I don't have any set up yet, tell me what you use and when.

I used to have one that just resized all my pics, but I haven't really done others. I know how to create them but don't really know what they're capable of.

Can I set one up to open a raw from a folder & do some pp on it, then save again? I'm thinking if I start shooting raw 100% of the time I'm gonna go nuts opening and going through each one in the raw viewer (my camera doesn't save raw+jpg and my OS can't see the raws or thumbnails).

A bit OT, but if you shoot Canon, DPP really is a great tool for mass-processing images. Even though I have Lightroom, I still prefer DPP for that initial step.

Originally Posted by thechickencow

Can I set one up to open a raw from a folder & do some pp on it, then save again? I'm thinking if I start shooting raw 100% of the time I'm gonna go nuts opening and going through each one in the raw viewer (my camera doesn't save raw+jpg and my OS can't see the raws or thumbnails).

I think you do RAW batch processing through Bridge, and I don't think it's too hard to set up. I've never tried it because I only process 1 out of 4-5 shots and like to run them manually.

As far as actions, at work I have one that prepares and resizes product shots for the web (crop, levels, local contrast enhance, resize, sharpen, save to folder) and another for bikes (mostly the same routine but with some saturation boost). I also have actions for watermarking and copyrighting. The rest are actions I used to run for different styles of photography (like astro work vs concert stuff) but since I switched over to RAW I haven't touched those.

Cool.

I think most of my problem is I'm shooting with my 300d which doesn't have a separate jpg from the raw file to check out the shot before I open. I know if I open with the canon utility it'll extract the jpg, maybe thats the best bet.

Or, just shoot large jpg until I get a new camera.

I shoot all in RAW, Once I have them on the PC, I convert them all to JPGs in a seperate folder. This allows me to preview them and select the ones Id like to work on, without going through each raw file individually.

Action question for you guys-
How do you set up to save/close?

Do you use the save/close optino in the actions/batch automate, or do you set it up in the action?

I'm asking because I am saving as then jpg, but it shows a dialog box that I pick when I create teh action but it doesn't click OK for me on the action.

If you're running a batch there should be an option to "override save dialog".

If I intend on saving 1000 photos to the same folder then I'll include it in the action. Otherwise I leave it out which gives me a last chance to examine the final image before saving. Then it's just a quick ctrl+alt+shift+s or a ctrl+shift+s depending on if I want to keep exif or not.