importing big files into Adobe lightroom?

[Chester McCheeserton]

Leaving aside the question of whether this is a good idea or not, I'm wondering if anyone has experimented with importing large scans, like drum scans, into Lightroom and then using the sharpening sliders and then exporting back to work in PS?

Many of my scans give me the 'file is too big to import' error message. For instance a 5x7 neg scanned at 4000 dpi is 27960 pixels on the long side. (I guess that's over the 512 megapixel limit? I've never really had to be concerned with megapixel size before) Is there any way to get files this large into Lightroom without sizing down first?

Any tips or suggestions much appreciated....

[rdeloe]

I've never hit this limit before so I did some digging and found some interesting results ("interesting" as in "bummer").

Adobe Lightroom can handle a file that is a maximum of 65,535 pixels in the longest dimension. But it can't handle a file larger than a total of 512 MP (not megabytes -- megapixels). So a picture that is 65,535 pixels in one dimension can only be 7 pixels in the other. I will agree with you and anyone else who thinks this is asinine... You say your picture scanned to 27,960 pixels in the 7" side. That would give you 19971 pixels in the 5 inch side. Unfortunately, that's 558.38 MP, so too big for Lightroom. The only solution (until Adobe comes to realize how stupid this limit is!) is for you to re-size the image. Or better still, crop it before importing it into Lightroom. I work with 4x5 negatives, and camera scan them. I'm able to import the entire "scan" into Lightroom, including the rebate, but I could just as easily crop it to the actual usable image area before importing.


To your other question (workflow), I actually go the other way. I do all my post-processing of scanned negatives in Lightroom. However, I have to send the negative images to Photoshop to invert them because Lightroom doesn't have a usable way of inverting negatives. (The option that is available involves working with all your sliders reversed -- which is yet another asinine feature of Lightroom!)

[Tin Can]

I believe Adobe has Offline editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offline_editing) in Premiere where you edit low rez movies and assemble the final full size file after all edits, Macros, titles, etc are done.

Saving computer power using smaller. file sizes.

At least that's what the movie makers tell me.

Where's Pere?

[faberryman]

LR has an invert function in the drop down menu at the bottom of the Tone Curve. It defaults to Linear, but you can choose Invert.

[Chester McCheeserton]

Ahh Thanks rdeloe
...guess I was too lazy to google how to figure out the megapixels...but great news for me, it looks like a 4K dpi scan of 5x7 will just slip under the mp boundry, - maybe from now on I'll try just scanning a hairline of the black rebate instead of the whole 1/8 inch....I don't think it shows up but if you zoom in past 100% you can tell when a files been cropped or resized as it blurs the pixels in a screen pattern, (again I know this would likely never be visible in a print) but I sleep a little better the less times I have to size or re-crop a digital file before printing.

Lightroom was a little slow to preview but did import the 4k 5x7 scan once I cropped off the excess rebate....now just need to make some tests...I'm a fairly new LR user but was fairly impressed with the power and flexibility of the sharpening and noise reduction sliders under the 'detail' menu in the 'develop' module, at least when I made some test from my digital camera...I found that the default settings were far from optimized for making a large print and that some testing and experimentation vastly improved my results....

[Tin Can]

Perhaps some need to petition Adobe to implement small file editing for large files just as they do with Premiere.

File sizes are not getting any smaller going forward.

[Chester McCheeserton]

I believe Adobe has Offline editing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offline_editing) in Premiere where you edit low rez movies and assemble the final full size file after all edits, Macros, titles, etc are done.
Where's Pere?

indeed Premier has this but not sure Lightroom works the same way....Pere and I had a disagreement about Kodak Advantix vs KFC Chicky Club Vintage cameras so he might not chime in here...

[rdeloe]

LR has an invert function in the drop down menu at the bottom of the Tone Curve. It defaults to Linear, but you can choose Invert.


There's no "invert" function built into Lightroom. However, it is the Tone Curve that is use to invert negatives. You have to manually reverse the ends of the curve to invert the negative. If you do this a lot, you can assign it to a LR preset. Or you have one more option: once you invert it, you can save the tone curve to that menu in the Tone Curve panel. If you call it "Invert" then it looks like you have an Invert option in the Tone Curve panel. But it's just a kind of preset. You still end up with reverse curves.

