hi i'm robin whalley welcome to lenscraft it seems my previous video explaining how to replace dxo
pure raw with photolab created quite a bit of interest one question that seemed to come up
in comments and emails was about the workflow i used to integrate photolab with lightroom
so in this video i'll be explaining how i combine the two there also seems to be a couple of
reoccurring problems and i'll be explaining how to avoid or fix these let's get started with a
quick overview of my workflow the first step is to import new images from my memory card which
i do use in lightroom this copies the raw files to a storage drive attached to my computer and
adds the files to my lightroom catalog after that i sort rate and keyword my images using lightroom
this is important because i don't want to work on every image in dxo photo lab only the best
ones the reason i do this in lightroom is that i've been managing my photos with it since 2008
i've built up a lot of valuable metadata and adjustments in that time and i don't
want to lose them after organizing my images i process the best ones using dxo photo lab
i do this by exporting them with the lightroom photolab plugin the processed image is then
exported back from photo lab to lightroom as a dng file adding it to my lightroom catalog
i can then make any further tweaks in lightroom before exporting to photoshop for final editing
working this way i can keep my images in lightroom grouped with any copies that's the theory so let's
look at it in practice starting with a raw file i want to edit in photo lab the way to
open the raw file in photolab from lightroom is with the photolab plugin this is a plugin that
photolab installs to lightroom and it's accessed through the file menu here you'll find the plugin
extras submenu and under this is the transfer to dxo photolab option it's important to use the
plugin rather than right clicking on the image if you right click on the image to select edit
in or access that command from the menu lightroom will process the raw file you'll know lightroom's
doing this because you'll see the lightroom dialog to convert the image to another format
when you use the plugin to send the image to photo lab it presses the original file and avoids
processing by lightroom if you want to achieve the best image quality in photolab this is the option
to take now it's quite possible you won't see the photolap plugin listed in lightroom this seems to
be a common problem and i'll be discussing a fix for it shortly after selecting to transfer the
raw file to the dxo photolab for processing you should see photo lab launch and load the raw file
a problem i experience at this point is that after launching photolab doesn't always load
the correct raw file instead it loads the last file i was working on the easy fix i found first
is to open dxo photolab before using the plugin from lightroom if photolabs already open when i
send the raw file to it it seems to work correctly now i can apply my adjustments in photolab which
i've saved as a preset i can then export the adjusted image back to lightroom as a dng file if
you don't see the export to lightroom option click the button to the right and select it from there
after the dng file is generated and saved photo lab instructs lightroom to import the new dng file
it does this using another lightroom plugin which i'll show you in a minute sometimes it takes
lightroom a minute to pick up and import the new file whilst at other times it's immediate if you
don't see the file input just wait for a minute or two you can even continue to use lightroom
whilst you do this when the import completes you'll see a new lightroom collection added
to the dxo photolab collection set each export from photo lab has its own collection named with
the date and time of the import now let's look at the folder containing the original raw file this
is the same folder i used to save the process dng file to as well as any finished image files notice
the dng file and the raw file are stacked together which helps in managing them if you will like this
automatic stacking of all versions of an image you can turn it on in the lightroom preferences
if you look under external editing you'll see that there's an option for stack with original when
this is selected any new versions of an image are automatically stacked together with the original
by lightroom that's the workflow now let's look at the problem of the vanishing photolab plugins
i said earlier that you might not see the option to transfer to dxo photolab in your lightroom
menu i've had this happen to me quite a few times now and it's usually after a lightroom upgrade the
way i've fixed it is to first check if the plugin is installed but disabled you can do this in the
plugin manager which you'll find in the file menu i can see the dxo photolub plugin in the list and
the green ball tells me that it's active when i click the disable button the ball turns grey and
the option to transfer to photo lab is removed from the menu you'll also see that there are two
dxo photolab plugins although only one of them appears in the menu the importer option doesn't
appear in the menu but it's used by photolab to import new files back into the lightroom catalog
you will need both plugins to be enabled for the integration with photolab to work properly
now there are times when you might not see either of these plugins in the list
if this happens you need to check your computer drive to see if the plugins are installed
because i have the plugins installed already i can click the showing finder option i'll
include the plugin location in the youtube video information but i only have it from mac hopefully
someone with a windows version can share the windows location in the video comments when you
open the location if you find either of the dxo plugin files there move them to another directory
or delete them after that restart lightroom just to ensure nothing remains in the cache
we then need to reinstall the dxo plugins now these plugins aren't something that you can
just download from the internet they're part of photolab and photo lab handles installing them
the way to trigger the installation is to go to photolab and click the export to
lightroom button you should then see a pop-up to install the dxo photolab plugin for lightroom
click the continue button and complete the export
at this point you may still not see the dxo photolab option in the plugin menu and i found
that things don't always work immediately if you don't see it restart lightroom you should then
see a message telling you that the photolab plugin was installed and you should find it in the menu
i hope this video has given you a few new ideas about integrating photo lab into a lightroom
workflow and if you are having any problems with the plugins hopefully this will help to fix them
i'm robin whalley you've been watching lenscraft i'll see you soon for another
video