What programs do you use for your workflow?

What programs do you all use that you find help or are essential to your workflow. After updating my computer, i updated my software as well.

I like to use:
Photo Mechanic for culling images
Lightroom for editing
Portraiture for skin smoothin
Photoshop for more advanced editing

Im also looking to get something for creating albums. What do you all use?

With the release of LR3, I've gone in that direction. I keep an old copy of PSE4 just for when I need to do some cloning. Noiseware standard edition for very noisey images that may be beyond LR's ability to clean up well. My "effects" (B&W conversions, soft focus, etc.) all come from Tiffen's DFX. FotoFusion Extreme for albums.

LR for 90% of what I need.

Photoshop+portraiture for the rest.

I've never used photo mechanic but a lot of people seem to use this in addition to LR and I don't understand. I cull in LR by just pressing "x" (reject) or by hitting the delete key.

Photo Mechanic really helps to cull images quickly, rename and put them in a new folder.

Red Tie Photography wrote in post #10391344
Photo Mechanic really helps to cull images quickly, rename and put them in a new folder.

Well, unless it can read your mind I'm guessing it requires at least one keystroke or mouseclick to do this... the same as LR.

Aperture for archiving and 95% of my editing and Photoshop for anything really specialized. I love the nondestructive editing process of Aperture and the ease for being able to do some pretty significant editing in batch mode.

RT McAllister wrote in post #10392396
Well, unless it can read your mind I'm guessing it requires at least one keystroke or mouseclick to do this... the same as LR.

I agree. Aperture is very similar to LR and I have the same opinion that PM is an unnecessary step.

Red Tie, I am also curious why do you rename your files?

Big K wrote in post #10392632
Aperture for archiving and 95% of my editing and Photoshop for anything really specialized. I love the nondestructive editing process of Aperture and the ease for being able to do some pretty significant editing in batch mode.

I agree. Aperture is very similar to LR and I have the same opinion that PM is an unnecessary step.

Red Tie, I am also curious why do you rename your files?

One, I like to have the images In sequence. It makes it easier for me and I like not having img9873
Two, i like to put my name on it, so when people get it and look back on it in a few years, they remember that i shot it.

_MG_8732 is ugly. If I have a couple Lorraine and Bruce I rename images to LB001 etc. That way they also see sequential numbers and don't ask about missing images.

Red Tie Photography wrote in post #10392772
Two, i like to put my name on it, so when people get it and look back on it in a few years, they remember that i shot it.

That is a pretty good idea.

I don't rename because it is easier for me to go back to the original RAW if I know the actual name of the file but your reason alone is enough for me to rethink it.

FWIW, you can also rename and provide unique,sequential numbering of images, in batch from Aperture and from Lightroom (I think).

I actually rename the original raw file, and when i save it i do not rename it. That way, the raw and jpg file match image name. I ran into your problem when i renamed the jpg, and it was a nightmare.

[QUOTE=Big K;10392632] Aperture is very similar to LR and I have the same opinion that PM is an unnecessary step.

Aperture is a toy compared to LR3.

That being said, LightRoom is such an impressive application I'm convinced Abode had nothing to do with it.

And you can rename files in LR.

I also rename my RAW files. I work with three cameras each on a different numbering sequence. When couples open up a Windows Explorer file to look at their images, it defaults to sort-by-name. I'd rather sort the RAW's by date/time taken, and at the very least, insert a series of sequential numbers. Even if I want to keep the original file name, at least that puts them in the right order for the couple.

I use Canon DPP to convert from RAW to JPG, then Lightroom 2.7 for culling and the majority of processing, then PSE6 for any cloning that I can't achieve in LR.

Ken.

kencas wrote in post #10394020
I use Canon DPP to convert from RAW to JPG, then Lightroom 2.7 for culling and the majority of processing, then PSE6 for any cloning that I can't achieve in LR.

You "compress" RAW files to jpeg and then do PP?

Sounds backwards to me.

RT McAllister wrote in post #10395232
You "compress" RAW files to jpeg and then do PP?

Sounds backwards to me.

i agree, whats the point of converting the ones you are about to delete to JPGs ?

why not edit/ PP / delete first in RAW and then export to JPGs just the ones you want to keep ?