Beyond the obvious

Portrait of Vincent, a real craftsman who makes and repairs musical instruments with enormous care, love and dedication. And he doesn't use any software to do it. Click the image to see a larger version. The topic of which RAW converter to use for your digital images files is as hot as ever on the Internet. A while back I wrote an article comparing different packages and I've seen that the article is regularly read. So for those of you who are curious here's a little bit about my latest experiences. I used Lightroom 1 from when it came out and quickly became a big fan. All my digital workflow went through Lightroom and Photoshop for the final processing. About a month ago two things happened. I got a laptop and I've ended up using it for most of my work. And I decided to give Lightroom 3 beta a try on my new laptop. Now I know Lightroom is Beta and all that but the slowness of opening an image, waiting for it to render sharply on the screen and run through each proces...

Star and moon. I'm sitting in my new studio/office having just gone through the trials and tribulations of moving. Everything is up and running but there's still a lot of work to be done. I've got quite few ideas for new blogs so stick around. More soon. I've noticed that quite a few people are reading older articles including assessments I made about RAW software back in 2006. Things move on at quite a pace in our digital world, so if you are doing research on the net it's always handy to check when an article was written and then try to find the latest information. Sounds obvious, I know. Of course some things don't date as quickly, like editorial viewpoints. On the subject of RAW software; I use Lightroom and am extremely happy with the results. I also use CS3. I think the last time I wrote about RAW conversion software I was using DPP from Canon, which is fine for what it does. I've also tried the latest version of Capture One but don't see any rea...

I've noticed that my earlier articles on RAW processing software have received numerous visits, so it seems a good moment to update you with the latest news. Previously I did a comparison between RAW converters, Capture One, Nikon Capture, Raw Shooter 2006 and later added an article about Canon's own software, DPP. That was back in 2006 and things move on at an incredible speed, so here's the latest. After trying Adobe Lightroom for a few months, and loving it, I've now settled on Adobe Camera Raw as my preferred software. Lightroom is very pretty, has superb workflow and enables you to process thousands of images very quickly. However, I prefer CS3 because of the way it seamlessly and effortlessly integrates Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. I love the new Adobe Bridge in CS3. The only downside is the cost (especially if you happen to live in Europe). If you've got the time and inclination it's cheaper to get a flight to New York and buy CS3 there t...