Is there a way to save the editing steps you do to an image inside Photoshop, while keeping a link to the original image?
The way I envision it is being able to save a file alongside (not necessarily, but with a link to) the original image. When you open the file, Photoshop will load the linked image, and apply the saved steps to the image (kind of like an action, but with the added ability to link to a file, which makes it less of a hassle).
This would be very useful as currently, when I finish editing a JPEG and want to save the result in a format that I can easily edit later, I end up with a PSD file that is at least 10x as large as the original file I started with. And sometimes the file size can reach 100x the original or more.
It makes not sense for me to store a huge uncompressed and layered image, when the original image and final use image are going to be JPEG/PNG.
I am aware of some ways to reduce PSD file size (such as using adjustment layers for blending modes instead of duplicating the base layer), and I'm also aware that Lightroom operates on virtual copies, which is similar to what I'm talking about.
My question is whether there is any good way to achieve this in Photoshop?
I tried to "place" an image into Photoshop and save as PSD, but apparently it still stores the whole image data in the file (unlike Illustrator's linked images).