12.5. Saving a Digital "Positive"
Regardless of how you decide to share your final images with the world, Once
you've done all this work you've learned about in this book, you'll want to save
final image that you've so carefully created.
NOTE

You can do this for a single image, if it's one you've been spending a great deal of
time on. If you've been doing more automated processing on groups of images, you
can use the Image processor to do it for a whole group.
Here's the process for flattening and converting a single image to TIFF:
1. Save the last version of the image, preserving all of its workstages in layers.
Be sure to add the suffix "fnl" (for final) to the file name. Be sure the color
profile is still Adobe RGB 1998. Also, place a copy in a folder you've
created called Temp for Backup. Whenever that folder contains enough data
to fill a CD or DVD (whichever covers the volume of work you've done in
the two or three days), back it up to CD.
2. Either choose Layer Flatten Image or go to the Layers Palette menu and
choose Flatten Image.
3. Choose File
Save As. The Save As dialog will appear. Choose TIFF from
the Format menu. Use the Save As Menu to navigate to the Temp for
Backup Folder you created earlier. Create a new folder named after client
code, subject/location, and date and open it. Click the Save button.
Here's the Digital Positive process for flattening and converting a group of images
to TIFF:
1. Once you've finished each of the images and saved them with .psd and the
suffix "fnl" added to the name, go to Bridge and open the folder you saved
them to.
2. In Lightable mode, look for all the filenames that have "fnl" as a suffix.
Temporarily place a label of a color you haven't used for anything else on
those that belong in your target group.

3. From the Filtered/Unfiltered menu, choose the label color you just assigned
to your group. Now there are no other files in the Lightbox, so press
Cmd/Ctrl-A to select them all. Be sure to deselect any folders that happened
to get selected.
4. Choose Tools Photoshop Image Processor. The Image Processor
dialog will appear. Be sure to make all the settings as you see them in Figure
12-42.
Figure 12-42. Image Processor dialog.




Appendix A. Workflow Alternatives
Most of this book has been devoted to processing your images files with the
software that is included with Photoshop CS2, namely Bridge, Camera Raw, and
with Photoshop CS2 itself. After all, that is the software that's almost guaranteed to
be owned by virtually every serious photographer, and it does an amazingly good
job and it's basically free (considering you've proba
bly already paid for
Photoshop). On the other hand, you may be one of those photographers who will
absorb extra cost and expend extra effort if it improves the amount of time that you
have to get more work done. If your hard work has paid off to that degree, by all
means, take the time to inform yourself about the products listed below.
These products are significantly faster at loading, previewing, and magnifying so
that you can get through your culling and ranking much more quickly. There are
some exciting products out there, here's a look at some of them.






A.1. Capture One Pro
Capture One (see Figure A-1) has traditionally been the raw
processing software to
beat. These days, it's getting to be a close contest, but there are still plenty of pros
that swear by it. It's definitely fast and gives you a bit more control than Camera
Raw in some respects. You'll have to be the judge as to whet
her it's worth the extra
cost and of giving up Camera Raw's integration with Photoshop.
Figure A-1. The Capture One Pro interface.
Capture One's advantages are as follows:
 Is the program that has been traditionally up-to-date on digital camera back
formats
 Has both Levels and Curves; can adjust individual color channels
 Multimode sharpening tools
 Apply one or multiple image settings by clicking a thumb or many thumbs
or by preselecting and clicking the apply to all button
 Can batch process in the background
 Has a focus tool for quickly checking thumbs for blurs, noise
 You can buy camera profiles (two come with the program)
Capture One's disadvantages are:
 Has traditionally lagged behind slightly when it comes to supporting brand-
new camerasalthough that gap seems to be narrowing of late
 Isn't integrated with Photoshop
To learn more, visit






A.2. Raw Shooter
People from the original development team for Capture One have formed their
own company, Pixmantec, and created a new RAW image processor that is really
catching the public eye and imagination. It's really too bad (for Mac GX users) that
it's a Windows-only product. (If your Mac has an Intel processor, you could use
Boot Camp.) The best news is that it comes in two versions: Premium and
Essentials. Essentials is an excellent program and does enough things differently
from Camera Raw that, in my opinion, it's worth downloading especially since it's
free and always will be. It gives your images a somewhat differentand some would
say better"look" to your images than Camera Raw. Nevertheless, it's still
completely nondestructive, so you could experiment with the results from both
programs and save the one you like best as a high-bit PSD file. And at any time
you or your client has a mind change about the image qualities, you just reload the
RAW file and reprocess it.
Now, here's the thing you might really seriously consider: Raw Shooter Premium.
It does virtually everything Capture One Pro does and costs $300 less. Figure A-2
shows you the basic Raw Shooter Premium interface.
Figure A-2. The Basic Raw Shooter Premium interface.
There are quite a few features in RSP that are missing in Camera Raw. Many of
these are nice, but optional. These are the ones that push my shutter button:

Direct download
You can download directly from your camera card or card reader into any
folder, including a default folder for downloading all RAW files, but I'm not
so sure you'd be able to find similar images quickly unless you also used
another program, such as iView Media Pro, Photo Mechanic or Portfolio for
actually organizing your work.

All adjustment tools in one panel
So you don't have to go flipping through tabs to find the command you want.



Combination Curve/Levels tool
If you've used Photoshop's Curves and Levels tools, using these will be just
as intuitive, but faster because both command sets are in the same interface,
so you can use both interactively.

Instant Magnifier
I'd like it better if it was a tool (rather than a command), but it works really
well (see Figure A-3). Just press Opt/Alt-M to toggle it on or off. If you
place the cursor in the image and Opt/right-click, you get an in-
context menu
that lets you choose the size of the magnified area.
Figure A-3. The Instant Magnifier shows a 100 percent magnified view
centered anywhere you place the cursor.
Adobe Acquires Raw Shooter
This program, and the company that makes it, have recently been
acquired by Adobe, and their code will be appearing in the released
version of Lightroom and in Bridge/Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3.