Shooting in RAW... what's your workflow?

[chloe]

Okay, let's get technical, ladies. If you shoot in raw format, can you share what your workflow is? Which softwares do you use to import your pix, to see them? Do you delete the original files after having changed them into jpg?

[Charla]

Lightroom, baby!!

Seriously, it simplifies my workflow. No copying separate images. Nothing.

Before I had that, though, here's what I'd do.

I used Picasa to look through my pictures. I'd choose what I wanted to work on, and open them in Photoshop. Did preliminary adjustments in ACR, and then open it up, run some actions until I got the look I want, and saved a copy for web. I wouldn't usually keep a .psd file with all the actions, which occasionally made things miserable when I had to try to do it all again

In Lightroom you don't have to save anything...it stores all the changes (and all the steps you took to get there). Easy (once you learn what you're doing).

[chloe]

I have to say I'm too chicken to start working with Lightroom. I tried the free 1 month and couldn't wrap my head around it! I use Bridge to download and look throught the pix, but I can't tag them in there, so I should transform all of them in jpgs to be able to use ACDSee. It's a real PITA but I love the freedom that raw gives me. Thanks to it, I can even fix most of my (many) mistakes when shooting in manual! LOL

[judet]

I use Lightroom too. Was a bit of a scary process to start with but I got an ebook to help me, figured I'd be lost for months trying to figure it out on my own!

I import them as a .dng file (so I won't need to find drivers for a camera that might not exist at some point in the distant future), purge them of dodgy shots and duplicates, tag them and make some basic edits (usually through a set of presets I've created). I don't save them as jpg, I leave them there and take them straight from LR into PSE or GIMP (the latter being a slightly more tortuous process of course!) for layouts or Project Life spreads.

[chloe]

Now you're getting me intrigued to get my hands on lightroom! I might give it a try (again) this summer when I have some time to play...

[Charla]

It makes a HUGE difference if you spend some time learning what you're doing. I hated learning how to use it, but now I LOVE it!!!