Is editing RAW the same in PS as it is in LR?

What I mean by that is, if you load a RAW file in Photoshop and want to adjust exposure for instance, is it the same as adjusting exposure in LR or ACR or does it affect the file in a different way?

You can't open a raw file into Photoshop directly. It has to pass through a raw program - LR, ACR, or one of the others.

Photoshop is a pixel level editor, but it does integrate with a little add on called Adobe Camera Raw which handles any RAW conversion for it.

It just so happens that ACR is used as the RAW development engine in Lightroom, so it is usually pretty safe to say that yes, and edit made in Photoshop using ACR (if you kept a raw file as a smart object for example) would be the same as an edit made in LR.

There however some small differences in camera profiles, and few small things that LR does that ACR does not. But generally it's not worth worrying about, and if your asking the question they will be features you're unlikely to be using

If what you are asking is whether there is a difference between editing the Raw extensively in LR/ACR or pulling out a default 16 bit tiff/psd from the converter and doing the same sort of editing to that tiff in PS, the answer is yes, there is a difference. The Raw data is linear and "virgin". The tiff has had demosaicing done, a gamma curve applied to it and WB applied as well as some minimal editing done even if you leave ACR at default. So you are starting with two very different sets of data. Next, even tools and functions with the same names behave very differently. Exposure, for instance, in ACR is auto-adaptive - it changes constantly according to image content in order to try to retain highlights and prevent clipping. That is very different from simply pulling the center of a curve to one side or another. Moreover, when you change tonality (lightness/darkness) using an RGB curve in PS there are changes in hue or saturation (or both) as well. ACR adjustments don't cause the same shifts, but do cause different ones.

Gotcha, so if you process a RAW file in LR and then import the RAW into PS for editing, is it still a RAW file at that point? I know White balance has been applied and so on, but if you adjust exposure or contrast for instance, is it pretty much the same as doing it in LR?

Not quite.

Photoshop can only work on rastered images, a RAW file is not a rastered image, it is little more than a table of data. Think of a rastered image as being one where the pixels are set in place, brightness and colour. Think of a RAW file as being a big bag of potential, with nothing totally set in place.

LR lets you view an interpretation of the raw table of data in RAW file, and make adjustments to how it is interpreted, then output a rastered image for editing in photoshop, either as a JPEG, Tiff or PSD.

So traditionally you process the RAW file in LR, which builds a raster that is passed onto Photoshop. Once in photoshop only adjusts can only be made to that rastered image file, which will never be the same as adjustments made to a RAW file as the programs work in different ways.

However, in Photoshop CC they added the ability to open a RAW file as a Smart Object. This means the raster is worked on in Photoshop, but a copy of the RAW file is kept on the side. This can be adjusted in ACR, which then updates the raster version in Photoshop.

Canon_Shoe wrote in post #17333825
Gotcha, so if you process a RAW file in LR and then import the RAW into PS for editing, is it still a RAW file at that point? I know White balance has been applied and so on, but if you adjust exposure or contrast for instance, is it pretty much the same as doing it in LR?

No editing program changes the RAW file. (Well... Not unless you convert to Adobe's DNG)

The RAW file isn't a proper image that can be displayed on a monitor. It only contains the Red Green and Blue data from the sensor. As tzalman points out, before it can be viewed, this data has to be de-mosaiced, white balanced, sharpened etc..

When you open a RAW file in LR, you're not looking at the RAW file directly. LR has converted it into something that can be recognized on your monitor. That is the point where you begin your editing.

You never alter the RAW file. You make changes to the settings of the photo and load those settings with the photo to see how you edited it. Such as white balance and exposure. With photoshop you permanently make changes to the file from which you can't go back.

Canon_Shoe wrote in post #17333825
Gotcha, so if you process a RAW file in LR and then import the RAW into PS for editing, is it still a RAW file at that point? I know White balance has been applied and so on, but if you adjust exposure or contrast for instance, is it pretty much the same as doing it in LR?

Think of a raw file as being in a language completely proprietary to the camera that created it (most specifically - related to how the sensor on that camera is designed). It's not designed to be viewed directly, and will contain whatever the sensor actually saw (however it actually sees). It'll also contain numerous bits of metadata, describing the image, and the camera settings - the latter often being the values the camera would use in order to create a viewable image from that raw data (white balance, sharpness etc.)

Both LR and PS use the same processing (Adobe Camera Raw) to decode the raw data (which may be very different for each camera model) and produce viewable RGB image data (consisting of pixels, in the format of your choosing - 8bit/16bit, sRGB profile/Adobe RGB profile etc.)

If you have versions of LR and PS that are using the same version of ACR then you should get exactly the same resulting RGB image (if you have both set for the same format).

Once you've created an RGB image from a raw file however, you can't go back. If you then edit that image at the pixel level, and a later version of ACR is released (that does a much better job of decoding raw files from your camera) you'd have to start again on that image. LR's non-destructive editing system (or using smart objects in Photoshop) can side step that, as I believe both effectively "load" the raw, and then layer the edits on top - thus an improved decoder may give you benefits without having to do the work again.

To answer your specific question (I don't have LR running in front of me right now to check specifics) but IRC, you can ask to open the raw in PS, and it'll open the raw using PS's ACR, but with any values you've already chosen (for shadows, clarity etc). However, you can also open it in PS as a PSD or TIFF (that LR generates by decoding the raw [also using ACR]). This can be useful if your version of PS is older than LR and its version of ACR doesn't support your camera. Whether you open in PS as a raw, or create a PSD/TIFF and open; if you then save the resulting image as a PSD or TIFF you'll end up with a new RGB image file on your drive, and a new image added to your LR catalog (usually of the form IMG_xxxx-Edit).

Thanks so much guys! Helps a lot