[dugarner]

I don't know about the workflow for Lightroom. My Sony camera came with a "version" of Lightroom called Lightbox, it's the same idea. But I don't tend to use any presets. I have the option of processing one at a time or doing a batch processing.

If the lighting, balance, noise, etc., is okay in Lightbox, I just batch process them to jpeg files. I take the occasional shot that is too dark and I fix it as much as I can in RAW and then continue working in PSE.

Most of my shots are good enough that I can process them immediately to JPEG, then mess around a little bit in Elements. Shots that get individual treatment in Lightbox are those where the exposure is way off, or my histogram is way off (since I can't fix that in Elements.)

I think it's a matter of finding your rhythm, your flow. If most of your shots are good enough in JPEG, just process them right away. If you prefer to take the time to work on the RAW files, that's what's good for you. I split my time evenly between processing individual shots and just letting them go to JPEG. It seems like a waste---"why not just shoot in jpeg?"---but this prairie dog picture is a perfect example of how RAW saves my rear end.

1. RAW


2. Processed JPEG after tweaking in Lightbox (curves, noise reduction, and exposure compensation)


I took the time to fix this shot individually in Lightbox. Of the 16 shots I kept yesterday, 3 required individual processing time. Needless to say, in the past, if I had shot JPEG, I would have kept far more, 100 perhaps, of which 15 probably were only keep-worthy. So it has helped me really become picky about what I keep, because I don't want to mess with it!