Question for Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw Users
printergirl
Registered Users Posts: 308 Major grins
I am just wondering if I am the only one who does this? Often, when using Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw to "develop" and tweak my photos, I don't have to take it any further. Simply "touch them up" in Raw and export them to JPG for uploading. Am I the only one that does this, or do most of you carry them on into Photoshop for finalization? Just curious.
I ask because it seems that everyone else online talks about developing them in Raw and finishing them in Photoshop, but I gotta say, I get great results from Raw alone. I have many presets that I use within Raw already setup and downloaded the Wow-Presets from OnOne software (free), which also are great for rendering artistic effects, among other things. Am I alone in this work flow?
I mean sometimes I will take a picture into Photoshop and finish it, but that is on a rare occasion and only if I can't do what I have envisioned within Raw. Usually Raw can handle it.
That's why I laugh when all my Lightroom friends "look down on me" for not using it, saying "oh well I can do everything in LR and never have to open PS." Because that's pretty much how I am doing it in Raw. So, I was curious if I am an oddity for stopping there 90% of the time and not taking it further into PS?
I ask because it seems that everyone else online talks about developing them in Raw and finishing them in Photoshop, but I gotta say, I get great results from Raw alone. I have many presets that I use within Raw already setup and downloaded the Wow-Presets from OnOne software (free), which also are great for rendering artistic effects, among other things. Am I alone in this work flow?
I mean sometimes I will take a picture into Photoshop and finish it, but that is on a rare occasion and only if I can't do what I have envisioned within Raw. Usually Raw can handle it.
That's why I laugh when all my Lightroom friends "look down on me" for not using it, saying "oh well I can do everything in LR and never have to open PS." Because that's pretty much how I am doing it in Raw. So, I was curious if I am an oddity for stopping there 90% of the time and not taking it further into PS?
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http://digitaldog.net/Galapagos/
That said, I do see a propensity of users doing sloppy raw rendering and then spending far too much time in Photoshop trying to fix the mess. You’ll find a lot of such “techniques” on this and many other sites. My mantra is GIGO:GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT. Get it right when you render the raw, fixing in Photoshop becomes a thing of the past.
That said, there are those that have to use Photoshop’s precise pixel editing tools for true retouch work, restoration or special effects. Its a darn useful tool for that purpose. Fixing photo truds, not so necessary.
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Photoshop is reserved for localized editing requiring selections, that cannot be completed with a brush in ACR.
I am still waiting for the state of the art noise reduction that is promised in LR3 though....
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
This is making me think.....
Would there be an advantage to using the adjustment brush in ACR to lighten and darken areas rather than dodging and burning in PS using an overlay layer? It seems easier to control in PS.
Until cameras can produce a greater dynamic range, controlling local light seems necessary to me, and has not much to do with how well you exposed the shot.
I will confess that I have not developed a great love for the masking done with the adjustment brush in ACR, but prefer to create my own masks with a brush, pen tool, Quick Selection tool, etc, in PS itself. I understand the advantage of metadata editing, but the in-ability to create my own selection in ACR is still a deal killer for me at times.
Noise removal is another area that plug ins are better at than ACR so far. That is promised to change in LR3. We'll see soon enough.
Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
Keep in mind that if you need to do very precise editing, Photoshop will provide more control in terms of where you place the edits, how you control the brush dynamics etc. But short of that, everything else points to advantages to doing this in the raw pipeline:
1. Truly non destructive.
2. Edits live with the file forever unlike Photoshop’s history.
3. Edits are applied in the optimal processing order automatically.
4. As the raw processing engine improves so does all the edits albeit they may appear somewhat different.
Apply say burning and dodging in LR is quite different from doing so in Photoshop and many newer users who are used to PS find it odd. That is, in PS, when you paint in an effect, if its too strong, you have one chance to control this via Fade (or start over). In LR, you have unlimited control over the painting. Paint the burn way too dark, back off as many times as you wish using the sliders. In that respect, its got far more control. You never burn the edit into pixels. Its a different way of working.
That said, piling on a lot of such individual brush work can bring the product to its knees. And as I said, doing very precise work, with the lack of brush controls like we have in Photoshop is somewhat limiting. But like most of the global work, I suspect users can do 85% or more work parametrically rather than at the pixel level and thats vastly preferable.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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