PS Workflow

[MaticK]

Hi,

I would really like to get some idea about your workflow in PS. How do you edit a photo after you've developed it from RAW (either in Bridge, Camera Raw or same stand alone program)? What's the sequence?
- Levels with adjustment layer
- Curves with adjustment layer
- Color correction
- Clone/heal
- Dodge/burn
- sharpen/blur
- noise
- flatten, conversion 16-8bits, adobe rgb to cmyk/srgb, save

Does it change with the image subject or is it constant?
Does it change with the final output and usage of the image?

TIA,
Mat

[MaticK]

Nobody?

TIA,
Mat

[KR1156]

retouching first, color correction on top.

[Swampy]

Much depends on the piece, but I do much of the gross correction first. Stuff like perspective, cropping, cloning etc. Then I correct for color, sharpen, print.

[MaticK]

I've read a great article about this, where to start, what steps to make so you don't make it worse or your retouching is visible in the print, why levels before curves, why sharpen before blur, etc.. but of course, now that I need this info, I can't find it.

Thx anyway,
Mat

[hawkeye60]

I generally opt to deal with the most difficult areas first, and save simple for last. For me that's usually cloning, dodging, burning, etc. first and overall adjustments, sharpening, blurring, etc., last.

[Kevin Connery]

Originally Posted by MaticK

Hi,
- Levels with adjustment layer
- Curves with adjustment layer
- Color correction
- Clone/heal
- Dodge/burn
- sharpen/blur
- noise
- flatten, conversion 16-8bits, adobe rgb to cmyk/srgb, save

Pretty much the same except that I do as much of the basic color work as possible in the RAW conversion if it's a raw file. (Most of my own work is from raw now, but I still get a lot of client files which aren't.)

I particularly don't do a Levels adjustment before running Curves. By using Levels, a lot of the benefits of Curves is diminished--there's fewer places to 'trade' contrast if the endpoints are brought in before Curves can use those regions for trading.

I also typically do my color correction at the same time I do contrast correction, and use Curves for both. Sometimes that's a single Curves layer, and sometimes two, one each in Luminosity and Color modes.

Healing and cloning goes on separate layers. Those layers are typically grouped if different blend modes were used, and if they can't be merged into a couple of overall retouch layers.

Sharpening is typically last, after conversion to final output space and size.

[Markzebra]

"one each in Luminosity and Color modes." - a very good hidden gem there folks, dealing with color and Luminosity separately.

Try working by producing a very good grayscale image (in RGB) and then re-introducing the original color. Or this very old technique .. set a channel mixer layer to Luminosity mode to control the density. A new and very powerful way is to use a new CS3 grayscale adjustment layer set to Lum blend. The old Russel Brown technique is what I used to use for this, still a great technique in some ways. Color and tonal density of an image can then be controlled seperately.

With the new technology of "Smart filtering" its now also possible to all these things non - destructively too, if you don't mind BIG files. you can go into LAB and do L channel adjustments and blend these with your color file, having the L smart object sitting on top. Or you can do all your edits sitting within a sharpening "container" document.

[JMB]

Don't any of you use Camera Raw for color ajustments?

I mean, before any kind of healing, cloning.... I find it great, the only problem is that I do all my heal/clone job in a layer above the original (tools set to current and below) and, if I have to change the color of the layer below (smart object with camera raw), my heal job goes away.