I have yet to use lightroom but reading George DeWolfe's new book I think it best to learn and incorporate it into my workflow. For my Canon I love DxO as a RAW converter and for my P30, Capture One. Is there a logical workflow to manage the images in lightroom, convert with DxO or C1, adjust in lightroom, final finessing in Photo Shop and printing with Canons 16 bit plugin?
Thanks in advance
Marc
On the DXO website there are several paradigms for working with DXO and Lightroom and/or Photoshop. I purchased DXO recentlyand use it to convert raw files from my Canon 1DMkii and Canon G9. I use DXO to correct lens distortions, remove high ISO noise, set the white balance and do highlight recovery where necessary. I then convert to DNG files and import them into Lightroom and/or the Bridge, depending on how "finished" the conversion is. In Lightroom I work on the DNG's and convert to 16bit Tiffs, to open later in Photoshop.
There are two problems with this workflow but I have found it the most useful of the three methods described in the DXO tutorial on Lightroom/DXO workflow. DXO will nullify the changes made in Lightroom if Lightroom is used as the front end of the workflow. On the other hand, I don't believe that the DXO-created DNG is actually still a RAW file, as it has already been demosaiced and converted to a gamma curve.
In addition, DXO lacks a useful browser/file viewer that would allow me to make quick and easy decisions based on full-sized previews. So what I do is convert a full folder of images ito DNG's in DXO and them treat them as if they were fresh uploads to Lightroom. I then rate and label them as I would without DXO.
I know this is not taking full advantage of the RAW processing available in Lightroom. However, after I have seen the pre-conversion adjustments that DXO can do on lens distortions and ISO noise I am willing to lose some of the ability to work on those files "pre-conversion" in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Truthfully, I may be incorrect on what a conversion in DXO to DNG does to files, but DXO has not, to my satisfaction, explained this adequately.
