I have for some time been searching.  Searching for a single application that will allow me to take my RAW images from camera to web or print (whichever seems most appropriate) in one fell swoop.  I’ve yet to be able to find the right one — I seem to wind up bouncing back and forth, using this app to tweak that, and that app to tweak this.

This, it turns out, is becoming unsatisfactory.

It’s not as though I’m a person who has to do edit many photos, nor am I the kind who’s working under time constraints when I do send photos to the digital darkroom.  But viewing in ACDSee, then editing RAW in one or more of three applications before finalizing images in PhotoShop, well, that gets old.

ACDSee works best for me when it comes to quick previews of RAW images.  It’s got its own display engine, so that when I double-click a thumbnail, I can see a full-screen preview almost immediately.  I can navigate forward or backward through the folder’s contents manually.  I can also display the folder’s contents as a slideshow.  I can edit images right from here (but don’t bother — it’s an inferior tool for actually editing RAW images, but it’s great for previews!).  I can also use it to open single or multiple images in whatever application I care to configure.  So there’s that.  That’s the first tool that I’d like to replace.

Nikon, pay attention:  CaptureNX2 is a brilliant piece of software.  But I very much resent being asked to spend $300 on your stupid software when I’ve just dropped nearly $2 000 on a camera body and the accessories that go with it.  PUT IT IN THE BOX.  Put ViewNX in the box, too, so that I’m not using ACDSee to preview my images.  Keep it in the family, because your software, for obvious reasons, does the best job of interpreting my RAW files as they come out of the camera.  Incorporating U-Point technology has made me love you.  Your sharpening tools and black and white rendering engine do magical things to my images.  But your batch tools aren’t as flexible as Lightroom’s presets, and your interface is clumsy, confusing, and just plain ugly.  When I use CaptureNX, I can sometimes get away with not sending my images to Photoshop to be finalized.

Adobe Camera Raw.  Forget about it.  I’ll only use this one if I have a LOT of images that (a) need to be processed quickly and (b) don’t need to be processed to any kind of meticulous standard.

Adobe Lightroom is another piece of software that has, with its latest beta, almost made it possible for me to skip Photoshop in my workflow.  Why this tool has not superseded Camera RAW plugin is beyond me.  (Wait.  I know why.  It’s because it’s very expensive. Anyway.)  And perk up your ears, Nikon … the RAW image that’s imported looks to my eye almost the same as what I see in CaptureNX2.  Lightroom offers a meticulous level of control over just about every aspect of my image’s final appearance, and I don’t have to search through any obscurely-labelled menus to find out how to do what I want to do.  Everything is already at the edge of my mouse pointer, waiting for me to access it.  And for those people who have taken the time to make Lightroom presets available for download, you are awesome, and I love you all.  Here’s what, in my perfect world, Adobe would do with this software: they would ditch the adjustment brush, and they would replace it with U-Point technology.  I have yet to take advantage of most of its publishing capabilities, but you can bet that the next time I have a bunch of photos that need to be seen in a bunch, I’m going to be poking and prodding at the Web slideshow functionality.

And then … if these applications were able to use Photoshop-compatible 8BF filters, that would make my image-editing life entirely complete.

There we go.  If anyone is looking to improve my workflow — and yes, it IS all about me — that’s how you would do it!  Quick previews, full access to Nikon’s NEF encoding, U-Point, better batch processing, a neat interface with easy access to the tools I want to use, efficient sharpening/noise reduction/black-and-white rendering, lots of presets, and Photoshop filter compatibility.  That’s not a lot to ask, is it?