Ok Guy's,
I'm what you might call a 'newbie' to the world of RAW images, so I do know that they are easy to edit and all that but what's all this about batch processing. What is the time saving software that makes RAW 'so much easier'?

That is my question. Experts - it is your turn.

i shoot everything raw (sometimes + jpg)

i convert in photoshop acr. you can use the software that came with your camera, also. it's just my preference to use one program, and photoshop is so powerful, i know i'm just scratching the surface.

as far as time saving, i have a bunch of presets loaded. i usually make one for each wedding. it's a general preset that i can apply to give the whole wedding for a style or feel. once you've made a preset, you just select your images (in this case i select them all) and apply the pre-set. done!
they are not perfect, at all, but then you can select others and do the same thing. it's taken me a long time to develop my presets, but now they are so fast.

then i select all the images, and run the image processor to apply actions and save everything as .jpgs.

it used to take me days to get this all done. now it takes a couple of hours, at the longest. i always go back to the raw file to perfect it if someone wants something special, but at this point i can take the .jpgs and build an album.

i'm working on getting my pre-sets and actions on line to share.

lightroom is my best thing for everything!

Lightroom is rockin' my world.

J

I love using Adobe Bridge with all my presets...I've gotten so used to it, I can process a whole wedding in a few hours, and then leave my computer to sit there and convert them all to JPG's.

I've also been playing around with lightroom, but I'm not comfortable enough on it to use it exclusively...yet (but that's going to happen). Such a sweet app.

sdjeffy -

ditto....all the way! I was using Lightroom for a LONG time and, Matt, I think it's absolutely fabulous, but I feel that Adobe Bridge works better for me. More power to all of you who use Lightroom - I do think it's very helpful.

Right now I'm using Bridge + ACR for my RAW workflow, and Lightroom for my JPG workflow. The new bridge version CS3 finally allows for split toning, but it's just as much of a memory hog as the CS2 version. I'm going to download an Aperture trial to play with over break because I've never given it a fair shot, so we'll see how that goes.

I just went back to RAW after shooting JPG for the last 3 years. I was sold on JPEG until I just started working in Bridge. Then I saw DJ's presets and was just in awe.... officially a RAW shooter now for weddings. May stick to jpg for my studio work though. Not sure on that though right now...

I can't wait to see that Robin.
Please let us know.
Thank you.

Lightroom hands down.

Have to say that I love using Adobe Bridge. It is simple and easy to use and edit before you go into Photoshop to do more.

+1

I used to use Bridge, but I got Aperture and have been using it a lot. It's FAR more powerful than Bridge, especially with non-destructive editing and it's great at organization.

I haven't tried Lightroom, but I'd like to check it out.

I use Photo Mechanic to edit and Canon DPP to process. Not sure if it's the best but works for me.

Huy

You can use bridge + ACR for your jpeg workflow, too (in CS3). Preferences/File Handling/Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for JPEG Files



Do. It beats Aperture. Aperture has no presets. Shame on Aperture.



Or, you could use Lightroom and never go into Photoshop (saving tons of time).

lightroom

never used lightroom but i guess i will have to check iot out now

Stewart C.

Lightroom all the way!

I just downloaded the beta version of lightroom and it's VERY slow--anybody know the possible reason for this? It was just ridiculous, everytime I made an edit to a RAW file it would have to "load" the picture again, it took about 5 seconds per change which adds up to a LOT of unneccesary time.

What settings did you import with?

Um, I'm not sure what you mean, I'll open up the program and try to figure it out. Could you explain further?

I've been using Adobe Camera Raw in Bridge for a long time...but I just bought the pre-order of Lightroom! The single most coolest bestest feature ever sold me in about 1/2 a second...awesome importing options. On import, you can check a box to backup images AND apply any preset to all the images. Three steps turned into one!

Yes try and get a new shoot into Lightroom with the Import dialog - what are your settings for import? Such as previews, copying images, etc.

Here's the menu I have. I just clicked "Import" and left all the settings as is.

I did some quick googling and also found that the BETA version can be kind of slow on some operating systems. Maybe this is the case? I mean, everything imports fine it's just the "Working..." text that keeps coming up everytime I make a change is potentially frustrating if I'm faced with 100s of images to process.

What are your computer specs? RAM, harddisk space, processors?

lightroom is my favorite

I am about to purchase Lightroom because of it's jpeg editing ability. Can I also run my images through Image Processor via LR light I can in Bridge????

Lightroom 1.0

Thanks for the Info, I've been playing in Bridge and have done a little experimenting with lightroom on friends' machines, but I'm still running tiger (shame on me I know), because I'm waiting on leopard. I think when leopard comes out, I'll upgrade and start using lightroom more as well.

I think I just need more help in bridge using presets.

Thanks Matt for all the online tutorials, they really help.

Also, for those of you who have tested both Aperture and Lightroom, which do you prefer? And why? Thanks!

Lightroom in answer to your question, but I am partial to www.phaseone.com 's Capture One for RAW processing. Light room is great, but it still has growing up to do, as does any 1.0 of anything. Don't get me wrong it is awesome, but try a demo of Capture One and see what you think. Go through their on-line tutorial, you won't believe the B&W's it can create.

Brett

It all depends on what you are looking for. This is a very subjective matter. I depends how you work, the machine you have, if you just want a RAW converter or want something else.

Just a RAW converter...

The one designed for your camera probably offer best conversion but will lack in some other area.

