Your personal post-processing process...

Katchit

Katchit

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Gaz
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Afternoon. I thought this may use for a good thread if we could get some hints and tips from members thrown together in 1 thread.

1 thing that I am looking to step up a notch or 2 is my post-processing ability.

Appreciate every photo is different and there will be times when certain processes won't be applicable but what is your personal 'check list' so to speak when you get the photos in Lightroom or Darktable, etc...?

I personally use Darktable, and there are 100s of modules that I have never really explored or touched, so hopefully can pick up a tip or 2 in here.

Thanks.
 
I use a light touch. That means that I hardly move the sliders at all (apart from the many exceptions). I use the exposure, white point and black point sliders to get the histogram central and extending to both ends. I use the sharpening slider with masking so that only detail gets sharpened - I am not interested in 'pin sharp' in my pictures - and I might reduce saturation a tad. Mostly, I do not do anything else.
 
I do a series in a order.

1. Cull and crop. Weed out the bad shots - crop the keepers to the aspect ratio's you want ie 5x4, 3x2, 1x1 etc
2. Cloning and retouch - once stage 1 is complete turn the microcontrast up to 100 and exposue down 2ev. This will make the image very gritty looking - and easy to spot sensor dust or other defects like bird trails, fly marks etc. Repeat and perhaps some further cropping and culling needed. You cannot supply images for sale with any sensor dirt.
3. Colour and curves. I do ALL my contrast etc through the curves tool - and I do the HSL last. Stage 3 has to be done in the dark so I have a uniform lighting pattern for all my shots. Stages 1 and 2 can be done in the daylight. Quickly use DXO's lens sharpening and CA tools.
4. Proofing
5. Exporting.
6. Selling.
 
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1. Copy all files to a Dump folder. With different cameras and different sources of images, importing them all from the same place is much simpler. Card can then be formatted and I don't have to do all the next steps at that point in time.
2. Sync the dump folder in LR
3. Reject (x) images that are oof, repetetive, misfires etc.
4. Drag from Dump into a new folder depending on where their final home is
5. Double check the rejected and delete.

Then at my leisure...

Lightroom Smart collection to pick up all images from the steps above. Work through it, image by image...

5. Dust fixing, cropping, straighten, tonal adjustments.
6. Keyword
7. If I intend to print it, it gets a random number of stars depending on how much I like it.

[Edit to add backup kicks in OnFileChange to back everything up to a NAS]
 
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Harlequin565 said:
1. Copy all files to a Dump folder. With different cameras and different sources of images, importing them all from the same place is much simpler. Card can then be formatted and I don't have to do all the next steps at that point in time.
2. Sync the dump folder in LR
3. Reject (x) images that are oof, repetetive, misfires etc.
4. Drag from Dump into a new folder depending on where their final home is
5. Double check the rejected and delete.

Then at my leisure...

Lightroom Smart collection to pick up all images from the steps above. Work through it, image by image...

5. Dust fixing, cropping, straighten, tonal adjustments.
6. Keyword
7. If I intend to print it, it gets a random number of stars depending on how much I like it.
Click to expand...

Ha -yes - I forgot to put that as my very first stage.

I organise my files in folders by year_month_place

so 2022_01_Kepies 1, then 2022_01_Kelpies 2, 2022_01_Rattray Head

I put the files into each folder - copy this to a master HDD drive then to Amazon cloud.

Once then follow this order...

1. Cull and crop. Weed out the bad shots - crop the keepers to the aspect ratio's you want ie 5x4, 3x2, 1x1 etc
2. Cloning and retouch - once stage 1 is complete turn the microcontrast up to 100 and exposue down 2ev. This will make the image very gritty looking - and easy to spot sensor dust or other defects like bird trails, fly marks etc. Repeat and perhaps some further cropping and culling needed. You cannot supply images for sale with any sensor dirt.
3. Colour and curves. I do ALL my contrast etc through the curves tool - and I do the HSL last. Stage 3 has to be done in the dark so I have a uniform lighting pattern for all my shots. Stages 1 and 2 can be done in the daylight. Quickly use DXO's lens sharpening and CA tools.
4. Proofing
5. Exporting.
6. Selling.

