For the Nikonians -
What software are you using with your images? Capture NX? Photoshop? iPhoto? All of the above?
I'm interested in hearing your workflows from extraction from your cards, through processing, to a completed, "ready-to-print" image.
Thanks!
Corey
I'm not a Nikonian, but I think for any RAW workflow, Lightroom is simply unbeatable.
The photo importer that comes with it is really nice, allowing you to keyword on import, and custom name files using many different attributes, most importantly to me, custom string (my name), shoot date (YYYYMMDD so it all sorts properly), and original image number. Then once in Lightroom, rating, marking picks and rejects, and further keywording is really easy. You can sort photos by any piece of metadata (date shot, lens used, body used, ISO used, etc.), by folder they are stored in, by keyword, by ranking, by flag (pick or reject), or any combination of the above. You can also "stack" photos, so say you spent half an hour trying to get a shot, and you have 20 OK ones and 1 really good one, you can mark that good one as a pick, then stack all the not so good ones underneath it, so if you need then they are still there, but they are stored out of the way.
Next up is the developing area of Lightroom, where you can tweak around with exposure as a whole, or different ranges (Lights, highlight recovery, shadows, fill light), contrast, saturation, and a nifty one called clarity (I think, I'm not sitting in front of it) which gives the image a little extra punch by increasing only local contrast. You can play with curves (it has a nice option where you have a tool where you can just click on a value you want to change and drag up and down), sharpening (which has a really nice masking feature, so you can sharpen just edges, not say the pores on someones face), Hue, saturation, balance, as well as camera calibration. This one is key because say you REALLY like the way Capture One is developing your photos, and you just aren't getting the same punch from Lightroom. Well, just shoot a ColorChecker chart, and develop in Capture One, then open the result in Lightroom and with the color picker, you can see the values of each square. You now import the raw version of that file into Lightroom and change the camera calibration until you get the same values, an now you have a profile that will develop with the same flavor as your favorite RAW developer. Lightroom also has a really nice B + W converter which has the same tool as curves where you can click on a value and drag up and down to change its saturation in the B+W conversion. You can also do split toning on B+W (
see here, these have some split toning in them)
Lightroom also has a Print and Web tab. The print tab I have used a few times, but really not enough to comment, and I have never used the web tab, as my web software does all the image ingestion for me.
One of the things I have been really using is some of the export options. One of the nice ones is an Edit in Photoshop (you just right click on the image), it converts the image to jpg (or whatever you choose) opens it in Photoshop, you do whatever heavy editing you need to do, then save and close in Photoshop, and when you return to lightroom, you see your Photoshop edit, and stacked underneath your edit is the original file. Really sexy. You can also make custom export settings, some of the precanned ones include send to email, burn full size to disk, etc. but you can always make your own (including where it is stored).
The one negative thing I will say about it is it isn't super snappy in terms of speed. It isn't slow, but you notice you click on a collapsed item, it takes a half second or so to expand. My machine is a little old, but Photoshop seems a little snappier.
I haven't tried one yet, if someone gets one or a set I would love to see the result.
That's no good. What about it, the IQ, focus, or just it being a prime?