RAW conversion newbie...need help

[point-n-shoot]

So...I'm told that shooting in RAW is going to give me more control and better quality photos...OK, done.  Then I'm told that I need RAW conversion software...OK, Lightroom it is.  I watch all the available video tutorials on Lightroom and learn how to use the tools to manipulate and color-correct my photos. I upload all the pics to the Library and tweak them to my liking...nice!!  

BUT NOW WHAT??


Not ONE video I've watched tells me where to go from here.  Do I save the pics as jpegs, PSD, etc, etc?  Do I need to do this in PSCS2 or straight from Lightroom?  Can I open pics in PS directly from the LR library...or do I need to save them somewhere else (it appears LR automatically saves your changes to the photos as a copy in Library without having to rename the pic)

I've learned HOW to do it...I just dont know WHAT I'm doing, or WHY I'm doing it.

HELP!!

[Henrik Paul]

Select some images and then go on the top menu to File > Export dialogue - that's where you convert images from raw to other formats. I usually export to 16-bit ZIP TIFF if I plan to edit your image further in Photoshop, but PSD or DNG should work equally well

[point-n-shoot]

Should I do all the tweaking in LR, or is PS better for fine tuning?  I'm not a "pixel peeper", but I volunteered to be the photographer for my daughter's high school cheer squad, and I want to give them the best pics possible.

[Geoff Wittig]

Lightroom is convenient for initial tweaking, as you can easily import and batch-process all the images from a single shoot, applying consistent corrections to get the same color balance for example.
When it comes to the nitty-gritty of image editing, however (cloning out dust spots, fine-tuning the sharpening, optimizing local contrast etc.), there is no substitute for Photoshop.