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09/23/2007 10:56:41 PM · #1 |
I hope this thread will be of interest to a broad section of the members, especially newbies like me. It is essentially about developing a workflow for my environment.
I am looking to produce the highest quality work with the equipment/software I have available (Canon D40, CS3, Pixma Pro9500). I shoot in RAW to produce .cr2 files - that is the easy bit. What do I do now... should I import the .cr2 file straight into CS3 to edit the RAW file or should I use some third party software. If so what? I assume I need to retain as much raw data for as long as possible in the editing process. Is that so? At what stage do I change file format? To what? Why? What do I manipulate first... is there a hierarchy of 'things to do'?
Perhaps one of the DPC Gurus could put together a tutorial on this subject, but any help in the meantime would be greatly appreciated.
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09/24/2007 10:44:02 AM · #2 |
Im far from a guru but my personal opinion is that you want to do your editing/resizing when you have the most data available and this would be working with the raw image.
What I do, is upload my raw files from my card to my comp and place them in a folder. View them with adobe bridge and delete the junk.
How you ultimatly process an image will greatly depend on the goal for the image but generally speaking I will do something like this.
1.View in bridge.
2.select image to work with and open in ACR (ie adobe camera raw)
Make sure its set to highest bit more and of a size to match camera. ( if uploading to alamy where images need to be large I will select a larger size to interpolation takes place with the raw image).
3. Make primary adjustements in ACR. Sharpness, s-curve, white balance and anything else I can do.
4. Chose to "Open" image which brings it into photoshop.
5. make additional tweaks as needed, any masking, dodging/burning, adjustment layers etc.
6. save as psd or tiff into a directory for my processed images.
7. based on final destination of image I may need to reduce mode down to 8 bit and save as a jpg or what have you.
Its hard to give real specifics because each image varies. Some may not need anything beyond what you can do in ACR before opening it. Others you may want to do extensive work on in PS etc. |
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09/24/2007 10:57:31 AM · #3 |
If you save the RAW file as a 16-bit TIFF at any stage of your workflow you won't be losing any image data. It's when you convert to JPG that you lose data.
So whatever way you structure your workflow, just leave the 'save as JPG' piece until last and use PSD or 16-bit TIFF as your working format. |
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09/24/2007 12:21:21 PM · #4 |
Your "master" file should be a 16-bit Photoshop (.PSD) file, as this gives you the most editing flexibility regarding retaining selections, layers, etc.; PS also applies proprietary (lossless) compression to keep the stored file as small as possible on disk.
I always then make a "flattened" TIFF file of the final version, to get rid of all layers and selections, and then apply any final sharpening (after re-sizing, if necessary), before saving as JPEG (or PDF or whatever the final format needs to be). As mentioned, you'll need to convert to 8-bit color before saving as JPEG.
For a DPC entry, I would typically have the following files:
-Original capture
-Photoshop file
-Full-sized TIFF
-Resized for DPC TIFF
-JPEG
To save space, you could discard the full-size TIFF since that can always be regenerated from the PSD file, but I find it handy to keep them around, especially if I want to use one to make a print image. |
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09/24/2007 12:25:47 PM · #5 |
My workflow looks something like this:
Shoot most everything in RAW.
Import on to the computer and backup drive at the same time, renaming along the way.
Import into Lightroom
Select the bad/good/great images in lightroom (2 pass selection process, get rid of the bad on the first pass, pick the great on the second pass)
If I'm lucky I have an image left to work with in the 'great' set. Do all the colour adjustments, exposure, white balance, contrast, levels etc adjustments on the develop page in Lightroom. Simple retouching if needed. Image adjustment order in my old workflow is almost exactly top to bottom on the controls in lightroom's develop tabs. Funny that.
(optional export to photoshop as 16bit PSD file, edit and save/ keep the photoshop file - photoshop probably gets opened for 10% of the images, less and less these days)
Export for the web. Print. Whatever.
Message edited by author 2007-09-24 12:26:49.
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09/24/2007 12:35:58 PM · #6 |
(please forgive the semi thread hijack)
Gordon - I used lightroom once before and liked it, but was extremely disappointed with lack of "save for web" features. Are you able to choose the image size you want the jpg to be? If not, is it just a guessing game?
Originally posted by Gordon:
Export for the web. Print. Whatever. |
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09/24/2007 12:39:48 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by hopper:
Are you able to choose the image size you want the jpg to be? If not, is it just a guessing game? |
By size do you mean the file size ? Then I don't think you can, no. The export option lets you set the pixel dimensions and quality, but it doesn't have the 'make the file 150kb' option that Photoshop has. Entering images here is one of the few reasons I open Photoshop to do the resizing/ export, for that reason.
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09/24/2007 01:08:51 PM · #8 |
thanks Gordon ... i hope they add that feature ... i like lightroom
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by hopper:
Are you able to choose the image size you want the jpg to be? If not, is it just a guessing game? |
By size do you mean the file size ? Then I don't think you can, no. The export option lets you set the pixel dimensions and quality, but it doesn't have the 'make the file 150kb' option that Photoshop has. Entering images here is one of the few reasons I open Photoshop to do the resizing/ export, for that reason. |
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09/24/2007 02:30:56 PM · #9 |
thank you all... that is all very helpful and gives me a better understanding of what to do with my files at various stages in the workflow.
When it comes to post processing the tiff file in cs3, is there any particular order in which you prefer to do things, ie crop, curves, dodge/burn, etc before producing your jpeg?
Also, what are the pro's and con's of using lightshop... does it do something that the other programs don't (eg bridge), or is it just easier to use?
In addition, also, as well... psd vs tiff. I can convert my camera raw files through bridge to psd files... should i do this, or stick with tiff? (I think you are going to say stick with tiff)
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