Once stage 4 is done - I copy the sidecar files for each image - then copy that to the relevant folder on Amazon cloud. This way - all my edits are thus stored so if my house burns down - I get a new PC, download my files and everything is as I left off.

I do keep duplicate copies of my folders with my RAWs plus sidescars on other drives.
 
I do 90% of my processing in Lightroom on an iPad Pro now. I have my own preset that gets applied to every Raw photo on import, which gives ensures every image has a consistent look and serves as a starting point. Once the files are imported to the iPad and put in an Album (Collection on LR desktop) the process is:

1. Set Album filters to only show unflagged and Picked images
2. Cull the days photos, using the Reject command (keyboard shortcut X in Lightroom) to get rid of any images I don't want. The filters set in step 1 make LR automatically move on to the next image once I've rejected.
3. Once the culling is done, filter for all rejected images and just give them a scan through to make sure I've not rejected anything I actually want to keep
4. Go through the remaining images and edit them. The preset applied on import is the starting point, this stage is any further tweaks, cropping, spot removal etc.
5. Export any images that are going to my website to be published
6. Delete the rejected images
7. If I've paused LR Cloud sync, plug the iPad into it's charger, un-pause cloud syncing and let LR sit there and upload the remaining Raw files to the cloud
8. At some point in the future, open LR Classic on my laptop and let it download all the Raw files from the cloud and drop them onto an external drive to archiving. This step is automatic.
 
I’ve moved away from Adobe and now using DXO photolab and Affinity so am still learning DXO and Affinity so will be following this thread with interest
At the moment
1 copy from card to a dump folder on an external drive, I don’t reformat the card until the files I want are all backed up somewhere else
2 go through the shots in FastRawViewer make a note of which shots are promising and go through those zoomed in to check sharpness
3 run the shots I’ve picked through DXO deep prime, I’ve found that I need to turn down the lens sharpness as it over sharpens, also try to get the colour and contrast right at this stage
I’m converting Raw to dng file then converting dng to tiff as it doesn’t say when you convert to tiff option that it includes all corrections only the dng option says that
4 open up images in Affinity and do any healing or cloning etc that’s needed
Crop if needed
 
LCPete said:
I’ve moved away from Adobe and now using DXO photolab and Affinity so am still learning DXO and Affinity so will be following this thread with interest
At the moment
1 copy from card to a dump folder on an external drive, I don’t reformat the card until the files I want are all backed up somewhere else
2 go through the shots in FastRawViewer make a note of which shots are promising and go through those zoomed in to check sharpness
3 run the shots I’ve picked through DXO deep prime, I’ve found that I need to turn down the lens sharpness as it over sharpens, also try to get the colour and contrast right at this stage
I’m converting Raw to dng file then converting dng to tiff as it doesn’t say when you convert to tiff option that it includes all corrections only the dng option says that
4 open up images in Affinity and do any healing or cloning etc that’s needed
Crop if needed
Click to expand...

I tend to find with DXO DeepPrime to turn it down as well - it really is good but it can over smooth things in the shadow areas destroying fine texture.

With DXO lens sharpening I tend to use values of

-1.15 for overall
15 for details and 15 for 0 for bokeh (I only shoot landscapes)

I find anything else gets too sharp.
 
SFTPhotography said:
I tend to find with DXO DeepPrime to turn it down as well - it really is good but it can over smooth things in the shadow areas destroying fine texture.

With DXO lens sharpening I tend to use values of

-1.15 for overall
15 for details and 15 for 0 for bokeh (I only shoot landscapes)

I find anything else gets too sharp.
Click to expand...
Thanks will try those settings :)
 
LCPete said:
Thanks will try those settings :)
Click to expand...

