Lightroom 2 and the Seven Point System
Since I released my “7-point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3″ book, I’ve had a lot of questions from Lightroom users about how to open an image processed in Lightroom as Smart Object in Photoshop. Unfortunately, that feature wasn’t available in Lightroom 1.4, so while there was a clunky workaround (which I covered earlier this year on the blog), it wasn’t the real integration we wanted.
Luckily, one of the features Adobe added in the public beta of Lightroom 2.0 made part of my Seven Point System for Photoshop CS3 work that much better with Lightroom because of its direct support of Smart Objects.
Just go under Lightroom 2.0’s Photo menu, under Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS3, and choose Open as Smart Object in Photoshop. Once the image is opened as a Smart Object, to reedit the image just double-click on it and it opens in Camera Raw (which is similar to opening it in the Develop Module of Lightroom). You can make your changes there, click the Done button, and it updates the Smart Object automatically. When you’re done editing the Photoshop file, and you save and close it, the image then returns to Lightroom for output.
Anyway, I know a lot of people have been hoping for this support in Lightroom 2.0 (it was on my Lightroom 2.0 wishlist), and I’m happy to see it made it’s way there. 
I’m going to have to try the smart objects from LR.
Even in other areas like PSD and Tiff I feel that the integration is tighter, and moving into PS is simple.
One thing I notice however in LR2 is that when I open in PS as say a PSD, it will stack the two file together but it does not apply the same rating to the new like it dies in LR 1. I’ve been trying to find an option to turn that back on but so far no luck.
Maybe it’s just right in front of me and I’m missing it… Gavin
hey scott,
thanks for this! my take with the 7 point system and LR2 is it actually changes the whole part of the shadow/highlight controls. I sometimes don’t have to go to Photoshop because the retouch brush is already in LR2. However, in a few of my experiments, the shadow/highlight has a better overall effect on the photo.
mike
Using an Apple, I found that “Open as a smart object” was greyed out if I used the edit menu. I had to right click to get the opion. I certainly enjoy all of your books.
Unless Adobe ups the ante when it comes to sharpening in Lightroom, this will be the perfect way to zip on over to Photoshop to use USM or Noise Ninja and zip on back to Lightroom. That makes me happy.
I have been wondering why everyone is so gung-ho over opening LR images as smart objects in beta 2.0. The main reason, from what I understand, is that you eliminate having to make a tiff copy and that you can tweak images further in camera raw like LR’s develop module. Once you are done, the image saves back in to lightroom. One problem, though. LR 2.0 beta DOES NOT automatically save the PS image back to lightroom. I have to save it using photoshop…which to me defeats the whole purpose of “integration”. Maybe this will not be the case in the shipping verison, but until this fix happens, I could care less about opening images as ’smart objects’.
Regarding my prior post, I just read the release notes pdf from adobe labs and they say that its a known issue that “Opening in Photoshop CS3 as a smart object will not save the file back into Lightroom automatically.” This kinda illustrates my point that this feature, until rectified, renders the whole smart object opening in photoshop useless. You still have to manually save out another separate file from within photoshop, then import that into your lightroom library, thus giving you another physical file….youre right back where you started from in v1.4.
On my PC, if you go under Lightroom 2.0’s Photo menu, under Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS3, “Open as Smart Object in Photoshop” is NOT an option. It is there when you right click on the image itself. Just in case anyone else bruised there forehead on the keyboard like I did.
Thanks to both Scott and Bill Chinn — it didn’t appear in my “Edit in Photoshop” either. So without Bill’s tip, I would have been bruising my forehead indeed!
Is this incompatible with Photoshop CS2? The Smart Object option is grayed out on my machine. I’m using LR2 with PS CS2.
Hi!
I am using CS2 and I was wondering why the smart object option is grayed out on my machine. I saw you got this question a few times but I can’t find your responses to the questions…
Thanks for your help!