Sending Photos from Lightroom to Photoshop

Question

Hey guys, when I send photos from Lightroom 5 to Photoshop (CS6), make changes and return to Lightroom, I will see a new frame with the changes I have just made.  However, I notice that I lose my original enhancement settings from Lightroom.  In other words, the enhancements on the photo are still there, but the sliders from the right hand tool bar have all been reset.  Basically all the changes have been 'baked in' to the photo, so I can no longer make modify/delete the enhancements I originally made.  This is particularly important when working with brushes.
Is there anything I can do to preserve these modifiers as I go back and forth between Lightroom and Photoshop?

Answer 1

sladen301 wrote:
Thanks ssprengel.  My original image is in raw and was sending to PS using Edit In.  Good to know it wasn't user error on my part.  I'll just have to make sure in the future that all adjustments are final prior to sending to PS.
Alternatively, you can separate the LR adjustments into those that make most sense before going to PS, and those that make sense to apply afterwards (onto the image that is returned from PS into LR). The latter adjustments would not have been baked in, so would not be visible while in PS. But this would also mean they remain editable nondestructively, also they can be varied within different Virtual Copies that all refer to the same TIFF / PSD file on disk. Further edits in PS to that file, would show back into all those LR image variations, automatically.
When compatible PS and LR versions are used, there is the option to Edit in PS as Smart Object. This preserves the LR adjustments at that time, fully and nondestructively, as embedded settings that can be altered further if required, by pushing the Smart Object layer into ACR within the Photoshop environment. The updated image shows back into LR once re-saved. But any such method logically has to re-set the LR adjustments for the returned image, since otherwise those adjustments would be double-applied: once externally, and again by LR.
With Raw only "edit a copy with LR adjustments" is available. But with other image types, including those previously externally edited from LR, you can also "Edit original" and "Edit a copy" - these options retain whatever LR adjustments are active, avoid baking those in to the external edit, and re-apply them once again, to the saved result of the external edit.