RAW Best Practices

Question

I've used my D7000 and Apple Aperture for over a year now.  In the past, I've always shot JPEGs exclusively, but as I've read more about the virtues and flexibility of RAW, I've been considering the change.  I know you can shoot RAW+JPEG, but I'd like to avoid that practice.
Since the camera is not applying it's picture control touches to RAW files, what are some best practices for batch settings on import?
Is there anything special I should be doing on RAW import?  Are presets suggested beyond the default "RAW Fine Tuning" settings?  My RAW photos are somewhat flat and lact saturation, which I understand is a result of them being unprocessed by the camera picture control settings.
Or, if I do decide to standardize on RAW, will I have to then manually touch up every shot?
Thanks in advance, John

Answer 1

jdag wrote:
I do think that I will backtrack and use the RAW+JPEG option and keep the pair of files. 
Good idea IMO.
...the Nikon software in fact rendered the JPEG and RAW identically
...the "Nikon way" (ie - JPEG) vs. the RAW. Whether I like the Nikon processing or not on a particular image, at least then I can decide and have the RAW file to manipulate.
The above part is perhaps mis-stated.
DSLRs capture  light data on a sensor. Each different camera internally processes that data extensively using proprietary algorithims to save the vendor's version (for that specific camera) as a "RAW" file (e.g. what Nikon calls NEF). The resultant NEF file saved in-camera must be converted to be viewed. Conversion is an irreversible one-time process.
Apple converts RAW files,
Adobe converts RAW files,
Nikon converts RAW files,
etc.
Each vendor's conversion will be different. The camera vendor has a head start on best doing the conversion because only the manufacturer fully knows how the original data was processed in-camera.
After conversion each vendor saves the data in a standardized lossless format like TIFF or PSD.
Or the vendor can discard much of the image data, compress and save the file in a standardized lossy format like JPEG.
Each vendor's conversion will be different.
So the camera processes the image once: light data--->RAW file (NEF). Then someone (Apple, Adobe, Nikon, etc.) converts the RAW to a viewable image. You can choose whose conversion you prefer but you cannot modify the original Nikon/Canon/etc. processing.
Note that a Nikon JPEG is by definition very not the same as a Nikon RAW file (NEF). They may have similar "feel" because a Nikon raw conversion was done in both cases, but the JPEG file:
• has had a very large amount of image data discarded by the JPEG algorithim
• has been permanently modified by various in-camera settings.
HTH
-Allen