[wim]

Software and PP wise, it all depends on what you want to do and how much time you have available.



I found that I don't have enough time to process all my images the way I want to, so I tend to be quite selective. In order to get around this I do 2 things, depending on the needs and initial results.



1) I always shoot jpg and Raw, and I have established settings (Picture Styles) for most circumstances that work well for me to generate good enough jpegs for most people if I do have to hand those out or hand them out quickly. Raw gives me the opportunity to make the most of a picture if I want or need to.

2) In case the standardized settings I use aren't adequate enough, which is often the case, e.g., with low light shooting where you can have either very low temperature (read: very red-tinged) pictures, or a mixture of lights which make a mess of any settings, I sort the pictures based on white balance, visually, and process those in batches with DxO Optics, to get adequate results for easy and fast distribution if so required. I find DPP (in my case, I shoot Canon) a little too cumbersome to correct these settings, so I prefer to do that with DxO. It also provides me with the opportunity to do resizing etc on the go as well. Ideal for batch processing.



Now, that's for the bulk. For maximizing the result from a photograph, I use Photoshop, and a few tools, specifically those from Nik Software, as those provide me with a workflow which is similar to what I did in the darkroom when printing. I own their whole bundle, and I can't recommend them enough. The neat thing is that you can process an image as a whole, selectively, or selectively for specific areas with transitions, with plenty of adjustments possible all the way. I use Silver Efex, Color Efex, Viveza, Define and SharpenerPro. Not exactly cheap, but very good, and saves an enormous amount of time. I use Nik on the 16-bit tiff files I create when converting Raw, where I do as little as possible in the conversion - a little bit of curves, exposure adjustment, and black and/or white point adjustments, IOW, anything I would do when developing a film yesteryear by using different films, developers, general exposure, and development times. BTW, Nik works both in Lightroom and in Photoshop.



For certain overal effects I also use TopazLabs tools, which come with presets which generally are a bit overcooked, but you have complete control over them anyway with a plethora of sliders. The advantage over doing the same with PS is that the result is visible immediately, and what takes a single step takes possibly a multiple (50 or even more) with PS by itself. I rarely find myself only using Topaz, it is really always in conjunction with Nik, but Nik I do use by itself a lot, essentially because the things which are to me most important, like burning and dodging and selective sharpening one can really only do with Nik in an easy way (and this generally also takes quite a few steps to do in PS by itself).



For noise suppression I use a variety of tools, DxO, NoiseNinja, Nik, and Topaz, but the latest version of Topaz Denoise (V.5) can't really be beat. I personally think it currently is the best on the market, but then, I haven't tried them all (and do not intend to do so either; just gets too expensive <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />).



BTW, I do regularly print, or rather have printed, larger sizes of prints, so far up to 60 cm X 90 cm max. (even from 8MP images, BTW). It is possible to use a decent A4 photoprinter at home, and the results can look good indeed, but I do find the results from the professional large size printers with 8 to 12 or so separate ink tanks do look better, especially the Canon and Epson large size printers (not wild about HP). Having said that, I also did create acceptable prints from a colour laser printer, but then, I did profile it myself <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />. That was really just a trial <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.



Before I forget: if you do want to print yourself, and you want to maximalize your output results, you need at least a calibrated monitor, but ideally also calibrated printer profiles for each printer and type of paper you use. If you don't calibrate, you will likely end up wasting a lot of paper, ink, and/or toner <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />, as there is not mecessarily a relation between the image you see on screen and the image from the printer. You could be lucky, in that the standard colour profile for your printer works well, but I wouldn't count on it. And when I have photographs printed, I generally have them printed as null-copies or zero copies, i.e., no adjustments made to the photographs at all, in order to prevent automated contrast, colour, saturation, sharpening and sizing settings to cut in where I don't want it. I prefer to control those myself, and my jpeg-outputs for printing should therefore be printed just as they are.



For monitor calibration and printer profiling I currently use Spyder3Elite and Spyder3Print, although I am experimenting with Color Eyes Display Pro software for monitor calibration, as it seems to give more consistent and better results (and does work with the Spyder3 calibration mouse).



Anyway, HTH, kind regards, Wim