I have been only shooting JPG for a while, but I have recently decided to start shooting RAW. I have been using Elements 9, and when I try to work with the RAW files they don't look as good to me as the JPG files I am also saving when I shoot. I recently purchased a bundle of CS6 and LR4 from B&H at what seemed like a good price, but I would like to know if anyone can point me to a website or books that might give me an idea of how to start. I looked through posts on this forum going back a few months.

What I have mainly done with Elements is modify levels, mild color tweaks, brightness and contrast. I have done very little with layers and pretty much nothing with masks. I am looking for a good place to start. I guess I could just load Lightroom and see what happens, but I would rather have even a little clue about where to go after that—especially since I just got back from vacation with almost 1000 photos to go through.

I always appreciate the information I get on Dgrin. Thanks for any suggestions.

Kelby Training have awesome books on LR4 and CS6.
Your RAW files don't look as good as the JPEG's because they don't have any processing applied like the JPEG's do out of the camera.

Welcome Barbara, another Hoosier!!

I rec you shoot RAW, and start with Lightroom 4. Lightroom is easier to do Raw rendering with, and simpler to learn than PS. If you cannot get good images with LR, then it may be time to move on to Photoshop for selections and local image editing. If you want to edit with Smart Objects, then start with PS, but Smart Objects assumes you have a pretty sophisticated understanding of layers, masks, and blending modes, which are not used in LR. Your description of your image editing sounds pretty basic.

Raw files ( straight from your camera ) DO look much poorer than incamera jpgs because RAW files have not had ANY image processing done to them and it is up to you and your Raw processing engine to create those editied jpgs or tiffs, whereas incamera jpgs have been fully processed by the CPU in your camera. But the CPU in your camera cannot and will not do as good a job as a trained image editor can do with Adobe Camera Raw, or Digital Photo Pro, or other RAW engines.

Start with Scott Kelby's Lightroom 4 for digital photographers. Lightroom seems pretty simple at first, but there is a fair amount of depth to really make it sing with your images. If you need more on LR, get get Resnick's D65 Lightroom Workbook for LR4.


The Luminous Landscape has some excellent videos with Michael Reichman and Jeffe Schewe on Lightroom with some really great insider tips - http://www.luminous-landscape.com/index.shtml Jeffe Schewe is a genuine guru with LR and PS.

Learning to really use Photoshop well is a lifelong task that never ends, and one can do 80-90+% of what they need as a photographer with Lightroom4 - I only leave LR4 to go to PS on less than 15% of my images these days.


As to 1000 photos to go through, my current Lightroom4 catalog has over 76,000 files, so there is no need to have more than one ( and only one ) catalog for your Lightroom files. Put your catalog, your previews, and your RAW files ( or DNG files ) on a folder on an external drive (other than your boot drive), and NEVER open Lightroom without your external drive connected to your computer first.

Let us know how you get along, and if you have other questions we will try to answer them.

Once you get Lightroom or LR, build a few presets for import (including at some point, camera profiles), the images imported into LR will look as good or better than the camera generated JPEG. The initial rendering settings are just a default, you can roll your own. Or not and just apply a preset after you edit down to the images you wish to keep. It is all non destructive and the order is pretty much up to you. But the idea that the initial previews LR generates has to look fugly isn't the case once you adjust your initial import preset to taste.

I bought the duo during that fantastic sale, also. Didn't yours come with two Kelby training DVDs? As far as books go, compared to what I had with LR2 and CS4, I like the Classroom in a Book series for CS6 and LR4. I see there were many features of LR2 I wasn't taking advantage of because I wasn't aware of them.

Another excellent subscription site is Lynda.com
They have great videos on all the Adobe software.

Originally Posted by WinkXR6T Kelby Training have awesome books on LR4 and CS6. Your RAW files don't look as good as the JPEG's because they don't have any processing applied like the JPEG's do out of the camera.

I have used several of Kelby's books and really like them.....similar to a cook book, do this first, then this and so on... ... funny thing is I have bought all of mine off amazon for way cheaper than retail...sometimes as much as 75% less and they were brand new ...

Originally Posted by KYLady I bought the duo during that fantastic sale, also. Didn't yours come with two Kelby training DVDs? As far as books go, compared to what I had with LR2 and CS4, I like the Classroom in a Book series for CS6 and LR4. I see there were many features of LR2 I wasn't taking advantage of because I wasn't aware of them.

That's the bundle I got--both programs and the video training for about half the full price of CS6. It was backordered for about a month, and I started traveling for business around the time it arrived. Vacation, more travel, and I forgot about the videos. I never got a chance to install either program, but it would be nice to step up from Elements for the vacation photos. I still really would like a book so I can refer to it while working. I have now watched the first few lessons of the Lightroom training video and I may try one of the Kelby books.