I have been processing some TIFs wrong by white balancing it first in Lightroom and then applying NLP v2.2
I have been copying the files around and missing any history now in Lightroom (novice on Lightroom)
Can someone tell me if the white balance in Lightroom updated the original TIF file?
Can i still go back to the original scanned TIF file before the white balancing?
Thank you.
Lightroom is a non-destructive converter/editor so all Lightroom settings are reversible. When you change a setting like WB, it’s saved as metadata as XMP in a TIFF or in a sidecar file attached to the original RAW. It’s just an instruction to do something and doesn’t change the original data.
However, how you send the file to an external editor (like NLP or Photoshop) also matters. In your case:
If you send as ‘Edit original with LR adjustments’ your file will go with the ‘wrong’ WB you applied and will be saved as a new TIFF-Edit copy alongside the original TIFF.
If you send as ‘Edit a copy’ a copy of your ‘wrong’ file will go with the WB ignored and will be saved as a new TIFF-Edit copy alongside the original TIFF. That is one way to correct the error in WB.
If you send as ‘Edit original’ your file will go also with WB ignored but your original file will be overwritten with whatever you do in the external editor and will be saved to the original location in place of your original TIFF. Your original file will be replaced with a new one.
In the first two in instances you can take the original TIFF back to Lightroom and revert the WB setting to ‘As Shot’ and then have a second go in NLP.
In the third instance your original file will have been overwritten and returned to its original location with all changes ‘baked in’. If the file was saved with layers preserved, you can still send it back to the external editor, delete the layers/adjustments and re-save to LR. If the file was flattened on saving (‘Discard layers’) there is no turning back. I hope you didn’t do that.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for your help.
I just scanned the negative as positive TIFF, then right clicked on the file in Windows Explorer to open it in Lightroom Classic. My Lightroom is using standard settings, so i did not see a dialog of edit/copy questions.
I just imported the image, whitebalanced and crop it. Then converted it with NLP 2.2 and pressed OK to see the results. Then i closed Lightroom and it asked me to backup the catalog. Afterwards i had been copying the files to another directory and lost the history when opening Lightroom again.
So i am not sure my TIF .are still original, but when i look at the file properties of the image in Windows Explorer, i see the creation datetime and modification datetime of the file is the same…so can i conclude that it is still the original positive scan?
When i apply white balance to this file again i do see the border color changing again… so i am not sure, else i have to rescan this serie again.
I find Lightroom rather slow, so i only use it for NLP 2.2 conversion and then use Photoshop.
First a tip. Never just open/import a file in LIghtroom from Windows Explorer or anywhere else. Lr is a catalogue. Keep ALL your photos in one folder on your hard drive and import them ALL into Lightroom. Never copy, edit, rename or make any change to a file without starting from Lightroom. If you make changes to a file outside Lightroom you will end up with one mother of a mess with files apparently ‘missing’ and lots of metadata mix-ups. If you want to use Lr, always start from Lr and always save back to Lr.
I don’t understand what you are doing and without being unkind neither do you. If I were you I would first learn the basics of Lightroom, then rescan your negatives and finally convert them in NLP.
i’ve been doing this too! I just realized the instructions say not to white balance on TIFF scans. But… i gotta say, i don’t really understand why this is the case. don’t we still need to compensate for the orange mask? Furthermore, i just tried it on two sample photos with it white balanced on the mask and without, and it’s the incorrect method that gives me much better results. when i don’t white balance first, all the colors are washed out and it has a bit of a blue cast. I don’t really understand why though. @nate can you shed some light on this? thanks!
settings are:
frontier color model
pre-saturation = 3
tones: linear - gamma
NLP white balance: auto-neutral
everything else default
with WB
without WB
with WB
without WB
For whats its worth, when scanning my family negatives i no longer do white balancing anymore. Just follow the guide now.
I just import my 48bit TIFF file and process it in NLP with Lab Standard and Neutral. Only adjust the brightness, contrast, whites, blacks and some mid. Seems to look perfect now.
