The JPEG Workflow

With the ability to store adjustments as metadata without un-compressing, modifying and re-compressing lossy JPEG data, The JPEG workflow has become one of the most popular.

Using Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture and others, you can perform sophisticated adjustments to your JPEG images and store them within a database, or as sidecar XMP files attached to the images. The capabilities of these applications are so robust that unless you need to work in alternative color spaces such as L*a*b*, or need to modify the pixels themselves for combining images or extensive retouching, they will more than likely meet your post-processing needs.

Unlike Photoshop, which requires you to know the effects of each of its sophisticated tools, the ACR interface features sliders which address each issue; white balance, exposure, recovery, fill light, black level, brightness, contrast, clarity, vibrance, and saturation. And that’s only in the first of eight panels!

Adobe Camera Raw Interface

Multiple image files can be opened at once, and appear in the pane to the left. File browsing is accomplished using the standalone application Adobe Bridge. ACR behaves as a preliminary step to opening the image files in Photoshop. Adjustment parameters are fixed and arranged in a non-scrolling pane to the right under eight separate tabbed panels

For example, to adjust exposure image in Photoshop, you could use Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Exposure, Multiply, or Screen. And some functions, like White Balance, are simply not available in Photoshop. With ACR and Apertture, it’s simply a matter of adjusting the sliders until the image’s exposure, color and contrast characteristics fall into place.

Through the use of Smart Objects, you can open an image adjusted in ACR as an editable layer within the Photoshop document. Double-clicking on this layer will open the ACR interface and allow you to fine-tune adjustments, which will then update any subsequently applied Photoshop adjustments.

Aperture by Apple allows you to treat a series of images as a single project, and store them in a self-contained file for easy archiving. It combines the functions of Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge into a single application for complete image project management.

Apple Aperture 3 Interface

Files are imported into the Aperture library, which does include its own file brower. Files can be stored within the library, or remain in their original location. Adjustment parameters can be added, removed, enabled and disabled at will and reside in a single scrolling pane to the left. These include, Retouch, Red Eye Correction, Spot & Patch, Straighten, Crop, Flip, Chromatic Aberration, Devignette, Noise Reduction, White Balance, Exposure, Enhance, Curve, Highlights & Shadows, Levels, Color, Black and White, Color Monochrome, Sepia Tone, Sharpen, Edge Sharpen, and Vignette.

Capture One Interface

The folder structure can be browsed in real time as in Adobe Bridge. The Adjustment parameters are fixed and reside in a pane to the left under six tabbed panels.