16 bit images from LR into PSE

[davidedric]

Hi,

Baby question here.

I do most of my pp in Lightroom 4, but I decided to try a panorama stitch in PSE11. So I selected the RAW images in LR and chose "edit in PSE". I then got the error message to say that the pano stitch in PSE only works with 8 bit images, and therefore not the 16 bit TIFFS I had exported. I know I could export the images as 8 bit TIFFS from LR and then separately fire up PSE to edit them, but is there a more elegant workflow?

Thanks for any help,

Dave

[PhotomanJohn]

Dave,

It is my understanding that one of the differences between Elements and the full Photoshop is that Elements can't deal with any 16 bit files. There may be some other stitch programs available at low cost that might handle your full files. I personally doubt that you will see much difference in the results between using 8 bit versus 16 bit source files.

John

[TerryScuba]

Hi Dave,

I have PS5 and do a great deal of panos but have found that when it comes stiching nothing can nothing can come near PTGUI. You can download a trial version from WWW.PTGUI.COM

Terry

[NorthernFocus]

I run into the same problem all the time. If you do most of your color correction before exporting the 8-bit file you won't notice the difference. Typically the problem I encounter is pixelation if you do too much work on the colors in 8-bit. It is frustrating through.

[Brev00]

PhotomanJohn:

Elements can work in 16 bits. It just depends on what feature of the program one is using. Panos, blends, bw conversions all require stepping down to 8 bits. Many features, those that I use on a regular basis, can use 16 bits. I usually convert to 8 bits at the very end of my processing or if I need to do one of those specialized functions.

[PhotomanJohn]

Larry - Thanks for correcting me about Elements. I checked it out and see that it does support 16 bit for some functions.

John

[NorthernFocus]

The most useful functions that you can't already do in LR are the ones that won't work on 16-bit in PSE. Using layers and stitching being two of them.

[davidedric]

The most useful functions that you can't already do in LR are the ones that won't work on 16-bit in PSE. Using layers and stitching being two of them.

Yes, that's exactly the problem! I've been doing a bit of experimenting, and you can set up PSE in LR4 as a custom editor, and instruct LR to do an 8 bit conversion. So if you know that what you want to do can be done in 16 bit (e.g. content aware healing brush) then use the regular route, if you know it will only work in 8 bit then use the custom route. I think it saves a couple of steps in the workflow.

LR acts up a bit, and says do you really want to do this, but if you keep clicking "yes" it does get the message.

So far as I can tell this only works for single images, can't get multiple images opened in PSE via this route. Anyone suggest a way?

Thanks for the help,

Dave