What I'd say is they were chosen for a 645z and D850. I find when I apply them to a smaller MP camera the sharpening appears stronger - say a D810 file (oddly not a D800 or D610 but they have softening AA filters).

I tried these settings on the 100mp GF100 file I have and they weren't sufficient - the default DXO settings seemed most optimal for that file.
 
SFTPhotography said:
What I'd say is they were chosen for a 645z and D850. I find when I apply them to a smaller MP camera the sharpening appears stronger - say a D810 file (oddly not a D800 or D610 but they have softening AA filters).

I tried these settings on the 100mp GF100 file I have and they weren't sufficient - the default DXO settings seemed most optimal for that file.
Click to expand...
I’m using a Canon R5 so fairly large files , I’ll experiment a bit
Definitely found that the default settings were way over sharpened though
 
LCPete said:
I’m using a Canon R5 so fairly large files , I’ll experiment a bit
Definitely found that the default settings were way over sharpened though
Click to expand...

Very similar resolution to the system's I run with. They'll be fine - sharp - with no artifacts -let us know how you get on and if you can better these - again let me know - sharpening is one of the weaker aspects of my PP
 
SFTPhotography said:
Very similar resolution to the system's I run with. They'll be fine - sharp - with no artifacts -let us know how you get on and if you can better these - again let me know - sharpening is one of the weaker aspects of my PP
Click to expand...
Thanks will do
I have found that it varies depending on the lens I use and subject but I mainly do nature/ wildlife and macro when the insects are out
me too about sharpening , I used photoshop smart sharpening for many years and got used to how much sharpening to use am a fan of as little as possible to be honest
 
At this point, since I don’t have Photoshop or any other editing software I use free online editors like LunaPic and BeFunky. My post-processing usually involves adjusting the sharpness just a bit, toning down the gamma if needed, and doing a bit of adjusting with highlights and contrasts if I think it’s needed.
 
Copy over from camera.
Back up (lots of copies).
Lightroom for the main generic edit.
Photoshop then if I need any clever stuff or special effects.

For my own personal pics it's copy over and back up as above, then just photoshop, because it's small numbers of pics and I often play about with them.
 
Varies hugely, but typically..


Copy to PC manually and do an Interim backup to a USB HDD

Open folder in FastRawImageViewer to cull & rate

Import into Lightroom

- Build 1-1 previews
- Perspective & lens correction
- WB & contrast correction
- Sharpness (usually leave this on my standard import default)
- Noise reduction (usually leave this on my standard import default)
- Sync across set

I might stop there, or I might go image-by-image into Photoshop. All of these steps are optional.

- Liquify if required (sometimes)
- Background cleanup (common) / extension (sometimes) / replacement (rarely)
- Clothing cleanup
- Skin blemishes
- Skin tone correction
- Skin retouch, either quickly with frequency separation & Portraiture, or properly with micro dodge & burn
- Hair retouch (rare)
- Local contrast enhancement / reduction - either automatic via an action I've made or manual dodge & burn
- Save

Then back into Photoshop with a copy for colour grading.

My colour grading is usually very lightweight and aimed at simplifying a palette and increasing the sense of depth. It varies hugely but will be a mixture of curves, colour balance layers, hue & saturation layers, selective colour layers and so on.

I use the libraries panel to sync the colour grade across a set.

Back to Lightroom. Add a smidge of grain to reduce processing & sharpening artefacts, then export & sharpen as high quality jpeg.

Into Notepad

Document any deviation from my my normal processing & the colour grading.

Use a Photoshop Droplet to batch-flatten the layers in all the processed images in a set.

Then do a proper backup using Cobian.
 
