p.1 #1 · CS4, BRIDGE, LR2 & ACR... Really love some advises!!
Hi Fellow FM'ers,
I now have at last made a full transaction to Digital, also stopped entirely working for Agencies, were their Lab guys were doing all the post work.
Now I'll be doing all the work from Capture to Print at my new KETCHFRAME STUDIOS, so I went back to school have gotten a CS4, which comes with Bridge, and Camera RAW, and also have LR2.
What I'm looking is for the best advises in the ideal workflow, from some very experienced fellow Pro Photographers, I have sooo much to do this days, that I wanted to dedicate my little and precious time to learn and Master the absolute needed applications rather then learn something it is not needed or does the same as the other.
In short ( ) I like to get directed to the best workflow solution like:
A) Import the images were? And using what?
Open a new folder in Finder and drag all images in it? Or import the images with Bridge? Or import the images using ACR?
B) Once the images are imported, filter them in Bridge? Or create a LR2 Catalog and filter the images there?
C) Once the images are filtered and have the once in need of Post, do I do the best I can by the tools provided in ACR? Or in LR2? Or best to just take them directly in CS4?
Really appreciate any true Professional and from first experience input on this, as I'm in to learn the absolute best workflow possible, and avoid doing things in a counterproductive way, also leaving more time to learn at best the right Programs.
p.1 #2 · CS4, BRIDGE, LR2 & ACR... Really love some advises!!
I dunno if Lightroom runs on MAC. I was under the impresion that the MAC alternative was Aperture (I may be mistaken)
I am intersted in what folks have to say as my new Mac pro gets here Friday and I plan to retire my PC. Since I am familiar with Lightroom I wouldn't mind keeping it.
My workflow is something like this
1. Shoot RAW
2. Import into Lightroom
3. Process there and if I require more than Lightroom offers I export to CS3
4. For upload I will export to a customer setting
5. I print out of lightroom only just becasue its easier for me to do out of one place. I was messing up printer profile selection switching between the two or forgetting something (my fault I know for not paying attention I guess)
p.1 #6 · CS4, BRIDGE, LR2 & ACR... Really love some advises!!
Okay,
literally spent the past hours searching and calling and reading about the above posted Q?
And now kinda have a better understanding of it all, at least I hope
It seems that as I already own LR2.2 it is this a better tool for me as a Pro-Photographer then ACR and Bridge, especially as I deal with at times thousands of pics at the time, and all in RAW, so creating a new folder in Finder and saving IT in two separate Drives as I have been doing and then importing each project in to LR2 is the best way, then doing all the possible little adjustments, cataloging, rating Etc, and then bring the Top pics in to CS4 to do the finest of details and if and when any various layers are needed for various types of Commercial jobs or just for fun .
But surely still welcoming any other advise, I think that some one along the line suggested to import in to Phase One Capture as it has a better RAW capture capacity in maintaining true colors better then others.
p.1 #7 · CS4, BRIDGE, LR2 & ACR... Really love some advises!!
I go by whim. I have so many programs I like to mix it up based on a mood. And every time someone mentions a new workflow I run the next card or two through that to see what the person is doing and how that works out for me. On a different forum I collected about 100 people's workflows all listed in brief in a thread. A mod or two and the Admin there are A-holes or I would link it up for you. I might paste a few of them here if you're interested.
As to which one is "best" depends on what you want to do and what you mean by "best". Are you wanting to select the best images, edit those and trash the rest, process all images and store them by roll, process for print and web and store everything, etc. etc. And by "best" do you mean fastest for processing, fastest for sorting, most dynamic categorization, etc. all of the above? Once you answer these questions for yourself then you'll have a better idea of what to do and how to go about it.
Probably my most common procedure or "workflow" is for me the most expedient one which involves mostly just the OS and ACR/PS. Here it is with variants and remember I'm mostly shooting hobby level:
Shoot RAW + Small HQ JPG
Insert the card into a high speed reader
Preview Images with several variations:
Open a finder window, navigate to the card/folder with the images in "Icon" mode, type the file extension into the embedded spotlight search field, Click "filename" and restrict the search to just that folder. This allows for massive previews of the images maybe 800 pixels across via the size slider that appears at the bottom. You can click over to cover-flow at any time if you like and "QuickLook" will show you the images at full-screen.
Use GraphicConverter and navigate to the card/folder with the images to see large previews of all files. GC is an awesome bit of code - extremely capable and very very fast.
Use PathFinder to navigate to the card/folder to see large previews.
Use Bridge to navigate to the card/folder to see large previews.
Open the images in ACR, make adjustments.
Open in PS if it needs further processing.
Save directly to your storage folders. Folders here can be named by job, subject category, whatever.
So basically it's just loading directly from the card, editing, and then saving directly to your pre-made folder tree.
p.1 #8 · CS4, BRIDGE, LR2 & ACR... Really love some advises!!
Well what I mean by "Best" for me is the following:
once capturing the pictures, RAW only, I need to import them in to my HDD, and I like for the list amount of interpretation to be carried on by the transfer or better said the download of the pics, Canon already tends to have a off yellow warm cast on the pics, well I think mostly do to their lenses, not as sterile as the Nikons or Zeiss.
Once initial download of the pics is done, I then upload them in to Bridge or in my case now, LR2, choose the best ones and trash the rest, make the final decision on which ones to work on and do so inside LR2 then export the one or two, some times three that out of a shoot I need to take in PS4 and do all the Magic that only PS can do, layers and layers of some times infinite work, requested by the Agencies and or directly by the Clients, but some times also for my own likes and then some times the final product gets Opened in PX for more digital manipulation, this time to turn the pic in to a Oil painting to be printed on Canvas.
So "Best" for me will have to be what is the Best workflow in order to retain the BEST Image quality out of the Original Capture and leave the list amount of Data to be interpreted by a software in the download process.
Btw, thanks for your great Replay, much appreciated.
have gotten a CS4, which comes with Bridge, and Camera RAW, and also have LR2.