Quickest way to edit raws

mrbez

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Hi Guys,

I am back from Paris, and I have over 600 images to go through.

What is the quickest way to mass edit the raw files?

I have Lightroom and CS5, and would just like to skip through, crop, save, make a few adjustments etc.

Regards.
 
Lightroom... You should know that if you have it... You can open up all the files at once and then quickly go through them and all the editing functions are right there on the side..
 
Lightroom is designed for batch editing, photoshop isn't really designed for it but does have batch editing options. Personally I'd use lightroom with 600 pics to do.
 
If I had the intention of batch editing raw files I would just shoot jpeg in camera or raw and jpeg if you really wanted to have a raw file for back up..
 
If you're expecting batch editing to magically transform all you pictures in one go you'll be sadly disappointed. By definition, batch editing means applying the same setting to all pictures. I can say with confidence that all 600 pictures will not look good with the same setting applied. Yes, you can apply some simple non-invasive adjustment to the entire batch - sharpness, a bit of saturation, a touch of extra exposure etc, but you'll still find yourself going through them all and tweaking individually.

Here's what I do. First picture - adjust as required. Select Copy at bottom of LH pane. Make sure all boxes ticked as required. Select next picture then Paste, which applies all the previous settings. If it looks ok, export jpg with a name change ["export as previous" from the drop down menu], move on and repeat. If I find myself having to make the same further adjustments after pasting, perhaps because photo conditions have changed, I update the Copy. Usually sharpness and some other settings remain the same throughout - just the obvious exposure etc being tweaked. It's relatively quick for me, and I do hundreds at a time.

Dust spots are a different matter. If you have a lot of dusty work to do, the copy/paste works well with skies but you need to examine each picture carefully to ensure that, for example, a dust spot clone on a sky hasn't messed up a subsequent picture where it is no longer sky in that position. Even the skies need to be checked because sometimes the dust spot clones don't paste over very well.
 
If I had the intention of batch editing raw files I would just shoot jpeg in camera ......

??? :thinking: Not sure what you mean here but never mind. But a lot of the time you can get a better looking jpg by editing a raw than the jpg produced by the camera.
 
??? :thinking: Not sure wha[S1][/S1]t you mean here but never mind. But a lot of the time you can get a better looking jpg by editing a raw than the jpg produced by the camera.
What I mean is, if you are going to the effort of shoot.raw just to put it onto a batch editing program to.convert them to jpeg why not just shoot jpeg amd let the camera.do.the.work for you...and if you must have a raw file.shoot jpeg and raw at the same time..I don't see the benefit of shoot raw for 90% of my photos . mainly because its proper man hours on the pc afterwards.
 
What I mean is, if you are going to the effort of shoot.raw just to put it onto a batch editing program to.convert them to jpeg why not just shoot jpeg amd let the camera.do.the.work for you...and if you must have a raw file.shoot jpeg and raw at the same time..I don't see the benefit of shoot raw for 90% of my photos . mainly because its proper man hours on the pc afterwards.

I don't get this, your not just converting raw to jpeg your editing them as well, this means ajusting colours exposure etc, thats the same for raw or jpeg.
Batch editing doesn't have to mean you ajust all 600 in one go, but all the shots taken with the same lighting setup, I'll ajust 2 or maybe 200 if they are taken with the same exposure/lighting, it's down to how consistant you shoot and the conditions your working in. Raw gives you the advantage of more colour correction options and usually better shadow/highlight detail.
 
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