Photoshop rituals?

craigman

I have been with Smugmug for a couple of months but only came across this site last night. I apologize if this has already been posted, but I would like to know the process others here go through after their image is loaded in Photoshop.

The first thing I do is go to actual pixels to examine the focus and also find out if there are any blemishes or dust spots. After I am satisfied with this, I zoon back out and go to brightness and then contrast.

Then, I go to the color. I have read somewhere that some people prefer to fix the color before they move on to the brightness and contrast. Also, I came across a site the other day, forgive me but I can't remember it, that had a story talking about the process the photo editors for the AP use. First off, they remove the noise, then adjust the curves, then I believe it was the brightness/contrast and color, or vice versa on the final two.

Thank you for your time.

www.craigman.smugmug.com

pathfinder

craigman wrote:

I have been with Smugmug for a couple of months but only came across this site last night. I apologize if this has already been posted, but I would like to know the process others here go through after their image is loaded in Photoshop.

The first thing I do is go to actual pixels to examine the focus and also find out if there are any blemishes or dust spots. After I am satisfied with this, I zoon back out and go to brightness and then contrast.

Then, I go to the color. I have read somewhere that some people prefer to fix the color before they move on to the brightness and contrast. Also, I came across a site the other day, forgive me but I can't remember it, that had a story talking about the process the photo editors for the AP use. First off, they remove the noise, then adjust the curves, then I believe it was the brightness/contrast and color, or vice versa on the final two.

Thank you for your time.

www.craigman.smugmug.com

Brightness/Contrast is crude tool that damages your image. It changes all the pixels in the image whether they need to be changed or not. Buy a copy of Scott Kelby's Book "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers" , and you will learn why I said that.
His book is simple, funny, to the point, and very easy to follow, and you will learn how to imrove your images dramatically. I say again, DO NOT use brightness/contrast, there are much better tools in Levels and Curves.

I examine my RAW files in the File Browser and yes, if they are Out of Focus ( OOF) I will delete them before I begin post processing. Once I have converted the RAW files to jpgs , or have imported incamera jpgs, I go to Levels or Curves before attempting any color correction. Only after correcting with Levels or Curves are you ready to begin color correction.
Using the white or black eyedroppers in curves or levels will frequently be all the color correction you need. If you need further correction, adjusting by threshold is probably the most effective if there are blacks and whites in the image. Cloning out dust motes I do later just before my final USM sharpening.

Read Kelby's book and come back here for more questions - I think our answers will make a lot more sense for you when you have a little more background from his book.

Seamus

craigman wrote:

I have been with Smugmug for a couple of months but only came across this site last night. I apologize if this has already been posted, but I would like to know the process others here go through after their image is loaded in Photoshop.

The first thing I do is go to actual pixels to examine the focus and also find out if there are any blemishes or dust spots. After I am satisfied with this, I zoon back out and go to brightness and then contrast.

Then, I go to the color. I have read somewhere that some people prefer to fix the color before they move on to the brightness and contrast. Also, I came across a site the other day, forgive me but I can't remember it, that had a story talking about the process the photo editors for the AP use. First off, they remove the noise, then adjust the curves, then I believe it was the brightness/contrast and color, or vice versa on the final two.

Thank you for your time.

www.craigman.smugmug.com

This link might help you. I use this workflow most of the time

http://www.fredmiranda.com/A11_Nori/


Shay.

John Mueller

Lately I been converting raw with C1 LE, ACR or (EOSviewer(8bit with this,cause if I convert to 16bit,it strips the EXIF) to 16bit tiff/crop and then working in lab color adjust levels,cruves and saturation.Back to rgb and maybe another level/cruve then tweak with layers etc,last sharpening.Convert to 8bit save as jpeg 10