Question a Day | Raw to JPEG to Photoshop

Q: Anonymous asked:

ok, i take my pictures in RAW, then upload them to iphoto in order to sort through and delete, and then when i open in photoshop they’re all jpeg…what am i doing wrong, how do i maintain RAW, can you walk me through your process?

A: I’m going to enter this is the caveat that I only really know what I do, and somewhat was others do. I realize that is limited and… er, unhelpful here, so if there is another way around this, please someone let us know so I can pass it along!

In my experience, you’ll need this plug-in which will allow you to open RAW files in Photoshop rather than elsewhere (iPhoto, etc.) and have them automatically converted into JPEGs. You would convert them yourself, eventually, to print them or post on the web. It’s my opinion, though, to do the majority of your handiwork to the JPEG files and leave RAW be so that you always have the original ‘negative’ preserved as a back-up. 

I went a’hunting for a workflow technique that may help you more specifically, but all I found was a tutorial using snake photos as examples and… I won’t lie. I hadz the skeevies willie nillie creepy crawlies, so I bailed. 

Personally, I upload into Lightroom for cataloguing and selection, and then export to Photoshop as JPEGs. But finding the right workflow for you depends on your style, time, equipment and desired technique. In a lot of ways, the plug-in intrigues me… I’m always up for a workflow shake up in the name of efficiency. If you try it, let us know how it goes!