What do you do to your RAW files?

I started shooting in RAW last week. I have discovered that I don't know that much about post processing. I feel like my photos are looking worse. They just don't seem to have any "pop" to them.

I am wondering if any of you can share (or point me to some links or tutorials) what specific steps you take to edit your photos.

I am using Photoshop CS3. I use Adobe Bridge to view my files, then open them in Photoshop.

Please tell me what you do to edit your photos.

Thanks!

Are you going thru AdobeCameraRaw - ACR? That is where you would process the raw image. After I set the temp, adjust the exposure, well, a whole list of stuff on the sliders in ACR, then sharpening, noise removal, crop to my desired size, I open in Photoshop.

I'd start with Zoombrowser or Canon DPP for your first RAW edits. The sliders make more sense and there are less of them. Output to JPEG and then edit as normal in Photoshop.

go to adobe and view the demo videos for using ACR or lightroom (similar controls)
i would never edit my raws in anything other than those 2 (actually i only use lightroom myself, because i have it and i much prefer the interface over ACR)

play with the sliders, try different things, download free presets and see how they affect the shots then alter them to get the look you want

Yes, I am using ACR.

I guess I am just wondering if there are edits that I should be doing to nearly all of my photos that I shoot in RAW.

no... depends how close what comes straight out of the camera is to what you actually want to endup with
try boosting exposure a tad, bring lights up & darks down a bit under the curve graph, fiddle with the individual saturation sliders, vignette, etc til you get what you like

pop = contrast + saturation usually, and selective exposure painting on the focal points can help too

here's an example from a recent wedding - all edits were done in raw with lightroom, none in photoshop

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somethingsimple wrote in post #6967923
i would never edit my raws in anything other than those 2 (actually i only use lightroom myself, because i have it and i much prefer the interface over ACR)

Why not? I like DPP better than ACR for simple edits like Exposure boost and White balance, etc.

well i dont use ACR itself, i use the lightroom engine (which is the same but dressed up). and for me theres no such thing as a simple edit: i use LR as my initial sorting/browsing selection machine and then i go thru each keeper one by one and choose as i go how i want to process them, some get a lot of work and some only a quick adjustment... i don't like double-handling images, so i try and do one pass with all the tools i want to use in lightroom, back up my settings & edits, then export & touchups in photoshop then save for end use (client, print, etc)

seems silly in that workflow to open the batch of raw in more than one program. but thats just me, others prolly do things differently

I open them with ACR on photoshop...
Use my dulscreen setup to have Bridge open on one screen, and then photoshop on the other....

If you are new to Photoshop and manipulating images I am going to suggest two books by Scott Kelby: "the Adobe photoshop CS3 book" and "Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3".

I have found both very useful in getting started with Photoshop and manipulating images. I'm not going to argue that they have the best advice or that he shows the absolute best way to do things in Photoshop but they have both helped me start using that program more effectively.

ah yes scott kelby hes great and his books are very readable

As long as you can recover any changes you make to the RAW files, it would be OK to edit them.

Any photography plan must include a file backup plan. If you can't reset your RAW file changes back to the original, do not edit the original file but edit a copy. For many, opening the RAW file in Photoshop and saving it in a PS format is the best way to go.

BestVisuals wrote in post #6972395
As long as you can recover any changes you make to the RAW files, it would be OK to edit them.

Any photography plan must include a file backup plan. If you can't reset your RAW file changes back to the original, do not edit the original file but edit a copy. For many, opening the RAW file in Photoshop and saving it in a PS format is the best way to go.

RAW converters such as DPP, ACR and Lightroom etc. are non destructive.

raw is not the same as image files like bitmap, tiff, jpg, etc - it cannot be altered or saved over. all that you are changing when 'editing' them is how that particular software will render/read the data contained in the file in order to present a recognisable image. as stated before this information is recorded by the software itself in a separate location, not in the raw file data.

if you open the same raw file in one software after making edits in another, the original file will open unchanged, in spite of anything else you have already done in the other program

this is why, when i am finished processing a shoot in lightroom, i will export all my edit settings for the whole shoot to a single catalog file, in order to preserve the processing after i have removed the folder of raw files from my main lightroom catalog. if i ever want to recover my work or change some settings, i just re-import that exported data file (which i store in the same folder as the raw files for that day), and all the edits i made previously are reloaded. otherwise, if i just re-imported the raw files themselves, i would be forced to start over from scratch.

if you make mistakes in processing a raw file and wish to start again just revert the settings to their original state, or use the history palette to undo as many steps as you wish.

once exported to a regular image file like jpg etc, THEN you have to be careful about working on a copy or making a duplicate layer with your original export preserved. but, the raw will always be just as shot.