Warning: deep geekspeak ahead. Civilians may want to take a pass.
One of the features I most missed in the upgrade from Photoshop CS to CS2 was the ability, in RAW processing, to select a single image and convert a subsequent selection of images to the same settings. The setting was called "First Selected Image." It was a great timesaver that I thought was gone with the upgrade.
Well, I found it again, and it’s far more flexible. Here’s the problem: you have a bunch of similarly exposed images that you want to make the same correction to. There’s two ways to do this, one obvious, one less so. First, open up a multiple group of images in the Adobe Raw Convertor. They can include more images than just a bunch you think need the same correction—I am now loading everything shot under the same lighting conditions, and correcting sub-batches within that selection. The obvious route is to select a batch of images that look as though, from the thumbnails, they need the same correction. But, you don’t have to do it that way. Pick one of the images. Make your corrections. Then, select that image, and any others that look like they need the same correction (click on the first image, hold "Shift" and click on the last image in the group). Press the Sychronize button, and a dialog box opens. Whatever was the most recent correction you made, you can apply it, in whole or in any portion, to the now-selected batch. You can select any combination of corrections (white balance, exposure, shadow, brightness, etc.) you want.
My workflow is to make a global color correction to an entire batch that was shot under the same lighting. I deselect every option but white balance. Then I make selections to batches with the same exposure error (my tendency is to "expose to the right", namely, overexpose slightly to bunch the data on the right hand side of the histogram), and check the appropriate boxes (there are shortcut drop-down options for the basic groupings). It’s just like the "First Selected Image" option, but far more flexible. I then scroll through the images one by one and make individual corrections.
Another feature that I denigrated at first, but is useful when used judiciously, is the "Auto" button for the exposure adjustments. As a group they tend to be wrong most of the time. But using first the Exposure, then the Brightness Auto selection can, more often than not, get me 90% of the way there. The effect is not consistent however, and I suspect there's a certain kind of image it likes that I'll figure out eventually (areas of white seem to throw it). I dislike the auto Shadow adjustment more often than not, and the Contrast auto is always too flat, when it's not too contrasty.
Anything I said way back when, while still traumatized by the CS2 upgrade, I hereby rescind. What used to take me three days to process I can do in a day now. I’m still annoyed that Bridge takes forever to build the thumbnail cache on a big folder, but it's a shorter forever than it used to be.
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