Exposure easily integrates with Photoshop in a number of ways, including support of Photoshop’s PSD format. This video shows you how to edit PSD images created in Photoshop, how to export PSD images, and more.
Photo: McClanahan Studio
Transcript
Photoshop as a plugin
In addition to being a complete RAW photo editor, Exposure can be launched from Photoshop as a creative editing plug-in. That workflow is covered from beginning-to-end in our Getting Started with Photoshop video.
Using Photoshop PSDs
When using Exposure as a full photo editor, Photoshop Document files with the extension PSD can be directly viewed, and non-destructively edited. This enables a high-end retouching or photo compositing workflow to be performed on a file in Photoshop, and then color grading and special effects can be applied using Exposure. The only requirement is that the PSD files are saved with Maximize Compatibility active.
Exposure is able to export files in PSD format. You can specify the bit depth and color space for the exported files.
Accessing Photoshop from Exposure
Photoshop can also be launched as an external editor from Exposure. Right-click and choose Edit Copy In… –> Photoshop to make a copy of the image with all of your Exposure adjustments. Working on a copy safeguards against overwriting your original file. By default, Exposure creates a PSD image when opening a copy of an image in Photoshop. That can be changed in Exposure’s Preferences panel. On the External Editors panel, in the Settings for Copied Images section, the file options TIFF or JPEG are also available. Bit depth, and color space options, including compression when using TIFF files, and quality when using JPGs can also be specified. To learn more about it, watch our exporting video.
You can instantly access external editors by assigning a hotkey. For example, ⌘+F10 opens the original file in Photoshop or Shift+⌘+F10 to open a copy. Use Alt+F10 and Shift+Alt+F10 on Windows.
Exposure saves the image as a single-layer PSD file. If there are multiple layers in Exposure, they will be combined together when Exposure opens the file in Photoshop. When edits are made and saved in Photoshop, Exposure will notice that the file has been changed and will update with the changes.
