Hi, if I can make a few suggestions from a fellow photographer, not one affiliated with Photomechanic other as an user...
1) Buy and read a good book about RAW camera format. I suggest the one by Bruce Fraser. Simply put, from your questions, you seem to not understand what really is RAW photo file format and its uses and workflow implications.
2) Print and read the Photomechanic manual (available as download PDF from camerabits.com) throuroughly. It's quite well written, and explains a lot.
3) Afterwards, do some research and try the different software for RAW to JPEG/TIFF conversion if you want to continue RAW workflow. Otherwise, if it seems too difficult, just stick to JPEGs and don't bother with RAWs. RAW is a NEGATIVE, like with FILM, and if you are not willing/able to work with it like with a negative film in the old-fashioned darkroom, and just want finished files, JPEG can be a better / time-saving choice. Even if JPEGs have their compromises, RAW files ALWAYS need adjustment/developing just like old-fashioned film.
4) When you are proficient with RAW development, and want to use Adobe products for it, download Adobe Camera colour profiles and select them in Lightroom / Camera Raw. These will make the colours much closer to what the camera sees in JPEG mode, and really do improve colour rendition for both Canon and Nikon cameras.
5) Remember, RAW files are Negatives. They need development just like film to look good.
Sorry if this seems like patronising, but you seem not to grasp the real difference between RAW and JPEG files - that is, RAW files are uncooked, raw, negative-like files, which depend on your processing of them and the software used to do the processing to make them into finished files. So before you do understand the difference, either stick with JPEGs or learn it.
6) Photomechanic can be used to its best with both JPEGs or RAW files for its purpose, that is in my humble opinion a fast selection of few keepers from thousands of photographs very quickly. It's not a RAW development software, and if you think so, JPEG workflow would probably be the best for you. Although, it can be very well integrated in a RAW only workflow, thanks to all it has to offer (actually, I don't know of any better software to select, caption and send photos from a shoot). Working with RAW files you just need to make a good workflow to accommodate all the steps including RAW development.
7) If you go the RAW way, I suggest you use Photomechanic as the first step in Ingesting the photos, Captioning them, selecting your keepers, then developing the keepers from RAW to finished files in the conversion software of your choice (For Canon files, DPP was the choice for colour fidelity, with the before-mentioned Adobe colour profiles for Canon, Adobe software is in my opinion a better choice now than DPP, as it is easier to develop a number of files at once with it).
Overall, Ingest and select with Photomechanic. Develop with Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom using the new Adobe camera colour profiles. Save the developed files back to the same or different folder, and caption them and send them using Photomechanic again. That's my workflow and I think it works the best
9) Remember, RAW files are "uncooked", raw, and need development to look the best. If you are not willing / not have time for it / just stick with JPEGs from the camera, which are already "cooked" by the camera itself software.
Hope this helps, Frantisek
