Lightroom? Capture One? CS3? I'm not a pro...

[Tony C.]

I know that the issues of which DNG converter to choose, and which processing software (e.g. CS3) to choose, have been discussed many times before. I have read many of those threads, and played around with the Lightroom Beta, etc., but would still appreciate some thoughts and recommendations from forum members, based on my personal requirements.

I am a Mac user. I am not a pro, and shoot almost exclusively for my own artistic purposes. I shoot in both color and black and white, and will be using Alien Skin software to enhance the latter. I have experimented with CS2 on and off during the past couple of years, so am somewhat familiar with Photoshop.

While it's not clear to me that I would benefit greatly from 'batch processing' capabilities (or would I?), I would like to use some type of organizational software. I'm quite capable of producing a fair number of images, but tend to sort through them in unadjusted RAW form very quickly, and pare down to relatively few before going on to the post-processing stage.

So, given my circumstances, I'm trying to decide whether Lightroom would be a sensible first step, then CS3 for finer manipulation, or whether Capture One coupled with CS3 would be more suitable, and I could organize in some manner other than Lightroom. Or perhaps I should wait for Aperture to support the M8, or consider other alternatives...

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. And please take into account that while I don't like to squander money, the cost of the various software options is not an issue.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Tony C.

[george_b]

I'm also in a similar dilema; I can't get my head round Lightroom since it does not seem to offer me anything I'm not happy with CS3 Beta & Match Image Management to keep track of my images.
Capture One LE 3.7.7 does not seem to offer my anything either, I use ACR and I am happy with my colour balances etc. So I shall be interested to hear about others experiences, their work flow and their prefered s/w.

[tashley]

Originally Posted by Tony C.

I know that the issues of which DNG converter to choose, and which processing software (e.g. CS3) to choose, have been discussed many times before. I have read many of those threads, and played around with the Lightroom Beta, etc., but would still appreciate some thoughts and recommendations from forum members, based on my personal requirements.

I am a Mac user. I am not a pro, and shoot almost exclusively for my own artistic purposes. I shoot in both color and black and white, and will be using Alien Skin software to enhance the latter. I have experimented with CS2 on and off during the past couple of years, so am somewhat familiar with Photoshop.

While it's not clear to me that I would benefit greatly from 'batch processing' capabilities (or would I?), I would like to use some type of organizational software. I'm quite capable of producing a fair number of images, but tend to sort through them in unadjusted RAW form very quickly, and pare down to relatively few before going on to the post-processing stage.

So, given my circumstances, I'm trying to decide whether Lightroom would be a sensible first step, then CS3 for finer manipulation, or whether Capture One coupled with CS3 would be more suitable, and I could organize in some manner other than Lightroom. Or perhaps I should wait for Aperture to support the M8, or consider other alternatives...

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. And please take into account that while I don't like to squander money, the cost of the various software options is not an issue.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Tony C.

Tony, a very personal response: Capture 1 is a hound. It is capable of better results in critical situations if you're going to be making a large print or have an image with particularly tricky color issues, but otherwise its unintuitive workflow is a PITA.

My workflow is very like yours and Lightroom does a great job most of the time and is almost purpose built for your core activity, which is as a means of importing and refining a shoot.

For web use or small to medium prints (I would say up to a3 or for me a3+) it is also a fine and intuitive way of doing your development. For tricky images or large prints, keep the free version of C1 (and update it to the new version) that comes with your M8 and prepare to roundtrip files to it, with the net result of huge files sizes and possibly marginally better images.

I use C1 for less than 1% of my images these days.

But do listen to what everyone else!

Best

Tim

[Shootist]

I have Lightroom and C1 LE, which came with the M8, and PS CS3, as a upgrade from PS CS2.
I very rarely use C1, I opened it the other day to process a M8 image that was taken with a 75 summicron without a IR cut filter. Other then for that I wouldn't use it at all.
I opened Lightroom about 4-5 days ago to import all my images and have bought a book on it by Martin Evening. Maybe with his book I'll figure out if it's for me. Right now I don't really care for it.
I use PS CS3 and Bridge 2 almost everyday.

