If you batch process, what is the advantage of using RAW? I thought
the point was to tweak every picture individually. Since you will
eventually produce a JPEG with your RAW file, I fail to see what you
gain by working this way.
When I processed raw files one by one, I would load a raw file (which took some time); make a few simple changes (which took very little time); and then save to JPG or TIFF-16 (which took a good bit of time). Of my total time using the raw converter, 80% was waiting for files to load or save. Not very efficient!
With SilkyPix 3.0, I load a folder of raw files. Loading is very quick because it loads #2 while you are working on #1, and so forth. I cycle through them quickly. When a non-keeper comes up, a single keystroke marks it for deletion. When a keeper comes up, I make my changes and mark it for developing. It shows me each change as I make it, just like an editor would, But it saves only the changes; that is, it saves "increase exposure by EV1.0" rather than saving 9 megs of modified image. You make and it automatically saves a separate set of changes for each image,
not one set for all.
After I have zipped through the images, I delete all of the file marked for deletion with a single command. Then, and this is the key point, I tell it to batch develop all files previously marked for developing. SilkyPix automatically loads each raw file, makes the
individually specific changes it has saved, and writes a JPG or TIFF-16 file. While it is doing this you can step away from the computer, have dinner, take more pictures, etc.; or you can put in low-priority mode and do other things on the computer while SilkyPix chugs away in the background.
The conversion itself may not be that much faster, but it is much faster in effect because you are not forced to twiddle your thumbs while the converter loads and saves each individual file. And it saves your changes even after final developing, so that I can load a raw file I converted four months ago, and still see all the changes I made, edit them, redevelop, and so forth.
I've done it both ways, and SilkyPix is
much faster. Others on this forum have told me that other first-tier raw converters work the same way.
--Brett
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