Raw and batching

BBones

Is there a way to bring RAW files in (CR2) and run a batch against them? I have the pictures that I am working on and they are very close except for a minor tweak in PS CS 2 while in the RAW view.

gluwater

Can't you just create an action and then use ACR to run an Action on a group of files.

Tools>Photoshop>Batch

or

Tools>Photoshop>Image Processor

Nikolai

Image Processor
It provides a very simplistic UI and allows you to run an action - which, in turn, can be a composite of many other actions.
I'm shooting RAW exclusively and I use it ALL the time.
HTH

BBones

ACR? I don't use Photoshop really for much more then Leveling and cropping

DavidTO

BBones wrote:

Is there a way to bring RAW files in (CR2) and run a batch against them? I have the pictures that I am working on and they are very close except for a minor tweak in PS CS 2 while in the RAW view.

What is it you want to do? You can open a bunch, select them all, apply settings to all of them at once and then save them all out. Or you can correct one, then select the rest and synchronize whatever settings you want.

ACR is Adobe Camera Raw, which is the module in CS2 that does the RAW work.

gluwater

ACR = Adobe Camera Raw

I applogize, I meant Bridge, not ACR. Does it make more sense? Open Bridge and select Tools>Photoshop>Batch or Image Processor

DavidTO

I can't think of a reason why I would use image processor on RAW files...

Nikolai

David,

DavidTO wrote:

I can't think of a reason why I would use image processor on RAW files...

I'll give you one: convert all of them into jpegs in one shot :

gluwater

To save as jpg and run an action on them at the same time. Is it doing anything differently than if you would run Batch?

gluwater

Nikolai wrote:

I'll give you one: convert all of them into jpegs in one shot :

To just save them as jpg it is easier to just save them through ACR while processing them.

DavidTO

Nikolai wrote:

I'll give you one: convert all of them into jpegs in one shot :

ACR already does that. Just select 'em all and save them.

jfriend

Using Bridge + ACR to make a RAW tweak on thousands of images at once

BBones wrote:

Is there a way to bring RAW files in (CR2) and run a batch against them? I have the pictures that I am working on and they are very close except for a minor tweak in PS CS 2 while in the RAW view.

I'm not totally sure I know what you want to do, but if you have CS2 and what you're trying to do is to apply the same RAW adjustment to a whole bunch of RAW files, then that is trivial in Bridge/CS2.

Just open Bridge and navigate to the right directory. Multi-select the images you want to change. Right click and open in Adobe Camera RAW. In ACR, adjust the first image how you like (let's imagine you changed the white balance slider to fix a white balance issue). Now to propogate that WB change to all the other images, hit the Select All button in the upper left. Then hit the Synchronize button in the upper left. Make sure there's a checkmark only by the options you want to propogate to the other RAW images (in this case white balance). Hit OK. Hit Done. All your selected images will now have the same adjusted white balance setting.

No need to write an action or even open them in CS2 if that's all you needed to do.

DavidTO

jfriend wrote:

No need to write an action or even open them in CS2 if that's all you needed to do.

gluwater

That would be the easiest way to go about it but I had assumed BBones meant after doing the initial RAW processing. I thought the small changes he meant were making a standard S Curve adjustment, sharpening, Levels or something similar in PS.

jfriend

gluwater wrote:

That would be the easiest way to go about it but I had assumed BBones meant after doing the initial RAW processing. I thought the small changes he meant were making a standard S Curve adjustment, sharpening, Levels or something similar in PS.

Yeah, he isn't clear about what kind of adjustment he wants to make. He'll have to be more specific so we can offer advice for whether it can be done in ACR or not.

For the record, S curves (or nearly any curve), levels and a form of sharpening can all be done in ACR without going into CS2.

Nikolai

There is a little difference

gluwater wrote:

To just save them as jpg it is easier to just save them through ACR while processing them.

With Image Processor you can

1. Apply copyright (I *always* do that)
2. Automatically resize if needed - I find it useful about 20% of the time, if I need to give low-res jpegs to somebody
3. Apply some color correction action if the set requires it and which for some reason is unavailalbe in ACR (e.g. Apply image|Neutralize). It does not happen often, but when it does, it can save me dozens and hundreds of trips to PS on a single run, which time I cna you more productively
4. Last but not least: Image Processor does not have the "file save" annoyance (the birthmark of batch processing)

Having said that, by no means I'm implying that you or anybody should use this workflow. I'm using it all the time, but that's just me. If you don't find it convenient/useful - . As they say, "every man to his taste" :

HTH

DavidTO

Nikolai wrote:

With Image Processor you can

1. Apply copyright (I *always* do that)

Where do you apply it?

