Working with RAW and PE5

I've posted before about working with RAW, but it's frutrating me to no ends. Here's what I do:

Lets say I take 50 shots. I come home and stick my card in the computer and they are uploaded onto the computer. This takes a while - maybe 5 or 10 minutes. For those of you who take hundreds of RAW images, does it take a looong time to upload?

They are all sent to PE5. I've figured out how to send several at a time from the Organizer to the Editing place. The first image comes up and I use the sliders on it, save as a dng, and then open it. That took a minute or two...or three. Then I do the same for the next image.... 50 images X 2 minutes = about 1.5 hours!

When they are all done, they are now in the other editing place (where jpegs go right away). I fiddle another minute or more on each image. So with 50 images, this could be well over an hour.

Then I need to save ...each...one...as...a​...jpeg. One.... by.... one. That can take another 30 minutes. This all takes way too much time. Am I missing something completely? I can't figure out if I can save all as jpegs at once.

If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
Karen

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3369635
This takes a while - maybe 5 or 10 minutes. For those of you who take hundreds of RAW images, does it take a looong time to upload?

Sounds like USB1.
Go out and spend a whopping $10 on a USB2 card reader.
Does 2Gig in a few minutes.

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3369635
They are all sent to PE5. I've figured out how to send several at a time from the Organizer to the Editing place. The first image comes up and I use the sliders on it, save as a dng, and then open it. That took a minute or two...or three. Then I do the same for the next image.... 50 images X 2 minutes = about 1.5 hours!

'Editing place' = what? ACR?

Why save as DNG and then open it?
Just adjust all, then save all as jpg, or open in PS.
2 to 3 minutes just to open, sounds like an ancient computer. But maybe I dn't understand what you're saying here?

You could give DPP a try.

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3369635
When they are all done, they are now in the other editing place (where jpegs go right away). I fiddle another minute or more on each image. So with 50 images, this could be well over an hour.

'Other editing place' = Photoshop?
Yep. Takes some time...
Do as much as you can in tha raw stage. You only need PS for local adjustments, and editing at 'pixel level' (Cloning and filters and such)

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3369635
Then I need to save ...each...one...as...a​...jpeg. One.... by.... one. That can take another 30 minutes. This all takes way too much time. Am I missing something completely? I can't figure out if I can save all as jpegs at once.

If you don't need to go into PS, just use DPP: Adjust settings for all images, then batch convert to jpg (nice time for some coffee). Or Batch convert in DPP to tif (coffee again), then open in PS, adjust, and save as whatever.

I will check on that USB2 card reader. Thanks.

The "editing place" I think is called the Camera Raw processing dialog. This is where the sliders are. When I save here, my only option is a dng. Is it somehow possible to save as jpeg here? Reading Scott Kelby's Photoshop Elements 5 book he mentions to do this (save in dng) because in the future there *may* not be an easy way to open Raw formats. He says that each camera manufacturer has their own format for Raw images. There is no universal format. All this is blah, blah, blah to me and all I see is that I should save in dng. Is this not necessary?

I've seen DPP numerous time on the board. What is it?

Yes, the "other editing place" is Photoshop Elements 5 (Editor).

I would love to batch save to jpeg and get some coffee while the computer does all the work.

I don't think my computer is ancient. This is what's written on the tower:
2.80 GHz
512 MB
160 GB

Thanks for your reply!
Karen

DPP = Digital Photo Professional. It is on a cd that came with your camera. I use this all the time. I have PSE 5 as well and I really only end up using it when I want to do some "retouching" or playing that cant be done in DPP and most of the stuff I have been doing lately has been PP'd without using photoshop at all. Plus you can convert as many images at one time to jpg as you wish. I just batch converted around 100 or so shots last night to jpg and took only about 4 minutes.

As for your computer, do yourself a favor and go buy as much RAM as your machine can hold. In my opinion, 512 mb isn't nearly enough to process graphics. Speaking of graphics, a good video card with at least 256 mb of memory might help as well. I can tell you without hesitation that if you add a gig or so of RAM to your computer you will see a tremendous improvement in speed.

Have fun!

