RAW Workflow

[[Admin] PHugger]

I was wondering what folks are using for their RAW workflows. I've been experimenting with a few different tools myself and would really like to hear what others are doing.




PCH

[JHVideoGuy]

I've been using Adobe's Bridge and Photoshop. I'm currently on CS3. I've tried Lightroom and Aperture. Granted I don't really tweak my photos until they are going to print. I run through about 200 pictures on an average month.

For me my workflow is dump all my pics into a folder called "New Pics". I'll then go through an sort out the keepers. I'll make adjustments to see if it's work keeping (fix exposure and color). From there I'll batch rename and move them into appropriate folders. I don't really assign keywords as I find my folder structure sufficient for my needs.

I'll use camera raw to tweak my pictures when I'm ready to print.

-dave
http://creativeideas.wordpress.com/

[RiveraRa]

Because I don't have lightroom...I use bridge, ACR, and PS if needed.

Import to folder.
I mark every picture in the folder with a rating of 1* or reject
Ill then go through them again and rate those I feel are good enough with 2*
Go through all the 2*'s and rate the even better ones w/ 3*
All the way to 5*'s

Do my post processing in ACR

Any big edits I throw into PS

[Scott S]

I have been doing TONS of photography work. I just processed 2K from the weekend. I use lightroom. There are a number of presets you can establish and then I do my PP in photoshop cs3.

[[Admin] PHugger]

I've been evaluating Breeze Browse Pro (lightbox and I'm not sold on it yet) and Capture One for RAW processing. Capture One looks real promising, but it's not free. They currently have a beta program for the next version which just happens to run quite nicely on Vista. It's got some true professional features and makes the Canon Digital Photo Pro application look pretty feeble. I've been working on my directory organization, coming up with standard layouts and naming conventions. So far I've been saving RAW, TIFF, and resized (smaller) JPEGs for posting to the web and onto my media server. Since I switched to my new Canon I also now need to develop an archive procedure (CDs). My old Sony did this automatically.

The Canon's battery life is amazing. I bought a spare battery and haven't used it yet. I'm approaching 750 images shot and the original battery is still on it's first charge (still showing all 3 bars too). I used to love the Sony for it's ability to simply throw in new media if you filled it up (mini CDRs). I always knocked the flash memory users - they all seemed to need a laptop as a travel accessory. Now I'm in that boat too, but thankfully the price of flash has really dropped. 4gb seems like it might suffice for me. That will easily hold 500 RAW images. I guess if I need more, SWMBO may force me to buy another gadget...... (c8





PCH

[[Admin] PHugger]

I played around a bit with CaptureOne's contact sheet export function. It's not ready for prime time yet - I had to edit all of the file references. It's a nice quick way to show what you're working on.

http://home.comcast.net/~phugger/CaptureOne/
(just a test page)

It also caches images and this makes it hard if you change something outside of CaptureOne. The need a refresh function to keep things current.



PCH

[[Director] Joseph B]

Originally Posted by JHVideoGuy

I've been using Adobe's Bridge and Photoshop. I'm currently on CS3. I've tried Lightroom and Aperture. Granted I don't really tweak my photos until they are going to print. I run through about 200 pictures on an average month.

For me my workflow is dump all my pics into a folder called "New Pics". I'll then go through an sort out the keepers. I'll make adjustments to see if it's work keeping (fix exposure and color). From there I'll batch rename and move them into appropriate folders. I don't really assign keywords as I find my folder structure sufficient for my needs.

I'll use camera raw to tweak my pictures when I'm ready to print.

-dave
http://creativeideas.wordpress.com/

Pretty much what he said - however Picasa can view camera raw and if you upload them to a picasawebsite it converts them to jpgs for you.

[11210]

I mainly shoot for editorial use so I don't use RAW very often. I've heard very good things about Lightroom. It seems like it saves people a lot of time since they can do so much right in LR. I personally use PhotoMechanic. It's a great piece of software which has become very popular with newspaper photogs over the past couple years. I do all my captioning in PM and then go right into PS for editing.

[jdfonline]

I use Lightroom 3...so easy and very customizable. I import RAW and set it to output JPEG. You can also get loads of free presets online. I usually do tweaks and touch ups in Photoshop CS5.