| Joined: | Wed Apr 11th, 2012 |
| Location: | Melbourne, Australia |
| Posts: | 525 |
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I agree with Eric that you should sharpen last...especially if you are using an app that is non-destructive that would allow you to go back and save the earlier work and resharpen differently for a new output version.
JK points out that there were problems dealing with Fuji Xtrans files when they were new...that situation caused me to look outside the workflow I had used and tweaked for almost 20 years - photoshop and adobe ACR. I tried CapturePro7 (very very good) and a whole list of standalone raw processors and finally came back to Adobe using Lightroom 5 as my main catalog and initial processor. It took a bit of unlearning to relearn a new workflow, but I'm really really happy with what I now have. BTW, you can use lightroom to start processing, doing your raw conversion there and a bit of tweaking then use the EditIn command to reopen the file in other apps like NIK ones and save them back into Lightroom so they are all cataloged together.
The last comment I would make is why bother with the jpg file? At least if you move to Lightroom, you just don't need it. If you want to set a preset on each file as you import the raw, you can do that (and all you are doing it adding a small set of instructions to the file on what you want it to look like rather than another whole image file to deal with)...saves space and confusion later. Not to mention that there are literally thousands of support blogs and videos to get up to speed on Lightroom...Adobe is the company we all love to hate, but I have to admit that Lightroom is a great deal for photographers...
Cheers and welcome to the forum
Tom
Exactly my thoughts and process. I also use Nik and lately OnOne from Lightroom.
I have read that you should sharpen for 'Capture' at the beginning of the process (in the Raw converter) and then for output. Lightroom does the natively with the Sharpen slider for Capture and then in it's various output modes as required (most obvious in Export).
If I used Aperture I think I would try and use it the same way as Lightroom, doing 99% of the work in there and only going elsewhere for a special effect or if wasn't getting the job done for some reason - however I would suspect it normally will.