
  4. Close the filter when done.  Feel free to make any other changes.
  5. Close and Save the file and return to Lightroom.  The image automatically updates.

There you have it… round-tripping.  Here’s a video that walks you through from Perfectly Clear.