[stunsworth]

Personally I use a combination of iView Media Pro and CS2 - upgrade to CS3 is in the post.

[jeffwros]

Bridge for organization & file naming. C1 for RAW processing. I just like the images I get from C1 better than the others.

[gwelland]

If only you could get LR with Capture One's RAW processing built in instead of ACR ... that would be ideal since it really does render images beautifully vs ACR. I use PS CS3 & LightZone for any fancy image editing beyond the basics since LR absolutely nails these for me (with the possible exception of it's ugly sharpening).

I'm sure there's an ultimate combo out there but I'm still searching for it ...

As Tim says though, for most images LR does an excellent job of raw conversion vs C1. But if you need profiles for no-IR shots or have a tricky lighting scenario C1 is the only show in town.

[woodda]

I have trialed them all and gone back to Iviw mediapro and CS1. The reason being nothing catalogues as well and LR / Aperture have limited base image editing and raw tools. You cannot even use unsharp mask only sharp slider. The thing I do like however is the ability to save process settings with the picture and apply to others without having to create copies and duplicates.

I will move when the above a added and I can have presaved searches that list all the IPTC Title headings as in Iview. Better than creating folders for sets of photos in my opinion

[dfarkas]

I find that C1 workflow is actually very smooth on the PC, while it is a bit cumbersome on the Mac. I have no idea why the workflow is different, but it is. Hopefully when C1 v4 combines the "best" features of the Mac and PC versions together, the PC workflow will be retained.

I tried the LR Beta a while back, but I found it wasn't as fast to go through a large number of files (1000+), as I had to keep changing viewing modes to make changes. Also, some of the "whiz bang" features like shadow recovery looked great at fit-to-screen size, but came out with ugly edge artifacts at 100%. I've been meaning to try the release version, but keep coming back to C1.

ACR is just too slow for large amounts of files. Opening one file at a time, when I might have 2,000 shots, just doesn't work for me. For single shots, I like ACR quite a bit.

Truly, C1 is my tool of choice (on PC), but your mileage may vary.

David

[johnwolf]

Tony,

I never bothered with Capture One, so I can't speak to it. But Lightroom and the CS3 raw converter share the same raw engine, so the conversion results should comparable. The interfaces are, of course, different, and preference is probably more a matter of what you get used to.

Adobe markets LR as a tool for photographers with large volumes of images. Since you are a relatively low-volume user, I think CS3 would be a better choice for you. You need Photoshop or Elements anyway, for local maniputation. LR and ACR do only global edits.

I also expect that a more casual user would find the integration of Bridge, ACR, and PS valuable. I used the LR beta for several months, and finally decided on CS3 for its integration.

Hope this helps. Good luck with you decision.

John

[woodyspedden]

No one has mentioned either Raw Developer (Iridient) or Lightzone. I find Raw Developer to be a wonderful, intuitive raw converter which is fast and very capable. I just downloaded the newest version of Lightzone (Ver 2.4) and it now has extended raw conversion features which seem to work well although I admit I have not had a chance to really put it through its paces yet.

Woody

[arthury]

Lightroom, Lightroom, Lightroom ... the user interface is made in heaven ... if anyone feels that the user interface of CaptureOne is better the LR, then (s)he needs to get the head checked. LR meets 90% of what I do now to all of my images.

PS/CS3 is a precision tool for invasive surgery. How often do you need it? Only you know. As for me, I only do 10% of surgery.

[craigrmurray]

Tony:

I'm fairly new to digital capture (a year and a half with the R9/DMR, 6 months with the M8), and started with CS2. Last winter I downloaded the Lightroom beta, and, wow! ... I finally found something that more approximated my working process -- in color, anyway -- which was throwing a handful of chromes on a light table and using the loupe, weeding out the baddies, etc. I know that the new Bridge in CS3 is similiar, but somehow, just doesn't feel the same.

