Processing RAW files

[kelleyrie]

I've only recently dipped my toes into shooting RAW and I'm coming across a bit of an issue. I don't know what I am doing!
I had a firm grasp on jpeg editing and going to RAW has thrown me. My photos are so much nosier than before and when I try to correct that (using trial lightroom 3) I often end up with a crappier result than if I had just started with a jpeg. I'm sure this is due to my complete and utter lack of knowledge about RAW.
Can someone point me in the right direction, please?

[Hill Country Hack]

Kelley,

I use LR3 and I'll tell you my workflow and maybe it will help you out.
- I view and discard poor images prior to importing
- After import I cull again with the reject (x) or flag (p) the keepers
- Delete the second cull
- I go to Develop and edit one image in this order: Lens correction, WB, exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, brightness, clarity, saturation (I'm blanking on the other adjustment that goes with clarity and saturation), curve adjustments, sharpness and noise reduction. For me, the noise reduction is the most important and tricky step. I have entry level gear and my images get noisy at ISO above 800. Not enough reduction and too much noise, too much and overly smooth/loss of detail. There are other freeware noise reduction software, but I've yet to explore that option.

If I have a group of shots taken at the same time and in the same general lighting I go to the top of the page and under "photos" (I think, I'm doing this from memory while at work) and "copy previous settings" I then proceed to the next image and then from the top of the page "paste previous settings" and so forth until all are processed the same way.

You may be able to Copy settings, highlight the rest of the images while in Develop and then Paste. I just added a preset to use while importing and have yet to try it out.

I hope this helps.

[Tito87]

Originally Posted by Hill Country Hack

(I'm blanking on the other adjustment that goes with clarity and saturation)

I believe it's vibrance.

[Hill Country Hack]

That's it Tito. Thanks.

[kelleyrie]

HCH, my main gear is even more entry level than yours, a Rebel XT so I hear ya on the noise
Thank you for the workflow, gives me a starting place!

[kirbinster]

Lightroom should be great for you as others have suggested. Adobe designed it so that in the develop module you work from the top down, which is close to what you have been told. The only exception is the lens correction, which I do first when I do it. Some shots I find are better without lens correction. As for noise, Lightroom does a great job on noise reduction, better than many stand alones. You should not have to play with the color section in noise reduction much, its the other one (forget its name of the top of my head) that will correct most problems. Why not shoot in raw+jpeg and see if you can come close to matching (or improving on) the jpeg - that should show you what settings you need to play with the most.

[kelleyrie]

Great tip about RAW+JPEG, thanks. I'll definitely give that a try.

[Digidave]

Okay everybody, correct me if I'm wrong. Lightroom will not automatically read your camera settings. So, if you had your camera set up to sharpen, adjust exposure, punch up the color, or have High ISO noise reduction set, Lightroom would ignore those settings.

Now, isn't there something called "Camera Presets" or something similar? Where you would find a preset to download & have Lightroom apply it automatically? This would solve many RAW issues.

I ask this because I have never used Lightroom & have been thinking about giving it a second look.

[Hill Country Hack]

One more good thing about Lightroom is the original RAW file never changes no matter what you do to it. One can always hit the reset button and have the original file back.

On a side note, when I import I have the software change the file from RAW to DNG (digital negative). That is a Scott Kelby reccomendation from his Lightroom book. Something about "sidecars". As I understand, the change to DNG is the same capture information without some extraneous side "stuff" and therefore less disk space taken when storing to the hard drive/external drive.