Post Processing RAW files

[contributor_M]

What is the purpose of opening a Raw picture in an RAW editor (i.e. Light Room, Capture One Pro, Raw Therapee, DPP etc..) and then again in an application like Photoshop, Gimp or any other image editing application? Couldn't you do the same things in one program over another?

[LanceHaynie]

Originally Posted by contributor_M

What is the purpose of opening a Raw picture in an RAW editor (i.e. Light Room, Capture One Pro, Raw Therapee, DPP etc..) and then again in an application like Photoshop, Gimp or any other image editing application? Couldn't you do the same things in one program over another?

For me Lightroom is my workflow & cataloging software. I use it to import and keep track of all my shots. Also, it will handle most quick editing such as noise reduction, cropping, color correction, and so forth.

Photoshop is only editing; more for things that are too advanced for your workflow software. I rarely have to get into Photoshop these days with Lightroom 3. However, when I need to do something like heavy use of the clone tool. Photoshop is nice to have, and it works almost seamless with Lightroom.

[KdLaneJr]

Sort of. Sort of not. Lightroom is an excellent raw editor and has most, if not all of the capabilities that Adobe Camera Raw has when you open a raw file in Photoshop.

The difference lays in what you are trying to accomplish. I'm much more comfortable doing detailed editing in Photoshop, yet I do the majority of my photo processing in LR.

There are also subtle differences in the raw editor's capabilities and differences in third party plug-ins such as onOne Suite and Nik.

Xrite passport color checker has a plug-in for LR but does not for Photoshop. For Photoshop you have to create a dng file from your raw file and convert using a separate program. Creating the profile from the LR Plug-in makes it available for use in photoshop automatically.

I don't believe that these calibration profiles are usable in Gimp or DPP, but they might be. I've never had a reason to check.

[venchka]

Lightroom is all I use.

[ChuckW]

Some people like the rendering of one RAW editor over another. For example, some prefer the initial unedited results in Capture One over Lightroom (or visa versa). Other than that, as has already been mentioned, some prefer the asset management methods/capabilities of one raw editor over another.