Lightroom is a much smaller program space-wise, if that makes any difference. For my working, which is mostly in B&W, the biggest difference between the two (LR and CS3) is that you can't really burn and dodge in Lightroom.

My $.02 worth, anyway.

[jelderfield]

Personally I use Photo Mechanic to ingest and view images then to convert the RAW using photoshop CS2 and save the approx. 30mb files as tiffs. It work very smoothly for my output and I can take it one image at a time. I just did about 15 images that way last night in about an hour and like the workflow and love the way the M8 files look after 2 weeks with the camera. Jonathan Elderfield Photography

[Baxter]

I'm glad that I am not the only one facing this dilemma about how to get the pictures from the M8 looking right.

Ideally I would like to produce pictures as seemlessly and time effectively as possible, I have CS2, Lightroom and the bundled Capture 1 LE at my disposal. Having used Photoshop for a few years, I am able to use this happily and confidently. Lightroom is now easier to understand after Martin Evening's book arrived, although my 'L' plates are very much in place and have yet to use Capture 1.

The achilles heel of Lightroom would appear to be the inability to assign different ICC profiles which have been produced by helpful forum members to alleviate the peculiarites of the M8 with and without IR filters. As a new M8 owner, I have no sense of perspective about how often I am likely to need to use this technique and therefore where to invest my time learning the relevant software and produce/determine some presets which go most of the way to getting the images in the right part of the ball-park.

I'm feeling very naive and facing a very steep climb!

However spending the last few days reading up on the M8 here has been most rewarding and I also like the tone/manner in which forum members communicate. In time I hope that I will be able to add value to the community.

Baxter

[hdrmd]

I would say that Capture One could not be any more counter-intuitive, however it works if the effort is made. The easiest program, by far, is Photo Mechanic. It is quick, and it is easy to send the selected photos to CS3 for conversion to Tiff, or whatever. I use iView and Aperture for archiving tools, but for someone just starting with Raw files, I would use PM and CS3. DR

[AlanG]

Whatever you choose find one program and stick with it for a while as I'm sure they all can produce good results. The limiting factor will probably be your skill and that will improve with experience. That being said, a lot of people don't seem to understand the workflow of C-1 and what makes it unique. So I am inserting information I presented in a post several months ago. Maybe this will help.

Basic startup work flow in C-1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been using C-1 almost every day for about 3 1/2 years. I know the interface may be daunting at first but it actually is very well thought out and efficient once you learn it and use it properly. I will give a brief run down on how to start using it. I've only used the Windows "Pro" version, but I think that most of the work flow is similar in LE. (Tethered shooting is not supported in LE.)

Keep in mind that C-1 generates "preview" files from the raw files. The preview files are for on screen use and greatly speed up the program's ability to browse images and adjust those images. Going from one image to another is instantaneous on my system.

I store all or my preview files in one folder. (The default folder that C-1 creates.) Preview files can later be removed when they are no longer associated to files that you are working on in C-1) The magnification window lets you see any part of the image at 100% whenever you need closer inspection. So the lower resolution of the Preview files is not a limitation.

Here's how I do it in Windows. (Mac should be similar.) In Windows Explorer, I create and name a new folder for the project that I want to download. Lets call it "Images ABC." I then transfer the images from the card reader to this folder. (You can also create the folder from inside C-1 and you can use the C-1 utility to import the files.)

Start up C-1 and use its browser's navigator to go to "Images ABC." Click on that folder and the previews will start getting generated into C-1's browser. At this point I use a button on the C-1 folder menu to create a sub folder of this project and call it "Best ABC" In the C-1 browser it should now display the title "Images ABC" and another title with "Best ABC." I click on "Best ABC" to highlight it and then I click on the top menu choice "Collection". Inside "collection" I click on "Assign as the move to collection." Now the title of the folder "Best ABC" will turn blue.

