so which comes first, cut-out or retouch

[Nasturtium]

A question for those of your who make composites.

Which do you do first? The retouching or the matting (cutting out)

[0lBaldy]

Personally I straighten, crop, cutout/paste, and do global enhancements before retouching that way I do not spend hours fixing something only to cut it out later..
after retouching I do some fine tuning, tweaking masks, checking perspectives, re-compose if needed, then a final crop and re-sampling before the final sharpening and clean up..

[DJSoulglo]

Cutting out. You can't really retouch something to a level without knowing how all elements interact with each other.