Lightroom's Lens Profile

[TC Conner]

I have two photos taken with the same camera and lens (Canon). In the Develop module Lightroom is showing the correct lens in "Lens Corrections" for the photo, but after I edited that same photo in Photoshop and saved it as .tif, Lightroom is not listing that lens. How is this happening?

[johnrellis]

Lens profiles are specific to the file format (raw and non-raw).  Most profiles are only for raw: https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/supported-lenses.html

[99jon]

The lens correction will already be baked-in to the tiff exported from LR with LR adjustments.

[TC Conner]

So, am I understanding that: If you have already applied lens correction profile to an image (RAW) in Lightroom, and then edit the image in Photoshop, when you're finished editing in PS and go back to the .tif file in Lightroom, it will not show the lens profile for the .tif file? Or any .tif file?

[99jon]

That's my understanding. Saving in PS creates a new document, usually saved next to the original raw file in the LR Library.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

So, am I understanding that: If you have already applied lens correction profile to an image (RAW) in Lightroom, and then edit the image in Photoshop, when you're finished editing in PS and go back to the .tif file in Lightroom, it will not show the lens profile for the .tif file?

To build on 99jon's reply, when you edit a raw in Photoshop and then save the result as a TIFF back into LR, that TIFF's pixels reflect all the Develop adjustments that were applied to the raw (along with any edits made in PS).   So when you open that TIFF in LR Develop, all of the Develop settings will be reset to their default setting.  Otherwise, you'd end up applying the develop settings twice -- once to the raw, and then again to the TIFF.  With the lens profile in particular, you'd apply the distortion and vignetting corrections to the raw to make the TIFF, and then they would get applied again to the TIFF when it is imported back into LR.   Clearly not what is desired.

Or any .tif file?

There are only a few lens profiles included in LR that have been created for non-raw files (JPEG, TIFF, PNG,PSD).   So when you're editing a non-raw, open the Lens Correction panel, and check Enable Profile Corrections, you'll likely see no profiles listed in the Profile dropdown box.

The reason is that non-raws typically already have a lens correction applied to them.  For example, cameras apply a built-in lens correction when they produce JPEGs; and as discussed, if you create a JPEG/TIFF/PSD from a raw file in LR, the raw will typically already have a lens correction applied.