RAW Workflow

[pcasciola]

Anybody using RAW knows how great it is. We can adjust exposure, white balance, saturation, brightness, contrast, etc. and not change the digital "negative" which is the RAW file. If we want to tweak something later, we just go back to the RAW and change the saved adjustments, never changing the original RAW image data, and it remembers our adjustment values. Perfect, except for what happens after that.

I might do some cropping, adjust sharpness, remove noise, adjust levels, whatever. Problem is, once I save that file as a PSD or TIFF, if I later realize I made a mistake in one step and want to tweak it like I can with the RAW settings, I have to start all over. It would be nice if Photoshop had a setting so it would effectively be recording an action to remember all the steps after the RAW conversion, including the adjustment values, and then be able to re-run that action on the RAW file after tweaking some of the individual action settings. Is there any RAW software that takes it to this level? Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?

[PacAce]

Anybody using RAW knows how great it is. We can adjust exposure, white balance, saturation, brightness, contrast, etc. and not change the digital "negative" which is the RAW file. If we want to tweak something later, we just go back to the RAW and change the saved adjustments, never changing the original RAW image data, and it remembers our adjustment values. Perfect, except for what happens after that.

I might do some cropping, adjust sharpness, remove noise, adjust levels, whatever. Problem is, once I save that file as a PSD or TIFF, if I later realize I made a mistake in one step and want to tweak it like I can with the RAW settings, I have to start all over. It would be nice if Photoshop had a setting so it would effectively be recording an action to remember all the steps after the RAW conversion, including the adjustment values, and then be able to re-run that action on the RAW file after tweaking some of the individual action settings. Is there any RAW software that takes it to this level? Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?
And that is the reason I always work with layers and layer sets. All my adjustments are don't with Adjustment layers. And if I need to make adjustments that don't work with layers, such as USM and other filter commands, then I put all the pertinent adjustment layers and a copy of the image into its own layer set. I then duplicate the layer set and flatten all the layers in the layer set so that I can apply whatever filter I need. If I don't like the result, I can always go back to the original layer set and try again.

I can save the image and all the layers as a PSD file and continue working on it another day and even back track, if I need to. Not as convenient as having a "save history" function but it's the next best thing.

BTW, my regular workflow is recorded as two actions so that I can always repeat my processing if I need to start from scratch using the raw file.

[PhotosGuy]

PacAce has said it.
Re: "Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?". There is a way that PS will record your workflow to a text file. I don't remember what it is. Maybe it's in Preferences?

[PacAce]

PacAce has said it.
Re: "Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?". There is a way that PS will record your workflow to a text file. I don't remember what it is. Maybe it's in Preferences?
Maybe you are talking about the history snapshot function which temporarily records all the actions you've prerformed so far. It's great for replaying all the history actions but the only problem is that the snapshot can not be saved with the image. Why do I have a sneaky feeling that Adobe is probably saving this as a new enhancement for a future release? :)

[pcasciola]

I hope they add this in CS2. They are soooo close. I changed my prefs to store the history log as metadata in the image, which gives a nice text description with all the settings used for every step, just like an action, but there is no way to replay those steps that I can see other than by reading them and re-executing them all manually.

I think that's what Photosguy is refering to. There is a way to record it, but no way to play it back.

[PhotosGuy]

store the history log as metadata in the image, I think that's it. Better than what you said, "Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?", no? ;-)

[PacAce]

I hope they add this in CS2. They are soooo close. I changed my prefs to store the history log as metadata in the image, which gives a nice text description with all the settings used for every step, just like an action, but there is no way to replay those steps that I can see other than by reading them and re-executing them all manually.

I think that's what Photosguy is refering to. There is a way to record it, but no way to play it back.
Click on the triangle at the upper right hand corner of the history palette and click on "New Snapshot" at the appropriate time. All history actions up to that point will be recorded and temporarily saved in the history palette. When you want to play the snapshot back, just click on it.

[pcasciola]

Thanks. I get the snapshot idea, but that's still just temporary. The best I can find that is what I am looking for is to store the history log in the file, but there's still no way to play the steps back on the original at a later time. It seems that with this information saved, the step I need should be fairly trivial.

Here's what I see in the file's metadata when I enable the history log metadata option:

http://www.casciola.com/pics/history.gif

[chris.bailey]

Interesting thread. Just to add a slightly different take on it, whilst I see all the advantages of saving a file with all the adjustment layers once I am happy with an image I flatten it before saving. If I am not happy, I save it in a work in progress folder unflattened. RAW convertors are improving and new plug ins are coming out all the time meaning that more often than not if I cant get an image to look how I want it to, I will tend to go back to the start and re-convert rathere than try and tweak an existing adjustment layer.

[Rob612]

I do believe that is somthing that will popup in CS2. Not sure, perhaps.

[pcasciola]

I think that's it. Better than what you said, "Or is there some way to easily do this in Photoshop aside from manually recording an action for every photo?", no? ;)Actually, no. I want to be able to play it back. The history log doesn't create an action, but only gives me a way to read what I did in the metadata or text file. To re-apply those adjustments to the original, I have to read each step and manually apply those values.

[PhotosGuy]

The best I can find that is what I am looking for is to store the history log in the file, but there's still no way to play the steps back on the original at a later time. OK, then I suggest that you make an action & put stops in for values that are not constant for each pic so that you can enter new values as the action plays.
Re: click on "New Snapshot" at the appropriate time., I don't believe that snapshots can be saved with the image, so don't think they will help you in this case, unless you save the snapshot state as a separate layer, which will increase the file size.

[PacAce]

Re: click on "New Snapshot" at the appropriate time., I don't believe that snapshots can be saved with the image, so don't think they will help you in this case, unless you save the snapshot state as a separate layer, which will increase the file size.
Yes, I already made mention of the fact that the Snapshots can not be saved with the image. I was only responding to a question that pcasciola had posed re not being able to play back the entries in the history audit log. :)

[pcasciola]

I think we are just mixing up the History window and the History log, but I think we are all on the same page now.

But thanks, PacAce. I've never used adjustment layers or layer sets before, so I guess I'll go with that for now, but wow, talk about file size. Some of my 20-25MB PSDs went to 70-80MB a piece.

If Photoshop was able to record the History Log as an action saved with the RAW, rather than just text, we would be only storing less than 10MB per working file rather than 25MB to 100MB per working file, with the added benefit of being able to go back to any point in the editing process.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what CS2 has to offer. They are claiming major improvements to the RAW workflow.

[PhotosGuy]

You know, Actions themselves are pretty small, usually under 100KB. It would be possible to save some of what you do & put the action.atn file with the pic file. I've never tried that, & doubt that it would be a good solution to the problem. I'm just sitting here & free associating. ;-)