Workflow
I only shoot digital and I only shoot in RAW mode. I haven't shot film in over three years. I use Capture One from Phase One as my primary image processing and conversion program for both 10D and 1D RAW files. The advantages of shooting in RAW are many but if you would like some in-depth information about the subject take a look at Digital Outback's e-book series. Well worth the investment.I download my files from my compact flash cards to a directory on my PC using a Firewire card reader. I then use Capture One to browse the files. The program creates high-quality previews pretty quickly--the fastest of any program I've ever used. I first inspect for sharpness and proper exposure and then adjust dynamic range and set the white point and discard any unusable shots. After this I batch convert the RAW files to TIFFs.
After processing on the PC I move the TIFF files to my Mac for further adjustment, sorting, and archiving. I don't do any sharpening or noise suppression in Capture One.
I do initial sharpening on my Mac using PixelGenius' Photokit Sharpener Photoshop plug-in. Bruce Fraser is one of the founders of PixelGenius and one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to sharpening digital images. PixelGenius has an wealth of information about the digital darkroom on their Web site.
On certain images I will use Fred Miranda's Digital Velvia action to increase saturation in greens and blues and give me a more "Velvia-like" look. Miranda has other actions that are very helpful for owners of both consumer and professional digital cameras. His Web site also has a wealth of information about digital photography.
My Canon 1D files were sometimes very noisy, especially at ISO settings over 200 so I would move them back to the PC and run them through Neat Image. I have found this program far superior to all others for removing noise without softening the final image. I only rarely encounter this problem with my Mark II but when I do I use Noise Ninja. Although it has a rather steep learning curve (for advanced functions) I find it yields better results.
Once I have the images on my Mac I sort through them using iView MediaPro. Some go to the Web site and my Stock Agencies and others are reserved for reference. Others are set aside for an upcoming book project. Others, on closer examination, get tossed.
Photos for stock get captioned in Photo Mechanic.
Before uploading to my Web site or printing or sending to my stock agencies I sharpen one last time using PhotoKit Sharpener's built-in defaults.
