Types of editing…

[Olaf_ZG]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Throughout the years I noticed I have several editing processes…

1. event work: general colour correction, cropping and a small vignette 

2. portraits: heavy culling, and then editing one, apply edits to rest and fine tune

3. that one image: quite extensive editing which I enjoy as it is only one image

4. snaps: import with colour preset, straighten, re-cull and done

 

what are yours?

[FrozenInTime]

Not structured enough here to use presets 😞 

Sometimes images don't even make it off the SD card; or following a more traditional practice, a film is left to languish at the back of a drawer undeveloped.

A lucky handful of jpegs may be selected and transferred over Wi-Fi to a phone or ipad App for timely sharing.

Occasionally in camera RAW processing will be used to morph a B&W jpeg preview into a colour version.

Almost everything needs a levels or contrast adjustment; very rarely localised masking. Faster apertures may require more vignette/lens profile corrections.

I used to only select and scan 5 or 6 images from a film roll, but with the VALOI it is quicker to camera scan the whole roll and cull soon after import.

Less than one in a thousand will ever be printed.

[Stephen_C]

Using a Q3 and always shooting RAW:

• Run through Adobe DNG Converter (not using lossy compression but still reduces RAW file size).
• Ingest into Photo Mechanic to rename file from capture date and time (e.g., 310125-0906-10.dng: 31 January 2025, 9.06 a.m. and ten seconds) and set metadata (location, description, keywords, copyright).
• Import into Capture One temp folder using Auto Adjust (limited to High Dynamic Range and levels) and applying my "Landscape clarity and structure" preset.
• Cull with vigour in Capture One and occasionally use Linear Gradient Mask slightly to darken sky or lighten foreground.
• Move anything worthwhile from Capture One temp folder to current year folder and delete remainder.
• Ensure new images are included in Photo Mechanic catalogue.

Stephen

[LocalHero1953]

Heavy culling comes first whatever the reason for shooting. The exception is for drama/dance/music when I have taken a lot of shots in mixed, often poor lighting. After I come home in the evening I may run everything with ISO>800 through AI Denoise overnight.

For drama/dance/music, after culling, I:

1. hit Auto for brightness controls just to make it easier to decide if further culling is needed;
2. apply my own custom 'Stage Lighting' preset to all for Clarity/Dehaze/Sharpening/Tone Curve/Vignette;
3. go through them one by one, cropping, straightening, adjusting lighting, making local corrections. This an accelerating process: the first few are slow, as I tune in to the lighting and colour, and work out what sense/vibe I can give to the show. I can sync my edits to longer and longer batches as I work through them.

Portraits are usually taken in good light and need no denoise. If I have used my own studio lighting, then I may do little adjustment, but it depends on the person and their skin. If I am using available light then I have presets for improving the light and colour of both hair and eyes. LR AI masks are immensely valuable here.

For family/social and travel, I have no particular workflow. Straightening and cropping are used for almost everything though. IMO photos which are not straight just distract from the main subject/purpose of the photo (unless you're an old journo from 'Nam taking photos hanging upside down from a Huey). I can't stand crooked photos, and I don't understand why I take them all the time🤷‍♂️ - but I always straighten them.

Edited July 21 by LocalHero1953

[SrMi]

- Import to LrC and apply Auto to normalize brightness for rating images.

- Higher-rated images will be processed. Lower-rated images may be reevaluated later and also be processed and moved to a higher rating.

- Processing includes dodging and burning using masks.

- WB and colors are adjusted, sometimes with masks.

- The processing may be reevaluated later (virtual copy and reset).

- An HDR version may be developed separately.

- I rarely use presets, or Nik software (SilverEfex, ColorEfex, etc).

 

[evikne]

• Import with preset based on the Adobe Standard profile with very slight adjustments to contrast, color and sharpness.
• Import GPX file from iPhone and assign GPS coordinates to all images.
• Assign the correct aperture value to all images using the LensTagger plugin (quickly done, since I don't change the aperture that often).
• Copy and paste WB values from ExpoDisc reference images.

I usually do all this before I even start looking at the images, then:

• Quick review and culling.
• Manually adjusting exposure, plus auto white- and black point.
• Cropping and straightening.
• Then there are usually some selective adjustments on individual images.

Edited July 23 by evikne

[marchyman]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

23 minutes ago, evikne said:

Assign the correct aperture value to all images using the LensTagger plugin (quickly done, since I don't change the aperture that often).

Do you note the aperture of every image taken?   I do that when shooting film; timestamp, aperture, speed written to a small notebook.  Never took the time to do that when using an M.  I may not have the patience.

[evikne]

35 minutes ago, marchyman said:

Do you note the aperture of every image taken?   I do that when shooting film; timestamp, aperture, speed written to a small notebook.  Never took the time to do that when using an M.  I may not have the patience.

I just remember it until I get home. I expose completely manually with a kind of Sunny 16, and I believe it is easier to remember when you are more conscious of what you are doing.

Edited July 23 by evikne

[Doug A]

All pictures taken with film cameras. 35mm scanned with easy35. 120 scanned with BEOON using Fuji X-T20 and 40/4 EL NIKKOR lens. All scans copied to Apple Desktop and organized by Year/Date Developed/Fuji File Name/. Each roll is printed as an inkjet contact page using ContactPage Pro and put in a ring binder. 

The Apple Desktop is backed up in the cloud so there are three copies of each image - the film negative, the file on the MacBook and the copy of the file in the cloud. 

Images that might be printed for display are chosen by myself or others looking through the contact pages in the ring binders. The selected images are imported into Affinity Photo 2 where the RAW images are developed, extraneous edges are cropped, the image is inverted and the black and white points are set at the extreme ends of the histogram. The only further editing done at this stage is possibly tweaking the gamma in the Levels adjustment. 

The file then goes to Epson Print Layout where I make a neutral trial print using Epson's ABW mode on inexpensive 8.5 by 11 glossy paper. These prints are taped to the wall behind my work station where I live with them for a week or two to decide if they really are worth making a print for display and, if so, decide what additional editing needs to be done. The small number of winners then go back into Affinity Photo for the full gamut of editing and then back to Epson Print Layout for the final prints. 

Edited July 23 by Doug A