Workflow for RAW, iphoto and PSE 11

crotonmark · Jul 24, 2013

Newbie here.

I have decided to try shooting in RAW. However, I don't understand the process.
I shot some test pics. I imported them into iPhoto and the Photoshop Elements 11 organizer.
Basically nothing out of the ordinary happened. Does the RAW window only open in edit mode for PSE and iPhoto ?
How do you know what settings to use in the RAW window? Is it just by eye?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Mark

tecboy · Jul 24, 2013

You can try using post processing software that comes with you DSLR or get Lightroom.

crotonmark · Jul 24, 2013

Why? Do iphoto and PSE not work?

tecboy · Jul 24, 2013

I don't know about iPhoto and PSE. Maybe others can help.

I have Lightroom and full version of photoshop, and these work great with raw files. The post proccessing software comes with your DSLR should works.

480sparky · Jul 24, 2013

crotonmark said:
Why? Do iphoto and PSE not work?

What is lacking that you need in the software that came with the camera?

crotonmark · Jul 24, 2013

I never even loaded it on my computer. I had these other options.

tecboy · Jul 24, 2013

Better option is Lightroom.

CowgirlMama · Jul 24, 2013

I have iPhoto. I also have Lightroom and Photoshop. I've never used iPhoto for raw processing before, so I pulled it up to try. iPhoto's raw processing is a joke. For what little processing it can do, you might as well be processing a jpg.

As far as PS Elements goes, I'm not sure what it lacks that is in Photoshop, since I haven't used it. I know it is considered a stripped down version of Photoshop. You can probably survive with that for now, though. I've always used Photoshop for all my processing, but recently learned how to use Lightroom and love that I can have it convert my raw files into whatever file type I want, resize to what I need (different for various purposes) and add a watermark, all in one step. Lightroom and Photoshop/Elements work together nicely, so you can go back and forth between the two programs and have the best of both worlds. Each program has strengths, so it's nice that they work together so seamlessly.

crotonmark · Jul 24, 2013

Thanks all

Question
If I come back from a day of shooting and have a hundred shots - do I have to process each one? Doesn't that take forever?

crotonmark · Jul 24, 2013

tecboy said:
Better option is Lightroom.

Why? And what about Aperture?

hopdaddy · Jul 24, 2013

In PSE11 when you "edit" the photo it will open in ACR first . That is where you will make adjustments to the RAW file. when finished there you can open photo in PSE11 .

Scatterbrained · Jul 24, 2013

crotonmark said:
Thanks all

Question
If I come back from a day of shooting and have a hundred shots - do I have to process each one? Doesn't that take forever?

Just because you took hundreds of images, doesn't mean you have to process them all. Unless you're shooting events where you are expected to deliver a hundred or so images; otherwise I can't see why you'd want to. Beyond that, if you got your exposure right, then you can just use a default preset to apply to all images on import, or you can edit one image and then synchronize those adjustments across all the other images. Lr was designed for people dealing with large amounts of images.

Beyond that, if you have PSE, it should come with Adobe Camera Raw, which is the processing engine in Lr. I have heard that the version of Camera Raw that comes boxed with PSE is stripped down compared to Lr and Ps ACR, but I can't confirm that from experience.

480sparky · Jul 24, 2013

crotonmark said:
Thanks all

Question
If I come back from a day of shooting and have a hundred shots - do I have to process each one? Doesn't that take forever?

Not always. A good workflow involves rating your images and only editing the 'keepers'. For instance, I may take 5 or 6 shots of the same subject, but only 1 nailed the focus/DOF I was looking for. That one gets star-rated, the rest don't. Then, when I start the actual editing of that one image, my software is set up to only show the star-rated images. So I only work with those images.

However, if I have 40 images for a focus stack, panormaic or HDR, I will edit one representative image, save the settings and then load them into the remainder for batch editing.