From Lightroom to InDesign

I just began using Lightroom and am enjoying its many advantages over Bridge but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the integration of LR with InDesign. What is the best way to import the images into ID if using LR? I figure you use the same command (File - Place) but with LR, the physical location of the files stays in the original folders ( could be many locations) because LR doesn't actually create and relocate the files into one handy spot. When I used to use Bridge/Photoshop, I would be making copies of the edited files as I went and locating them in one file for a particular project. I assume that one makes copies somehow through LR in much the same way as I did in Bridge?

— Donna Kirkpatrick

Keep in mind that Lightroom doesn't do anything to your original files (the ones you imported into Lightroom) until you actually export them out of Lightroom. Even the adjustments you do in Lightroom don't actually do anything to the original files — they are just as set of instructions Lightroom will use during the "export" process, keeping in mind that by "export process" this could mean an actual export to a new file, an output to print, or output to a web page. Essentially, somehow you have to tell Lightroom to apply the adjustment instructions to the original file in some way or another. Typically, I either export a new file for specific use in an InDesign layout (e.g., LensWork, LensWork Extended, a LensWork Folio, etc.) or I use Lightroom's Web Module to have it use my adjustment instructions to make a web image.

So, there is no direct link from Lightroom to InDesign. The workflow looks something like this:

1. Import the original images (from the digital camera or from scans) into Lightroom. Typically, these are brand-specific RAW files of some kind from the digital camera, depending on the brand of camera you have. In the import process, you have the option to convert these camera-specific file formats to the universal DNG format, which I always do.
2. Do any creative and corrective adjustments you can in Lightroom to the imported files. Keep in mind, anything you do at this stage is only a set of instructions within Lightroom that do not change the DNG file in any way. They are just instructions waiting for the next step, the export process.
3. If necessary, I'll move an image into Photoshop for pixel remapping work using the "Edit in Photoshop" command. Once I've completed any work on the image in Photoshop, I close the file which is then saved in the same location as the original file but as a second-generation PSD file. I'll then go back to Lightroom where this second-generation PSD file automatically included in the Lightroom catalog without needing to import it. All future steps are then done to this Photoshop from the Lightroom catalog. You can always go back to the original if you need to, but doing so will lose any changes you made while in Photoshop.
4. Export the fully finished file (either the original with the Lightroom adjustments or the Photoshop second generation file, whichever is now the completed rendition) from Lightroom to a new folder that holds the finished files for use in the InDesign layout.
5. In InDesign, place these exported files into the layout.

You will always have at least two files — the original in the Lightroom catalog (DNG) and the exported file that incorporates all the Lightroom adjustments (in whatever format you need, typically TIF, JPG, PSD). You may have more than these two if you also took a side round-trip through Photoshop to do something that you can only do in Photoshop. It's possible to have a workflow that is import to Lightroom, work in Photoshop, back to Lightroom for more work, back to Photoshop again, back to Lightroom, then finally export to the finished file. In this case, you actually have a DNG original, two PSD interim versions, and a final output.

Make sense?

Comments

[Godfrey DiGiorgi]

Hi Brooks,

This is essentially identical to the workflow I'm using now, but instead of InDesign I'm using Apple's Pages layout application. It works very efficiently! Thank you for the inspiration. :-)

A minor detail:

... "It's possible to have a workflow that is import to Lightroom, work in Photoshop, back to Lightroom for more work, back to Photoshop again, back to Lightroom, then finally export to the finished file. In this case, you actually have a DNG original, two PSD interim versions, and a final output.

Depending on exactly what your Photoshop-Lightroom round-trip cycling was like, of course. It's not always quite so definitive.

In those cases where you have a tricky image, you can use Edit In Photoshop electing to re-edit the original TIFF or PSD file without applying any subsequent Lightroom changes. Make whatever additional mod you want, then save, and when you're back in LR any additional things you did in Lightroom 'overlay' the Photoshop modifications as before. The result in that case will be the DNG/PSD(TIFF) pair in the original file repository and the exported file in the location you put it for use with InDesign.

[Brooks Jensen]

Or, you could Lightroom, Photoshop, Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop, Lightroom, Lightroom, Lightroom, Photoshop, Lightshop, Photoroom, Roomshop, Lightphoto, and then output. ;-)

Sometimes it's just easier to rephotograph, too.

Brooks

[Godfrey DiGiorgi]

LOL ... I agree!

I commented only because your example seemed to imply that the LR->PS->LR.. cycle was entirely serial, with a new RGB channel file being generated at each period.

The Mathematician in me couldn't handle that! ;-)