I started using LR while on Beta 2 and Aperture since version 1.1. For the last several month I have been using almost exclusively LR version 1 but, honestly, while counting the days until I could have a MAC PRO worthy of Aperture. Now, I do have my coveted MACPRO and I am back into Aperture.

Aperture offers better flexibility, edit and organizing tools. Its RAW converter is very good. The loupe, smart albums, export projects and Light table are awesome (Nothing like them anywhere). But beware, you need a powerful MAC to run it properly. It is a more ambicious and powerful set of tools.

Lightroom is very good also. If you are an Adobe fan or have use ACR you will feel at home right away. Easier to learn than Aperture but not as flexible. Has presets (some swear by them, I don't use them). It's goal was simplicity and they got it, but at the price of having a very lame Library module and missing some other edit tools. This may or may not be a factor depending on how you work. And the lack of a way to export "projects" is stupid omision. Lightroom strongest point is its develop (ACR in steroids) and print module and it ease of use.

I have them both and like both. I have been using mostly Lightroom because my MAC was an old G4 and Aperture could not run in it. But I just bought a MACPRO which I customized for Aperture and I have switch completely over to Aperture. I prefer it mostly becasue Aperture is designed for the way I work and Lightroom not. But both do a good RAW conversion, which is the answer to your question.

ACR comes with PS CS3 and Bridge. Very good and the most widely use RAW converter out there. If you don't care for organization tools (Library, making web galleries, etc) you may want to stick first with ACR and then decide if you need something else.

What does tiger of leopard has to do with Lightroom??? Every Apple user that run LR runs it on Tiger. Why shame on you for running Tiger? I am confused!

Ha! I am still rocking PANTHER, friend. And Photoshop 7.
I'll be getting a mbp soon, which will bring me back up to date.

I know this thread is old, but hopefully people will respond. I've never shot raw, and so far have been hand-editing each jpg. I work as a photojournalist, so generally the most I need to edit at one time is 10 images, and this method has worked for me thus far (especially considering the extreme minimalism of editing images for p-j purposes... crop, levels, sharpen.) Now with weddings, of course, I'm looking to really streamline my workflow... so tell me a little bit about these presets... what are they, basically?

(I did some searching, but all that comes up with is other forum posts like "When I edit in RAW I use my PRESETS." so not much of an explanation.)

I would think they're the same as actions, but everyone says they run their presets and then their actions.

Effectively Lightroom's Presets are the same as Actions - just much more limited. You can do exposure adjustments, an overall tone curve (not individual RGB ones), white balance, lots of individual color adjustments, split toning, noise reduction, lens correction (which you can use to create a vignette), and sharpening. And since the presets only work on the proxy, you can change or undo them at any time, and use them in any combination.

By the way, has anyone mentioned Bibble? It's not as flashy as Lightroom or Aperture, but it's just as powerful, it's easy-to-use, and inexpensive. It needs the same processing power as Lightroom.

http://www.bibblelabs.com/

I used Bibble Pro. As soon as Raw Shooter's Essentials was bought out by Adobe (that's what's powering Lightroom), I went to Bibble Pro. I havn't looked back either.

Very rarely does one present for WB work for me, so I don't batch like that. I go through each file, process it properly, they load instantly, takes what 3-4 seconds to have a 300 DPI Jpeg from my RAW file and I just hit copy and paste of the settings.

It works in Windows, Mac, Linux, it rocks.

-tmiller
Tim Miller Photography
http://tmillerphoto.com

Thanks! So, it sounds like most people still put images into photoshop after running them through lightroom... isn't that just more work? If I recall correctly, if you're shooting RAW you have to convert to jpeg to work with images in photoshop, but is the RAW>lightroom>photoshop workflow really that fast?

This is like 30% of why I want to hit up the Revolution Workshop, to hear david jay's "3 hour workflow" presentation! I doubt I'd ever get it down to 3 hours for a whole wedding, but as you can all see, I need some tips.

I feel like, especially since I don't have my macbook yet, it is faster to just do it my way -plodding along jpeg by jpeg- rather than trying to learn a whole new way of doing things and likely without the right tools. (My OS is too old to support Lightroom!)

The idea is to use Lightroom for "proofing" - which means 95% of all your image editing.

For images that need additional retouching, you can then either use the Lightroom processed files later in Photoshop - or go back to the originals.

If you can edit jpegs in CS3 Bridge, I am upgrading right now. Wow.

My workflow is now 90% Lightroom... and if they could improve the sharpening and add dodging and burning, I might not ever open PS again. It's a powerful tool that saves me a TON of time and it can batch process, export, and import in the background like Bridge never was able to do. I'm not sure if that's been improved in CS3's Bridge- but Lightroom has saved me tons of time in my workflow.... regardless of whether it's RAW or JPG.

It sounds like white balance and exposure are very easy and fast to fix in lightroom (working with raw) instead of my old standby of making a bunch of adjustment layers in photoshop... sounds good.

I asked this in another thread, but it didn't get anwered... what do you guys do about things like undereye circle and blemishes? I feel obligated to soften things like that in most of my images (if they're noticeable) and that eats up a lot of time... I make a duplicate layer and use the healing brush, then knock down the opacity a bit so they don't look like they're plastic Do you guys have faster solutions, or do you just not bother with stuff like that?

Also, with noise reduction in lightroom, is that effective enough that you don't need other programs like noise ninja?

I tried hard to like Lightroom, I really did. It does not do it for me. I like Capture One.....

I am loving CS3 ACR's ability to edit Jpegs now. I am finding that I like the results better than Lightroom. Give it a try!