A generic workflow for general picture editing.
In an earlier thread, it was suggested that we start a thread about editing workflows to help folks get an idea of what can be done to their images to make them look better. This workflow is a generic version of what I use and should be presented in a way that works for all editors. Most tasks have multiple ways to accomplish them; I make no claim about any methods being the best.
Generic Editing Workflow
Most workflows these days contain steps for both metadata management (file locations and keywords, etc.) and for editing the pictures. Here we are going to talk only about editing and mostly about editing of the whole image, not pixel tweaking.
A quick thought on the type of editing you are about to do. Pictures exist on a sliding scale from "pictures as documentation" to "pictures as art" to "art that started off as a picture". The only wrong thing that can happen is that you misrepresent where on the scale your work exists. The most common misrepresentation is claiming "documentation" when the amount of edits you did clearly pushes the work into the art section. You often read about photographers getting fired from media jobs due to this. If you are doing photojournalism or other documentation type work, make sure your edits are in line with those expectations. Otherwise, in art everything is fair game.
Some folks like really strong colors, some folks don't. Some folks like strong contrast, some don't. What you remember as "realistic" may be remembered very differently by others. There is no right and wrong here. Basically, you will be playing with the adjustment sliders until thing "look good" to you.
Some steps need to be in a certain order, some don't. If you are using a non-destructive editor like Lightroom, then you really don't have much control over the order of the steps taken by the editor.
For the editors that let you control the order of the edits (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc.) these next few steps should probably be in this order. If your editor supports layers, the use of layers is recommended so that you can change/undo things later if needed.
Large exposure changes.
If your shot needs big exposure fixes, you probably need to do that first so that you can see what you are going later. Different editors call it different things. You are looking for "gamma" or "levels" or "curves". Don't go crazy here, but adjust things to get you into the ball park. Be aware, this is where most of the digital noise is going to come in if you are greatly brightening the image.
White balance.
White objects don't always look white under various types of light. Incandescent bulbs are yellow; old fluorescent tubes are green, shade on a sunny day is blue. Adjust the color of the photo now so that white is white. This makes other adjustments later so much easier.
Cropping and straightening
If your editor allows you to hide the cropped pixels instead of discarding them, I like to do my cropping up front. This allows me to then concentrate my later adjustments on only what I am seeing.
Input sharpening.
Most cameras have a filter built into the sensor that slightly softens the image. You want to apply some sharpening to offset this. Unsharp Mask, "smart sharpen", Focus Magic plug-in. Pick your favorite. Don't go crazy here. Only a little is needed. Creative sharpening comes later.
Lots of instructions often say to do this at 100% zoom. While that is an easy way to see what is going on, it is not an accurate way to see what the result really looks like. The results are better judged at 50% zoom as this is much closer to what your final image will be seen as.
Unlike the movies and TV shows, in real life out of focus images cannot be fixed. If your image is really out of focus, you are probably best served by deleting it or using the blur to some artistic purpose.
Noise reduction.
Depending on your editor, this may be tied to the input sharpening (Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw).
A little goes a long way. The final use of your image plays a big part here. If your final result is to be physically downsized for web viewing, or visually downsized during printing, a huge amount of the digital noise will be eaten by the downsizing process. Thus, you will need to do any noise reduction in amounts much smaller than you think. 50% zoom is a good way to judge the results.
The next few steps really don't matter what order you go in.
Blacks, shadows, highlights, whites.
If your editor separates these edits out from the generic contrast settings, play with these before adjusting the general contrast. Usually the blacks need to be darker, and the whites need to be brighter. Make sure you are not clipping the colors of any important objects.
Brightness and contrast.
Almost any shot I edit gets a +2 brightness and +5 contrast by default. Most likely the contrast will need to go even higher. You are seasoning to taste. Low light photos tend to have low contrast to start with thus needing more contrast than bright light photos.
Clarity.
This is basically contrast in the midtones. Everything tends to look good with a little added. Highly detailed objects look good with lots. People look really bad with lots.
Vibrance.
This is similar to saturation, but tries to leave skin tones looking like skin tones. Play with this before you do saturation adjustments.
Saturation.
This is the strength of colors. It is really easy to go crazy here. Skin tones will look wrong rather quickly.
Cropping and straightening.
If you have not done it already, this is a good place to do it.
A note about straightening: if you have lines that are supposed to be horizontally straight or vertically straight, make them so. While artistic license can look good with noticeable tilts obviously done on purpose, tilts that are off by "just a little" look like mistakes because they usually are mistakes.
Small-scale and artistic adjustments.
Now that you have the basic global editing done, you now can do the editing to specific parts of the image using masks or adjustment brushes, in no particular order.
Cloning and object removal
Artistic sharpening and blurring
Skin softening (real easy to go too far here)
Brighten and darken
Vignetting
Now is a good time to save the image as a layered PSD/TIF/PSP.
Outputting the image.
Here is where we put the image into its needed size and format.
If you are working with layers, now is the time to flatten the image.
Resize.
Pick the size of the file needed for its purpose.
For printing, you probably want full-size or even enlargement.
For web viewing and email you are wanting to downsize image to 800-1000 pixels on the long side.
Output sharpening.
This is an important step that is most often forgotten.
Since you just finished resizing the image, you need to fix the sharpening.
A small amount of sharpening is needed for the downsized files.
A large amount of sharpening is probably needed for the files going to the printer.
Save your output file
Now that you have flattened, resized, and sharpened, save the file as a JPG or whatever format is needed for your purpose. Do NOT overwrite the layered PSD/TIF/PSP file you saved earlier.
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This is very helpful. While I think you can teak an old dog (I'm 65) new tricks, it does take some time. This helps!
