Post-processing. Is it an accident, is it just a clever use (by me) of a single letter, but when you’re considering what you do, and when you should do it, with Post-Processing – the letter “P” could feature dominantly. So let’s go with my sequence of events after I’ve uploaded my images – I may have done some Pre-Processing such as apply a Profile, or a lens correction as part of the upload, but we’ll put those aside for now.
So first of all I do some Preparation. For me this means I quickly scan through all the images and immediately mark for deletion those that are out of focus, are duplicates of a one that I realised at the time of shooting that I could delete (I could have deleted these in camera, but I rarely do), and ones that are just obviously “wrong” for one reason or another. I then go back to the first shot in the sequence and apply a Rating. Generally, any that I think are worthy of further work I rate as “3”, I use “1” for family/friends that I feel I ought to keep as a record, and “2” for maybe if I have the time/inclination to go back and look again – a second choice you might call it. I might also apply an “X” for deletion if a closer look tells me I really shouldn’t keep it! I then select all the “3’s” for further attention.
I then move on to the Processing. I have ordered the selection panels in the Develop module in the order I will start to process. This therefore means I will apply a Transform if necessary to straighten the image, and then apply Calibration – if I can remember what to do and how to do it!!! Then, if it hasn’t been done as part of the Import, I will choose a Profile. I generally will try the Adaptive Profile first, but this sometimes just doesn’t look right so I will select the most appropriate Adobe profile. [Everything in my camera to printer workflow is based on the Adobe RGB standard so this makes sense.] If I haven’t used the Adaptive profile I will probably just apply Auto in the Basic panel to see how it might look, and assess if it might be a candidate for B&W processing.
Now it’s time for more detailed work, I will tweak the Basic panel settings in the order they appear in the panel apart from one modification to the order – I will address the possible over- and under-exposure issues for the histogram mainly by applying the white and black settings corrections [on MacOS this is done by option-slider controls]. So it’s top to bottom with a bit of Texture, Clarity applied (maybe a bit of Dehaze to bring out detail in the sky) and Vibrance for landscapes, and Saturation for people.
Next it will be Polishing. This where I will look at the image and see if any enhancements could be made – cropping to improve the composition, dust removal if necessary, removal of objects and then decide whether the image needs to be sent to Photoshop for a specific transformation, to Then Topaz AI for noise reduction/sharpening, or DxO for a particular effect to be applied. Alternatively the image may need to go down the selective masking route – which I won’t go into. At this stage I may relegate a “3” to a “2”, or advance a “3” to a “4” which in my scheme of things means this one’s a “keeper”.
Then we come to the grandly sounding Production! What do I do with the edited image? Well the first thing I’ll do is create a Collection for the group of images, this might be a smart one based on the Rating criteria and date, or just a simple drag’n’drop one. I will give that Collection a meaningful name (with a year) and place it in a Collection Set which categorises the type of Collection – People, Places, Events etc etc. While the selected Collection is still on the screen I will switch back to the Library module and apply some Metadata – mainly a title for the Image, and perhaps a caption.
If the Collection, or a subset of it is going to be Published onto this website, or to Google Photos, or Flickr – I will use a preset Publish set, or Upload the selected images to my hard drive – all of which will have a similar name (or folder) for the album I’m creating. [It’s unfortunate that a Collection and a Published Collection can’t have the same name!!] It’s then time for labelling. If there’s an image that I feel could be sent to my website to go in a Gallery, I will give it a Green label, if it’s one that I think I may go back to again, I will mark it as Yellow. If I think it’s worthy of Printing I will probably mark it as Purple.
And that’s about it. All the “P’s” … Preparation, Processing, Polishing and Production – Publishing and Printing.
You might like to look at a recent Mark Denney post …
… or this one from Brian Matiash …
Then there’s these three from Matt Kloskowski, Anthony Morganti and Simon d’Entremont …
… and then finally, as we will be considering where Adobe is going over the next few months, perhaps take a look at Simon d’Entremont’s review of DxO’s CameraLab 10