Started shooting in RAW, now what?

[newPerspective]

OK, I admit it, I've been shooting JPEG until recently when I saw a Poll (and results) on DPS for shooting RAW vs JPEG. So I decided its time to take a step forward into the RAW direction.

I went on a hike and shot some decent pictures in RAW. Brought the pictures back home and uploaded to my computer. But I don't know where to start. There are a gazillion things that I can do to enhance my image in PP, so I'm not sure how to proceed.

I'm not looking for a tutorial on Adobe Camera Raw or Elements or any other software. But I would like to know about the process.

• Is there a set of standard steps that most people follow to process the RAW images?
• Is there any kind of a generic workflow?
• How do you go about the process of getting your images from RAW to finally uploading to Flickr?
• Do you treat each individual image differently as needed or rely mostly on batch edits?

I am quite comfortable with Photoshop, I know all the controls in Adobe Camera Raw (I'm using Camera Raw, with Bridge and CS3), and I also bought a book on Camera Raw and read a few articles(mostly on Camera Raw controls). But just overwhelmed at this point and looking for tips and directions to start using RAW images smartly.

Thank you.

[DogHeadGod]

I don't think there is any standard workflow for RAW per se. I just edit each file as necessary.

The first thing I do is turn off all automatic sharpening and adjustments as they add artefacting to your images. Then I'll only make tiny adjustments to exposure, white balance if I messed it up (but I do take white balance readings before every "session", so it's rare.) and possibly a little hue adjustment if I don't think there is enough "pop". That is about it really, and I do mean tiny adjustments, anything requiring more than a little tweak I don't use.

After that in Camera RAW, I open it fully into the editor and use "Export for Web" from the file menu to convert to jpeg before uploading to my site.

Batch processing would probably work if you take lots of images in the same controlled lighting situation, e.g. a studio. But I reckon it is safer, if more time consuming, to work on each file individually.

Most importantly never save and changes to the RAW file. Make a copy as .psd or .tiff and work from that so you can always start again with the original version if you mess up.

DHG

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by newPerspective

• Is there a set of standard steps that most people follow to process the RAW images?
• Is there any kind of a generic workflow?
• How do you go about the process of getting your images from RAW to finally uploading to Flickr?
• Do you treat each individual image differently as needed or rely mostly on batch edits?

In my opinion! Adobe Camera Raw is a much more challenging tool than most other Raw converters. Although it's possible to get great results with ACR, it takes a lot of knowledge and experience.

If you haven't downloaded the "DNG Profiles" for ACR, I strongly recommend that you do so. I've heard nothing but the highest praise for how much more accurate the colors are with the DNG Profiles than with the default ACR configuration. These profiles are tuned for individual camera models. You can find them here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles

Second, as DogHeadGod has already recommended, turn off ACR's various "automatic" settings. I don't know anybody who likes them.

If you're not wedded to ACR, I would suggest looking at some of the alternatives. If you're shooting Canon gear, you got a free Raw converter called Digital Photo Professional that produces some really excellent conversions and can transfer directly to Photoshop.

There are a couple of free Raw converters out there: Raw Therapee has been around for a while, and a new one called Scarab Darkroom is in "beta". A number of tools based on "dcraw" are available, but you might as well go with Raw Therapee in that case.

A whole lot of people seem to like Adobe Lightroom. I'm not an Adobe fan so I haven't looked at it, and I don't know if the Raw interface is any different from ACR or not.

Personally I use Light Crafts LightZone because I can get some nice results very easily, but it requires tons of computer power and still is painfully sluggish when zoomed in—and you do need to be zoomed in a lot to watch out for artifacts of the processing. This is a tool for tweaking that one special or difficult image, not for wholesale processing of an entire shoot. LightZone is about $100 US.

Some other commercial Raw converters: Bibble, Capture One, DxO Optics Pro, SilkyPix, and probably a bunch more that I forgot and I apologize to those companies.

Anyway, my point is that almost any of those will (in my opinion) be easier to deal with than ACR. If you're going to stick with ACR, I recommend that you read the book: "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3". From what I've seen around the 'Net, the folks who are ecstatic about their results from ACR all have read that book, and the ones who grumble about how hard it is to get good results with ACR haven't read that book. (You said you're reading a book, I hope that's the one.)

[Quo Fan]

Lightroom is great because all of you edits are "overlays" to the original image, meaning that the original image isn't touched and your edits are stored in a different location. I had problems with my computer, and since I store all my images on a server and do my editing on my desktop, when I reloaded my computer, all my images were still there, but none of the edits were, because they were stored within Lightroom.

[fletch]

The hardest incarnation of ACR i to work with is that found in PS Elements as it has been crippled to encouage people to step up to Lightroom or CS.

The versions found in Lightroom or CS4 are amazingly easy to use. Start with the DNG profiles, the maybe some subject specific develop presets to get you to a starting point. Then go through and tweak any settings you feel need it.

[newPerspective]

DogHeadGod & Doug Pardee Thank you so very much for the detailed suggestions, that helps a lot and attenuates my discomfort with this new format.

Quo Fan & fletch thank you for the recommendations I'll see ifi can get Lightroom and use that instead.

Thanks guys, you all rock.

[l.k.madison]

Bibble rocks. And the noise ninja, it's just amazing. Well worth it just for that. It's also non destructive - it attaches a "document" that you can't edit to your picture when you save it. The ONLY drawback is has that there isn't an "undo" button -every control has a toggle box, if you don't want to see what effect your exposure change made, uncheck the box. Not a bad thing -until you're playing around with the clone tool (or whatever they call the equivalent) and you miss, it's not fun to try and fix it.

Of course, shooting in RAW has it's severe advantages - shoot something with the way wrong exposure in JPEG, switch your camera to RAW then shoot it again. See which one you can recover. Granted, yes, if you leave it on Raw and you go on vacation with 1,000+ photos, converting each one over takes up loads of disk space and time.

Aperture sees RAW like it sees JPEGs, it doesn't even ask for a converter, it's also non-destructive (and VERY intuitive - I can do basic edits at a few minutes a picture then go back and play with the ones that need a bit more help) so if you're running Mac, consider Aperture.

Lightroom also likes RAW files - easy to go from one to the other when you're uploading a lot of files and need the dumped and converted quick (like vacation)

Personally, I use CS4, Aperture, Bibble, and Lightroom depending on the edit, each has their own pros and cons, it just depends on what I want to do. Aperture won't let you select part of an image (for selective coloring for example) while it is possible to do it (desaturate every color but the one you want) it's hard to do if you want just red and there's a person in the picture - it leaves the red in their skin and they look seriously diseased.