Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® & Photoshop® Workflow Bible

Chapter 11. Opening Files in Photoshop

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using Lightroom to open files in Photoshop

• Using Adobe Bridge to open files outside of Lightroom

• Converting raw files with Adobe Camera Raw using Lightroom's Develop module settings

• Ensuring that Lightroom and Bridge/ACR communicate about metadata changes

You have some choices when it's time to take a special image into Photoshop for advanced editing. If you're working in Lightroom you can open a file into Photoshop directly from Lightroom. If you're already in Photoshop and you know which file you want, you can choose File

When raw files are opened from Photoshop or Bridge they need to go through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to be converted into a file type that Photoshop uses. (Remember, raw files cannot be edited directly in Photoshop.) This process is similar to making adjustments to a photo in Lightroom's Develop module and then opening the file into Photoshop from Lightroom.

Because you're using Lightroom to handle all of your Production Workflow, you may find it easiest to open files into Photoshop directly from Lightroom. However, there are times when you may want to use Bridge and ACR instead. That's why you should have a basic understanding of how these two pieces of software are used and when they might be more desirable than Lightroom for opening Lightroom files into Photoshop.

Opening Files from Lightroom

When a file is opened ...