Nikolai

David,

DavidTO wrote:

Where do you apply it?

Here (example for resizing and copyrighting, aslo an action):


HTH

gluwater

jfriend wrote:

For the record, S curves (or nearly any curve), levels and a form of sharpening can all be done in ACR without going into CS2.

I did know that but thought ACR did not do as good of a job on those things as PS CS2. If I am wrong please let me know, this is one of those things I've never really been sure about.

jfriend

gluwater wrote:

I did know that but thought ACR did not do as good of a job on those things as PS CS2. If I am wrong please let me know, this is one of those things I've never really been sure about.

If you are talking about RGB adjustments for levels or curves, I'm not aware of any advantages that CS2 has over ACR. In fact, with the ability to operate on the full RAW data before any rounding, ACR should have a slight advantage. CS2 can, of course, operate on individual color channels and use blend modes, but if you weren't using that, then ACR should be quite comparable.

For sharpening, there are more than a hundred different ways to do sharpening in CS2 and ACR only has one built-in mechanism. I use ACR's sharpening on mass-produced images (e.g. 1000 images from an event), but if I'm hand tweaking an image in CS2, I'll sharpen it there.

DavidTO

Nikolai wrote:

Here (example for resizing and copyrighting, aslo an action):

HTH

No, my question was whether it was on the image or in the EXIF.

DavidTO

And wouldn't you always rather have a full-size version of the RAW file that you then made small ones from?

gluwater

jfriend wrote:

If you are talking about RGB adjustments for levels or curves, I'm not aware of any advantages that CS2 has over ACR. In fact, with the ability to operate on the full RAW data before any rounding, ACR should have a slight advantage. CS2 can, of course, operate on individual color channels and use blend modes, but if you weren't using that, then ACR should be quite comparable.

For sharpening, there are more than a hundred different ways to do sharpening in CS2 and ACR only has one built-in mechanism. I use ACR's sharpening on mass-produced images (e.g. 1000 images from an event), but if I'm hand tweaking an image in CS2, I'll sharpen it there.

Thanks, that's the kind of info I was looking for.

Nikolai

Exif

DavidTO wrote:

No, my question was whether it was on the image or in the EXIF.

EXIF, I don't like to burn into image:-)

Nikolai

David,

DavidTO wrote:

And wouldn't you always rather have a full-size version of the RAW file that you then made small ones from?

I do keep the RAW files. And in most cases I do full size conversion to JPEGs (which I then upload to SM:-) - via IP. And if for some reason I need to create a bunch of 800x600, IP is definitely one of the easiest ways to go..

DavidTO

Nikolai wrote:

EXIF, I don't like to burn into image:-)

That's why I was asking. Why not put the copyright on the RAW file? Then it'll end up on the JPEG every time you make one...

Have you read The DAM Book yet? Great read. You can make a template for your EXIF and apply it to all your RAW files and thereby get it on your JPEGs, too. You could take a look at my copy, if you want.

Nikolai

That's true, too

DavidTO wrote:

That's why I was asking. Why not put the copyright on the RAW file? Then it'll end up on the JPEG every time you make one...

Have you read The DAM Book yet? Great read. You can make a template for your EXIF and apply it to all your RAW files and thereby get it on your JPEGs, too. You could take a look at my copy, if you want.

I know of this thick, but for some reason did not incorporate it into my workflow.. Thank for reminding me of it!

SportsShots

I hope it's not too late to revive this thread. Is there anyway to handle exposure compensation in a batch method of RAW images? Has anyone ever conqured a batch process for Removing grain?

Thanks in advance,
john

Nikolai

Not sure if this helps

SportsShots wrote:

I hope it's not too late to revive this thread. Is there anyway to handle exposure compensation in a batch method of RAW images? Has anyone ever conqured a batch process for Removing grain?

Thanks in advance,
john

AFAIK, ACR is not "scriptable". However, since you can design settings for one file and then apply them in one shot to many-many others I don't see a particular need in it

As to the PS itself, if your workflow requires specific steps that can be automated, then you can do it either via "actions" (provided your process is a straightforward one, i.e. without "forks", "switches" or "loops") or via scripting (VBScript and JScript on Windows, AppleScript and JScript on Macs) - there you can do *everything*, like making your decision off a value of Y component of a particular pixel..:): . I'm not saying it's trivial or even easy, in fact, learning curve could be pretty steep, but it's definitely doable..

HTH