Could you detail these ’fix’ settings in Bridge/ACR as well as the steps of your favorite ’HQJPG’ Action a little bit. Thanks!
Eventually, I was forced to realize that, the vast majority of the time, my manual processing of RAW files was essentially always the same. When my wife returned from a vacation with almost 1000 RAW files and wanted prints of all the good ones (my interpretation: every shot), I knew my processing methods had to change!
The first step is to accept that jpg files can produce good prints, screen images, slide shows, etc. It seemed reasonable to me that Photoshop could make a jpg of better quality than could the in-camera processor. (I don't really know if that is true, but I prefer to think that it is.) Even if the PS jpg was equal or slightly lower in quality as compared to the in-camera jpg, the PS jpg would be *my* interpretation.
So I learned how to write a simple Action in Photoshop CS2 that followed my typical processing steps.
My normal steps for processing RAW files include (usually in this order)
- ACR settings to taste (use auto and defaults in the Action file)
- levels (set to auto in the Action)
- noise reduction (set to auto profile at 50% in the Action) (I use Neat Image)
- sharpen for the capture device (I use PK Sharpen)
- local contrast sharpening (USM, 20, 50,0)
- edge sharpening (PK Sharpen, medium setting)
- Shadow and highlight reduction (CS2 settings of 5% and 15%)
- Color saturation (5%)
- Color saturation (20%)
- strong color saturation using Velvia Vision (Fred Miranda Action)
- convert to 8 bit mode
- save as jpg at CS2 compression setting of 10
Don't do all the above every time! Each step in a Photoshop Action can be turned off by unchecking the box on the left hand side by that particular step. I've found it easier to have many "optional" steps in the Action and include or exclude each step according to the image (or how I feel/guess about it that day).
In the PS batch processor, I append "HQJPG" to each file name so that I know how it was processed. Batched images are saved in a separate, new folder: "HQJPG Images" under the main folder for those RAW images.
Actually, there is another step in the Action that saves the processed file as a 16bit Photoshop (.psd) file just in case I want to hack at it again. Usually, this psd step is unchecked when processing many files but might be used for processing only one or two files that are to be manually tweaked.
In ACR, although I usually accept the camera auto white balance, sometimes I set the white balance to be the same for all images. Most other settings are the auto default. If I take the time to browse through the files and adjust exposure, contrast, etc then I uncheck the auto levels in the Action file.
According to the PK Sharpen scheme of sharpening (guess I should add "As I understand it"), images should be sharpened for the capture device, for creativity and for the output device. I like this scheme - makes sense to me. Notice that the above Action does not sharpen for the output device. I have separate Actions for processing the HQJPG files according to output: 8x10, 4x6, slide show, screen size, emails, etc.
As examples, if the majority of the images are somewhat scenic landscape oriented, then the 5% and 20% color saturation might be unchecked and the Velvia Vision be checked. If most of the images are closeups of "women of a certain age" (family reunion), then none of the sharpening steps and no color saturation steps are checked.
Sometimes I just run variations on the Action and use Breeze Browzer to pick the images I like best.
I often do slight retouching on an individual HQJPG file and then save it as (gasp, heresy!) another jpg file.
I don't claim the above method to be the best; in fact, surely there are better ways to process many files. But this seems to work for me.
If it takes 1 minute to Action process each file, then 600 files take 10 hours! Of course, I'm asleep.