[Canada_Rockies]

I shoot RAW images with my K10d. As many of you know, I often use my M 400/5.6 for wildlife and birds. This more often than not requires cropping to get an image I find acceptable. I am finding that I do less and less of the detail work now. My workflow is in this order. The first item is probably the most time consuming, but I can do something else while it works its way slowly through several hundred images.

1. I pass my entire shoot through DxO first. This gets rid of many of the little flaws that sneak in, particularly with my three DA lenses that are in their database. Even with the M and A lenses, however, the little sensor quirks are worth the run.
2. If I have taken architectural images or others where I know or expect to want to fix keystoning, I do that in DxO in the prepare step. Otherwise I just let'er rip.
3. I have DxO output DNG in another folder, where I
4. Use Lightroom to import, catalogue and keyword the images.
5. Review in Lightroom for cropping, if needed and not done in DxO.
6. During the review I may use PS Elements 6 to remove power lines and other such intrusions. I am studying up on the LR versions. Maybe I don't need PSE as much anymore, since v2.

Other than doing HDR and pano assemblies, that's it. My actual input time is about the same as I spent on the light table with my Pentax 5.5X loupe and my slides.

[KierraElizabeth]

Hmmm...thanks again, everyone! My brother has been trying to convince me to invest in LR--he is completely in love with it. It sounds like that is pretty common here too! I may have to give in and find the funds for it.

[LeDave]

curves. its always curves.

I try using curves for my image pp'ing, but it always end up being too bright or too dark, etc. I can't ever use curves correctly, I Think it might be my exposure on my picture that is incorrect where I can't use curves.

[LeDave]

You can get quite satisfactory results using the 'Guided Editing' function on PSE.

I never thought about this before, I'll need to check it out.

I never thought about this before, I'll need to check it out.

You can use the auto functions or sliders.

[Marc Sabatella]

I try using curves for my image pp'ing, but it always end up being too bright or too dark, etc. I can't ever use curves correctly, I Think it might be my exposure on my picture that is incorrect where I can't use curves.

The way to use curves is to *first* get the overall exposure in the ballpark of where you want, and *then* use the curves to change the relationship between lights and darks. Eg, dragging the right side of the curve up and the left side down to icnrease contrast, or the opposite to reduce it. Of course, something that simple can be done with just a contrast control; the point of curves is to give finer control over the process. For instance, drag the elft side up only to lighten shadows without affecting the rest. Or the right down to tone down the highlights without affecting the rest. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really.

[Marc Sabatella]

Hmmm...thanks again, everyone! My brother has been trying to convince me to invest in LR--he is completely in love with it. It sounds like that is pretty common here too! I may have to give in and find the funds for it.

If you aren't aware, you can get it for $100-ish if you can qualify for the educational discount (or find someone who does to buy it for you, although I suspect that's probably violating the terms of license).

[Big G]

I do almost all my PP in Camera Raw. I never shoot JPEG - waste of time imo .

I usually do the following in Camera Raw in mostly this order:

1. Lens distortion correction

- Correct for chromatic abberation. Blow the image up to 200% and get into the corners where it shows the most and get that fixed. Check centre after adjustment.
- Correct for purple fringing. If there is no purple in the scene, then back off purple saturation as a matter of course.
- Correct for any corner light fall off.

2. Colour balance

- Check histogram and adjust exposure, using Recovery slider (superb tool!) where necessary as not to blow the highlights. If underexposed, use Fill Light to bring detail to shadows.
- Adjust contrast (usually a slight boost) to suit.
- Tweak Clarity slider to bring localised contrast and give impact to image (good for black and white, not so good for flesh tones / skin / portraits).
- Boost saturation very slightly to see effect, keep if attractive.
- Sharpen image.

3. Save image

- Save final image into master TIFF folder.
- Create new folder called TIFF Adjustments.
- Create new folder called JPEG sRGB.

