Open Smart Objects into Layers

[atsamstamler]

Hi everyone!

I'm wondering if we can put our heads together to come up with an efficient workflow to open a group of raw files from Lightroom into photoshop as smart objects, and as layers in one document simultaneously (a combination of "open as layers" and "open as smart object."

I use open as layers numerous times per day to composite architectural images, and it would be really amazing to have the capability to re-process the files within the document as I work on the composite.

So far, I've tried opening everything as smart objects (which puts each file in it's own document) and then running an action to save everything as a PSD to a temp folder, and then using Scripts>Load Files Into Stack to combine them, but this doesn't always work, and it rasterizes all the smart objects.

If anyone can think of an efficient way to do this (i.e. better than opening everything as smart objects, and then dragging them one by one into a document) I would be so grateful! Thanks so much!!

Sam

*edit: I'm running Photoshop CC 2017, Lightroom CC 2015.8, MacOS Sierra 10.12.3

[klev]

Re: Open Smart Objects into Layers

You would most likely have to write a script to do this. Even if you have done so before, Photoshop has a weird api. You will want to test this. On import, I recommend naming the layers by file name.

[atsamstamler]

Re: Open Smart Objects into Layers

So, here's what I've found so far, from a little bit of focused tinkering. I'm able to get everything to load as smart objects into a stack by selecting everything in LR, and dragging and dropping into PS on my other monitor. I have "Always Create Smart Objects when Placing" and "Skip Transform when Placing" checked in photoshop, which means that I just have to hit the enter key once when each image loads into camera raw. Not bad!

The problem now is that when the images open in Camera Raw, the adjustments made in lightroom are ignored and I start out with all zero's in Camera Raw. Does anyone know of a check box somewhere that will tell photoshop to read the settings from the sidecar when opening in Camera Raw? I have already saved my lightroom settings to the XMPs, so I'm not sure why photoshop is ignoring them...

*edit: The XMP issue was the product of a unique set of circumstances. Lightroom has a bug that happens when you switch the folder that the catalog points to.