Cam

I am also using PE5 and I do like this:

Upload pics from CF card to computer - as you do - using PE5, that is when the card is inserted into the reader a PE5 window opens (cannot remember now what it is called) and let me choose where to put my pics, do renaming and such...

When the pics have been imported I go through them in Organizer and delete all I do not want to keep and tag the ones I do want to keep.

After that I start "DNG Converter" (it can - together with the latest version of the raw converter - be downloaded from here: http://www.adobe.com/s​upport/downloads/produ​ct.jsp?product=40&plat​form=Windows, the first one under "Updates" ) and convert all my .cr2 pics to DNG as a backup.

Then I backup my pics to an external USB disc and I am done. I only edit the pics I want to send to the lab or print or put on my web page or mail or... And that is not that many! Most pics are kept "for future use"... This takes some time but can be done when needed and can be quite fun!

/Per

For all the goods there are in PS Elements, there are a few bads:

1)Limited or no batch capability for handling RAW, or saving pcictures out as jpeg.
(overcome by using DPP for RAW editing)

2) ACR for Elements is very stripped down. (although with 4.1, I think you get the clarity slider... not sure about vibrance, and enhanced sharpening and noise reductions?)
(again, overcome by using DPP)

3) Can't create actions
(no workaround for that one, unless you have full photoshop, sorry.)

That said, I still use Elements also, but only for pixel level editing... RAW gets handled by DPP (or now LR for me.) With DPP you don't have the option of saving as .dng, since it can't read them anyway... but DPP generally does better at preserving colors than ACR in my experience (especially since elements doesn't allow camera calibration settings in ACR), plus in DPP you get access to Picture Styles for some easy effects, and pretty good BW conversions, and you can also crop and do minor cloning there also.

Oh, didn't mention that with DPP its pretty easy (once you get hang of it) to adjust groups of photos:

Say you have about 20 shots all taken in roughly the same lighting... you can adjust the wb, exposure, contrast, saturation, etc on one image... save those settings as a "recipe" and then apply it to those other 19 shots all at once. Plus, you can take a WB reading off of a totally seperate image (in case you used a grey card or expodisc). ( I don't think its possible to do that in Elements ACR... but I could be wrong, as I haven't used it for quite some time.)

DPP....I found my disk that came with my camera and downloaded DPP. You don't know how excited I am that I figured this out! I practiced converting 5 RAW images into jpeg and it worked!

Then I went to the PE5 Organizer to see how things were going there and I had to reconnect several images. There was a red, ripped picture and I had to reconnect. Why did this happen? I've had it happen before when I moved things from one folder to another, but why did it happen this time?

I get so excited with my one step forward, but so discouraged with my two steps back.

Karen

Oh. Could it be because I renamed a file?
Karen

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3370765
Oh. Could it be because I renamed a file?
Karen

Yeah, renaming/moving a file outside of Elements will cause it to lose connection...
I never import directly off the card... I prefer to move images MYSELF before Adobe or anyone else gets their hands on them.

The way I work is I have a Pictures Folder on my hard drive... all new pictures go into a "2007" subfolder, "06-13-2007"... etc.

Once I've moved my pictures there (and rename if desired), THEN I start importing into elements or working on them in DPP. That helps minimize how often I'm reconnecting files... If I've done alot of DPP edits, I just then reimport my entire Pictures folder (including subfolders) and Elements ignores the existing files, and brings in the new ones.

Don't forget to download the latest version of DPP from Canon.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #3370811
Don't forget to download the latest version of DPP from Canon.

Sigh. How do I do this? If I can master DPP today then I will be happy, small step that it is.

Karen

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3370851
Sigh. How do I do this? If I can master DPP today then I will be happy, small step that it is.

Karen

http://www.usa.canon.c​om …egoryid=314&mod​elid=11154

Click on the Drivers/Software link.

To install it you need the previous version installed... or some of the other canon software installed first... (in any case, DON'T do an uninstall of DPP before installing new version, and you should be fine.)

Also, some good video tutorials for DPP:

http://www.usa.canon.c​om …tArticleAct&art​icleID=386

(They cover version 2, but are still applicable to version 3.)

Glad to hear you are on your way to being a DPP Master! It is a fairly easy interface to learn and you will have it whipped in no time. Good Luck!

Cam