4. Rotate / Align / Crop / Resize

- Load master TIFF into Photoshop and correct for rotation as required.
- Crop as required to frame composition.
- Save into TIFF Adjustments folder.
- Create resized (typicall 1280 pixels wide) sRGB based JPEG for web uploading (Flickr, Facebook etc.).

The most basic PP I do is converting from RAW to TIFF.

[Lowell Goudge]

Just as an interesting counterpoint to Marc's very good list:


I never bother cropping initially and usually not at all.


I almost always bump the exposure by at least a stop

doesn't this imply you are consistently wrong?

I change this all the time too, although it's usually more for effect


I'm all over those!


I never fiddle with the default settings for the noise reduction in my primary software unless it's to turn it completely down. I haven't used noise reduction software like NeatImage or NoiseNinja for over a year. I've just come to embrace the noise I get and live with it.


I never fiddle with the default sharpness settings either. I remember getting into rather heated debates about the best ways to sharpen back in the day (unsharp mask? high pass filter?) and now I never touch the stuff. Just goes to show how much we can change, even as photographers

Generally

I thought marc's list is worth repeating, with a few changes, that I'll add in bold

- crop / rotation / perspective correction since I do a lot of wide angle
- overall exposure
- white balance
- other adjustments to exposure as necessary - curves, fill light, highlight recovery, contrast, local contrast enhancement, etc
- other adjustments to color as necessary - saturation, vibrance, hue
- noise reduction
- sharpness
- save under new name

Generally, I shoot JPEG and as an earlier thread discussed, I do "pre-post processing" i.e. getting most right before I shoot.

and I think it is important to note the sequence here you don't want to do for example sharpening before noise reduction, because it will just amplify the specs in the photo

[netuser]

........ fill light, highlight recovery,...........

How do we do this two on CS3 or CS4 ?

[Big G]

I think those are Adobe Camera Raw functions.

[netuser]

I think those are Adobe Camera Raw functions.

Are there the same tools on CS3 ?

[ll_coffee_lP]

My typical workflow (for almost all pics)
- Open RAW files in ACR
- Adjust "black" to anywhere between 5-18
- Adjust brightness from 50 (default) to 60
- Adjust contrast from 25 (default) to 35
- Adjust exposure (if I want to go higher key)
- Adjust white balance (if needed)
- Desatuate by -3 (usually) because the image is a touch too bold now for my taste

Transfer file to CS2
- Remove any blemishes/unwanted items using spot healing, etc.
- Dodge/burn for effect (sometimes)
- Add G.blur using mask (sometimes)
- SAVE as PSD file (final edited image)

- Resize (if applicable)
- Sharpen (occasionally - if needed)
- Add vignette via mask (usually)
- Save as JPG (highest quality) (final print image)

- Resize for web
- Add border
- Add business logo brush
- save as JPG (highest quality) (for web use)

That's about it. I almost never crop, I don't use curves, if making a b/w image I will desaturate individual colour values in ACR so that the other sliders will still affect the image (I often don't put them right to 0 anyway...somes -95, or -98).

I can get this all done in a couple of minutes.

Hope this helps.

c[_]

[emalvick]

I will second most people's processes, but the thing that is bugging me a bit reading this thread is that a couple of people are talking about either constantly bumping their exposures or that their images are always dark to begin with....

Doesn't this mean that you could take your photos with some positive exposure compensation in the first place?

In my own workflow, I am often using +1/2 stop exposure compensation as for most shots no exposure compensation ends up too dark for me. Plus, I am one of those that would rather always have to bring the exposure down a bit than have to boost it (i.e. a little less noise).

Then, being hypocritical, I recently went on a trip where I tried to avoid any over-exposure so tended to keep things with no exposure compensation only to see that what appeared over exposed or close to the histogram limit wasn't anywhere near so once I got into lightroom. Instead, I ended up with a few flat photos that had more noise than I wanted because I had to constantly boost exposure by +1 stop....

The moral... I'll go back to exposing to the right and not worrying about indications of minor over-exposure realizing that the screen is a reflection of the preview jpg and not necessarily the raw data.