This makes "Best ABC" the folder that your best images will be sent to whenever you press the Backspace key. I find this to be a key feature for me because it will allow me to quickly separate my best images from the others. (You can also tag the images but I prefer to physically move them to a new folder.)

So then I click on the "Images ABC" folder and start browsing through them. When I see one I like, I hit the backspace key to move it to the "Best ABC" folder. Once I'm done making my selection, I then click on the "Best ABC" folder and the browser will now display all of the images that I moved there. These are my selected images for the job. I then go into the little window over the browser and type what I want to name the images. Let's say some of them are children on bicycles. So I type "Children on bicycles" in the input window. I then highlight all of the images in the browser that are of children on bicycles and then click on the rename icon. All of these images will be renamed and numbered. (Various numbering parameters need to be set in advance.) I can then type in another title for other images and I keep repeating the process until all of my best images are named and numbered.

I then select each image and adjust it using C-1's controls. (I won't go into that as I'm just going through the work flow.) If you have similar images you can adjust one image and then apply those adjustments to a group of selected images. At this point, I generally don't make final tiff conversions, but I often make small jpeg files for my clients to use for selection. So I highlight all of the files in the "Best ABC" folder and then go to the menu item "Collection" and click on the sub menu "Quickproof" this opens up a feature that will very rapidly produce small jpegs or tiffs of the selected raw files. And these small files will show all of the color and exposure modification that I made. (You can set the size of these Quickproof files and choose tiffs or jpegs as output.) The default folder will be titled "Quickproof" and will be stored inside your "Best ABC" folder. The beauty of this system is that C-1 does not have to access the raw files and convert them in order to make the Quickproof files. Instead it works from the Preview files and can make a Quickproof image in just a few seconds per photo.

Later I go back to the "Best ABC" and work on each image separately after the client gives me a list of the images they want. These I convert to hi res tiffs. Usually this is a pretty easy task as I already have the images adjusted pretty well. Of course I often do some fine tuning at this point. These images will be stored in a folder titled "Developed" which will be inside the "Best ABC" folder as well.

I know this is complicated and it is just part of what C-1 can do. It took me a long time to learn all of the features but I found it well worth it as the work flow for selection, renaming and Quickproof is very efficient. One feature few seem aware of is that C-1 has a color editor that lets you adjust or fine tune your camera profiles.

Lately I have been doing most of my final conversions in DxO because it has lens correction and better dynamic range control. (Highlight recovery and DxO lighting for shadow detail.) However, DxO does not currently support Leicas.

Maybe the next version of C-1 will have some of DxO's features, but it is hard for me to believe they will test each lens as DxO does. (This allows for automatic correction of vignetting, C/A, sharpness, and distortion.)
__________________

[pat308]

Raw Developer.

Worth the effort to learn. Priced well. Very supported. A nice solution.

http://www.iridientdigital.com/produ...developer.html

[j. borger]

I did not like LR at all because i ALWAYS need CS somewhere in the workflow (layers, dodge, burn) .... so i decided to start in CS3 again and forget about LR .... no need for a poor man's CS version as an addition ... (i do not care about LR extra's like the database facilities ) .
If rawconversion realy gets critical i start from C1 ......... i get better and smoother raw conversions out of C1 and love the workflow with custommade profiles for color and B&W profiles from JFI lab in C1 !
So it is sometimes just CS3 ... and very often first C1 for rawconversion and CS3 from there!

[Baxter]

Thanks Alan, that is very helpful information - significantly better than the 'flash' tutorial provided at start-up. I'll give it a go in the next day or so when I have some pictures to play with from the new camera.

I fully appreciate that I have to learn new skills and software as part of using the camera to get the pictures I want; accepting that I have bought into a different imaging system. This excites me, but do not want to have too many packages to get to grips with.

The M8 is to enable me to obtain images for which my beloved Ebony 5x4 is not suited.