Here's a quick tutorial on inverting the curve: https://www.lightroomtutorials.com/quick-tip-how-to-invert-photos-in-lightroom/

I find it impossible to work with the backwards sliders. It's just too frustrating. Instead, I "scan" the negative with my camera. I then bring the pieces of the "negative" into LR, stitch them together, send them over to PS from inside LR, and bring them back into LR as a TIF. I've posted the hardware I use here: https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?150162-Camera-scanning-on-the-cheap-an-example-approach. There's also a huge "DSLR scanning" thread on the forum.

[Jeff Donald]

Perhaps some need to petition Adobe to implement small file editing for large files just as they do with Premiere.

File sizes are not getting any smaller going forward.

Lightroom has this feature already. They are called Smart Previews.

[Tin Can]

Thanks!

I was unaware as I am not a fan of Lightroom. I use Photoshop every day.

But here is the link to how it works.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/lightroom-smart-previews.html

and CC https://petapixel.com/2016/09/20/adobe-lightroom-cc-now-smart-previews-faster-performance/



Lightroom has this feature already. They are called Smart Previews.

[Corran]

Unsharp Masking, Smart Sharpen, Hi-Pass sharpening*, and of course Layers/Masks make Photoshop a much more powerful tool than Lightroom. If you want to optimize for really large prints, do it in PS and forget about LR. It's a pain bouncing around programs anyway IMO, especially with large files.

*This is a technique, not a sharpening algorithm. Google it and learn the technique, and then you can make a simple Photoshop Action to perform it quickly. This type of sharpening is very powerful.

[Chester McCheeserton]

I agree that Photoshop is much more powerful for working on individual pictures than Lightroom, and you're probably right about the annoyance of switching between programs.

and I'm quite familiar with those sharpening methods you mention (huge fan of highpass filter turned way down below 2 with the layer mode set to soft light and then applying it only to select areas with a layer mask)

But I don't think any of them they can do exactly what the sliders in the 'detail' menu I mentioned do, or at least I'm curious enough to want to run some tests and see some results on paper. I know photoshop has noise reduction too, but as I mentioned earlier, I was so impressed with the results on my digital files (from my Sony mirrorless) adjusting those sliders in LR, it seemed like you could target specific issues with the file (like color noise) in a more specific way....and basically start the files off in a better way in terms of optimal sharpness and noise. I know this is counter intuitive to everything about only using sharpening at the very end in photoshop, I would likely still do that too, but this seemed (in the digital file at least) to make a better starting point to my eye.

[Corran]

I do like the color noise slider in LR for digital images. Personally I don't like the normal noise reduction in LR - it seems to mess too much with fine detail, making everything turn to mush, but that's an observation I've made working on digital files shot at higher ISOs (yes, obviously those have less detail in general).

I've honestly never tried it with film. I've never opened a film scan in LR. I imagine there will be a lot of differences between film and digital images. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[Sandro]

I frequntly import files over 1 Gb into Lightroom.
6x17 negatives (Fuji G617) scanned at 3500 dpi (roughly 10,500 pixel long by 3,500, 16 bit color)
Honestly I don’t need all those pixels, because the maximum lenght I print is 22”. But you never know for the future...

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Problem for me is my filed start as 4GB in size and grow from t. Also, it is not as robust or as powerful as PS. It is good for native digital fils and 35mm film scans and even mf, large format not so. I have processed gilss upwards of 80 GB in size. But there are tricks to work on a smaller version and end up with the full size file when using PS.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I also use Hi-pass almost exclusively and target mostly midtones with it, but also use it in several layers and mask out areas I don't want affected by the Hi-pass. The amount you adjust is really based on file size. I typically adjust till I can just make out small change and not much more.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

LR has an invert function in the drop down menu at the bottom of the Tone Curve. It defaults to Linear, but you can choose Invert.

I do not use LR nor PS to invert any negative. I use Colorperfect to do so. I don't like their results, too much work.