gyoung143 wrote:
Just a small point, I don't think Photoshop can do non destructive editing. Ok while your original is open, you can undo any edits you had made, but as soon as you close it it saves the changes. Likewise if your original is a tiff, you 'save as' a jpeg rather than 'export'.
In those far off days before Lightroom etc I used to 'save as' with a numerical suffix so that the original file could stay unaltered.
I still use an old version that has a TWAIN interface to drive mt scanners direct. Not sure what happens if you 'open' a raw file, haven't tried it for a while, but I think it uses an external programme to demosaic (Bridge?) and the you save as in the file format of choice, including their own .psd format.
Gerry
PS I might be a bit out of date, the latest version that will run on my PC is v21!
You may indeed be a bit more that a little out of date.
There are some things that PS does that must involve destructive editing — e.g. they cannot be undone or later changed in the application. But there are a whole lot of things that very much can be done non-destructively.
Adjustment layers, for example, can be turned off and on, have their opacity changed, and change their settings even after saving, closing, and reopening the file. One easy example: if you create a curves adjustment layer you can go back to it at any point and adjust the curve. If you do a black and white adjustment layer you can return and select a different “filter” effect at any time. Same with brightness and contrast and the new clarity and dehaze adjustment layers, and so forth.
If you make your base layer a smart layer (e.g. import the converted raw that way) you can change various smart filters — things like sharpening for example are not fixed — they are non destructive and can be changed later.
And, of course, you can edit, delete, or otherwise modify masks at any time.
The best one of all, in my view, is the smart import feature from ACR. EVERY EDIT that you make in ACR can be redone at any time if you use this technique. Let’s say you do your raw conversion and later you are working on the file in PS and you discover a dust spot. Just double click the image layer, it reopens in ACR, use its excellent spot removal features, hit OK, and you are right back in PS with your newly edited converted raw file.
My entire workflow (with only a few occasional oddball exceptions) in ACR and PS is COMPLETELY non-destructive. I can alter or redo any edits that i make.
Feb 03, 2026 at 04:08 PM
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