Converting RAW to JPEG

[Dixieman92]

HELP....

I am trying to do a simple process, but my mind is making it so difficult that I am making it a long drawn out process.

I am running CS5 with windows 7. I shoot RAW images and as you know, if I want to upload them into an web album, they need to be converted to JPEG. Simple, but how do you do it?

Better yet, is there a way I can select multiple images and then tell CS5 to maintain the RAW image but make a copy of it in JPEG?

I guess the most important question I should ask is if this process is best if done in Lightroom 2.7 or best in CS5? If everyone says that I should do this in Lightroom, then I will ask in that forum.

[Noel Carboni]

Assuming by RAW images you're talking about .cr2 or .nef files or similar (what cameras call raw files), Photoshop can do it...

Try this:

1.  Open Photoshop.

2.  Drag a whole set of raw files to Photoshop's border (e.g., the top edge of the main application window).

3.  The Camera Raw plug-in will start.  You'll see all the images as thumbnails down the left side.

4.  Select each image and set the parameters the way you want it.  You may not need to do anything to some images.

5.  Set the size you want for output via the link at the bottom-center of the Camera Raw dialog.  I suggest also choosing the sRGB profile.

6.  Press the [ Select All ] button at the top-left.

7.  Press the [ Save Images... ] button at the bottom-left.

8.  Specify how you want to save the images, then press [ Save ].  It will take some time, but it will get it done.

-Noel

[Dixieman92]

Noel,

Thanks for your answer! Yeah, it worked.

But the process created another problem for me. I am shooting with Canon 7D and the pics are downloaded as CR2, and those pics will go to camera raw easily. Here is my new problem, there are a couple of pics that I made some adjustments to and they are now a PSD file and I can not find a way to bring those pics up in camera raw. So what process would you use to open and convert those PSD pics to a jpeg?

[Noel Carboni]

You really need to take some time to read about what the various Adobe components do, and especially about image file formats.

A .psd file is a Photoshop native file.  It's the format to use to save things when you want all the image quality and fancy features (such as layers, masks, extra channels, etc.) in your document to be saved so you can work on it again.  It's a compressed but lossless format, and you can easily open it with Photoshop then Save As a .jpg.

Your .cr2 files should still be on your disk as well.  No part of Photoshop removes or overwrites those.

-Noel

[Dixieman92]

Thanks for all information!

I think I have not been too successful communicating what problems I ran into by using camera raw.

I have now learned from the post how to exactly convert one or multiple CR2 images into JPEG by using camera raw. That worked wondefully well.

However, I can not get the PSD images to open in camera raw, and I am aware that these PSD images are the new file extension that CS5 created when I made changes to the orginal CR2 files. Since I want to upload these CR2 & PSD files to a web album, I would ceretainly want to include the new PSD files with the changes instead of the orginal CR2 file and that is where the above process of utilizing camera raw did not work for me. My PSD files would not open in camera raw. Since I also wanted to convert some PSD files to JPEG, I had to find another way since it appears that camera raw will not open PSD files because really they are not a raw image directly from your camera anymore. For the process of converting PSD files to JPEG, I think it is probably easier to just open the individual PSD file and then from file>save as.....  That is the problem I ran into. Now my question is simple on how do you select and batch together multiple PSD files and make a copy JPEG of them.

Along this journey, I found an easier way to select multiple pictures at the same time and have them all opened in camera raw at once so that you can convert to jpeg. The process I ended up using, utilized Bridge to look at the pictures and make my selections there. Once I had selected only the pictures in Bridge that I wanted to open in camera raw I clicked the button in the top row of bridge that says open in camera raw. I found this easier than opening directly in CS5, since in Bridge I could actually see the image as opposed to the open pop up box in CS5 that does not show thumbs of my CR2 files. Just a different way to get to Camera Raw -  then following the steps outlined by Noel!

[Noel Carboni · Accepted solution]

Dixieman92 wrote:

I can not get the PSD images to open in camera raw

Camera Raw does not normally open .psd files, though you can get it to do so via the File - Open dialog if you choose Camera Raw as the file type.  Photoshop itself normally opens these files directly, as you have seen.

You could consider using the Image Processor script (available inside Photoshop via the File - Scripts - Image Processor menu) to do the group conversions.

Also, a performance note:  If you have a 64 bit multi-core or multiprocessor system, and open the 64 bit Photoshop, dragging a group of files from Windows Explorer to Photoshop to be opened in Adobe Camera Raw can net you significantly higher performance than by using Bridge.

-Noel

[Dixieman92]

Thank you for all your help, and I learned about the scripts function also.

Thanks again!

[JJMack]

Both the Bridge and Photoshop can build Web Photo galleries.   The Adobe way with CS5 is in the bridge and as a new user it is most likely  the best way for you if you have a web server on the web. I use low cost internet service provider they charge me about $60 a year for a basic server they maintain.  If you don't have a web server you can use menu File>Scripts>Image Processor from Photoshop or menu Tools>Photoshop>Images processor to convert a batch of RAW files to sRGB Jpeg images sized for the web. You can upload them to an image hosting site like pbase.

I Use a Photoshop script I modified to meet my needs. Example hover the mouse over the bottom of an image to see the menu mar there are nine albums in this web gallery http://www.mouseprints.net/albums/