I shot film for a long time (OM-1, XD-11). For the last 10 years, I've been using P&S digital cameras - JPEG only (I am not a professional photographer). I wanted to shoot RAW (more processing options, better quality, etc.) so I recently bought a Panny G3. I have Paint Shop Pro and have used it for very basic jpeg processing (cropping, saturation, color balance, etc.). I recently picked up Lightroom.

I really don't know where to begin with RAW. For example, when I open a RAW file in PSP, it asks me to makes some adjustments etc. before it will display the picture. I have no idea what to do. Can someone point me to a good way (website, youtube video, training course, book, etc.) to learn more about RAW? Thanks.

Start with using Lightroom instead of PSP for your main RAW editing - the workflow is a great deal easier (you don't have to make any adjustments before you can see an image). Have a look on Youtube for some Lightroom tutorials.

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James E. Petts

My photostream

Olympus E-P3

Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 IIR, Panasonic 14mm f/2.5, Panasonic/Leica 25mm f/1.4, Olympus macro 60mm f/2.8,
Olympus 12mm f/2.0, Olympus 45mm f/1.8, Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5, Pentax Super Takumar SMC 135mm f/3.5

Lightroom has a built-in RAW processor, so you'll be able to see your images as you are importing them into the Lightroom database. LR will let you do your complete end-to-end digital photography workflow, all in LR.

My JPEG workflow and RAW workflow are the same once the files are imported into LR.

Have you loaded LR yet? Give it a try, and be patient because the learning curve may be a bit steep at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will find that it flows well with what a photographer needs to do, from organizing, to editing, to output as a file or print.

--Warren

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Lumix DMC-G1, Lumix DMC-GF1, Lumix DMC-G5, Lumix LX5
Lumix 14-45mm, Lumix 20mm f1.7, Lumix 14mm f2.5, Lumix 45-200mm, Lumix 100-300mm

Books: Jeff Schewe - The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop. He's a consultant to Adobe and an alpha tester for Lightroom and Photoshop.


Scott Kelby - The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers. He runs the popular online training site Kelby Training.

Both are useful. I'd get the Schewe book first and if it's too much then Kelby's book is much lighter reading.

On youtube you can look for Lightroom Killer Tips which is also supported by a informative website.

That should get you started.

Gordon

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Central Coast Wedding Photographer

An Introduction To Colour Management for Photographers

Flash is completely mirrorless.

2 other Lightroom info sources:

Martin Evening's "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book"

The Luminous Landscape Intro and Advanced Lightroom 4 video packages.

I'll also second Gordon's recommendation of Jeff Schewe's "The Digital Negative". Jeff is co-presenter along with Michael Reichmann on the Luminous Landscape video packages.

You can check this site it got some basic tutorials.

Lightroom 101 | Lightroom101.com is your source of news, tutorials, free presets, plugins and more for Adobe Lightroom users.Lightroom 101 | Lightroom101.com is your source of news, tutorials, free presets, plugins and more for Adobe Lightroom users.

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Cameras Panasonic G5 and G2
lenses Rokinon 7.5, P14-42, P14-45, P20, P45-200, P100-300
Adapted lenses Olympus 50mm F1.8 OM , JCPenney 135/F2.8 OM, Teleplus 2X MC7 Macro

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ehudlavon/

I like some of the videos on Lynda.com. You can start a free trial and prob watch a few that you need.

Photoshop Lightroom 4 Catalogs in Depth | Video Tutorial from lynda.com

+1 on LightRoom. I have a soft spot for DxO Optics pro, because it does some things exceedingly well (I prefer their engine to LightRoom's, and their lens corrections are unparalleled) but it's less well rounded, snappy and polished than LightRoom and doesn't do digital asset management (build a database of your pictures). So I use both, where appropriate.

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EOS: 5DII, 30DIR, 24-105L, 35L, 135L, 15/2.8 FE, Σ 50/1.4, Σ 105/2.8 macro
Mu43: GF2, E-M5, P14/2.5, P20/1.7, O45/1.8, P7-14, O12-50, P12-35, P100-300
Legacy: Contax Zeiss 50/1.4, 35/2.8, Leica R 50/2.0, 28/2.8, Pentax 50/1.7

This LR4 video course posted by Creativelive.com a couple of weeks ago is one of the most thorough and well explained I've seen... but you'd have to pay for it:

Lightroom Mastery with Ben Willmore | creativeLIVE

+1
I've had a very good experience using Lynda.com training videos for both Photoshop CS6 and LR4.

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Bob T.

"That which you manifest is before you." -- Enzo
"I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble." -- Rudyard Kipling