Mass dump RAW files to appropriately named new folder.
Browse in Faststone to cull unwanted.
Import to LR, apply necessary edits. Usually camera calibration, light NR then whatever necessary
Export to 16bit TIFF
Final edit in PS, including layering (quite a lot of my workflow includes blending multiple layers)
Import final TIFF to LR, final global edits, export to max quality JPG

In terms of backup, I'll run a filesync every so often to a pair of disks - one 4TB which holds all the RAWS & another 4TB USB which I'll sync everything to should I need to work on stuff or show clients away from home.
 
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  1. Import into Lightroom, copying files to Mac and NAS, whilst also applying basic metadata and develop settings (basic sharpening/camera and lens profiles and slight boost to colour).
  2. Sort through and cull images.
  3. Basic tweaks to selected images, still in Lightroom.
  4. Optional trip out to Photoshop for anything that needs layers.
 
For context, I'm a sports shooter, and therefore, most of my sets are from the same location / people but there are a lot of images, processing as follows:

Copy to computer
Cull with Faststone Image Viewer - I don't delete though, I use the 'move' function and place keepers into a separate folder
(Remove card reader)
Open LR and import, I usually apply one of my presets on import
First few images, edit and concentrate on WB and sharpening / noise reduction based on the location
Copy develop settings to all images
Each image:
- set white and black point
-check exposure
-check wb
-auto set saturation
- crop as necessary
Export & sharpen as 100% jpeg
Uploaded to client site
Back up exported jpegs on cloud
 
wildlife and sports photographer with an R5 so not many keepers and huge files.

Cards into card reader.
Open in FastRawViewer
Bin all the OOF, obviously less good pics from a burst - probably about ½ - ¾ of files go straight into the bin
Import the ones left into Lightroom, onto an external RAID array which continually backs up to the cloud (I use Backblaze)
Go through them again slower in Lightroom, rank with stars either 2,1 or zero, bin a lot more
Edit (in Lightroom) everything with stars, re-star 5->1
Edit anything 4 or 5 stars that needs it in topaz sharpen or de-noise.
Export and share if needed. Add to a 'print oneday' smart collection if I remember.

I very rarely use photoshop.
 
1. Crop and Correct horizon
2. Slightly adjust exposure (I under expose by default).
3. Slightly adjust blacks
4. Slightly adjust contrast

There is a massive binning process before this starts though :)
 
Damn, there`s some very well managed workflow above.... Mine is a bit of a mess in comparison ;)
Import into C1 2020 (new catalogue each month). My filing has always been pants, and always will be.

Basic general raw editing, and binning the crap. Back up to usb HDD
Into PS for cloning, and other stuff, plus layers and filters etc
Save as jpeg
Upload to flickr, and here :)
 
Basic cropping and trying out automatic color correction on photos that are too dark (doesn't always work perfectly but for most pictures it saves me a lot of time), then correcting the rest manually.
Removing all the unwanted objects/people.
Trying out filters or effects.
TAKING A BREAK: this one is extremely important because the more time I spend editing the more I start to look to much into the pictures which is not good.
Coming back to fix the blemishes I see with a fresh look.
All done in Photoworks.
 
I shoot RAW and edit in Lightroom, so:

1.) More often than not, convert to monochrome, and see if I prefer the image with a yellow or orange filter.
2.) I expose to the right, so almost invariably need to set the final exposure.
3.) Crop to desired aspect ratio if 3:2 doesn't suit.
4.) Nearly always soften the highlights by setting -50 on the slider.
5.) Let Lightroom set the white point with a shift-double click - I usually agree with what the software chooses
6.) Let Lightroom set the black point then change it when it gets it wrong!
7.) Quick fiddle with clarity and dehaze - I like the effects but only in moderation. Typically I set clarity to 9 or 12, dehaze 5 or 9 if I use it at all.
8.) Set sharpening - I go very easy on it. Typically I set amount to 30, radius to 0.7, leave details to default. I set all noise reduction to zero although Adobe does some anyway behind the scenes! If there's a bit of grain then never mind, it's usually pretty.
9.) If I see artefacts I don't like after a bit of pixel peeping I see if Enhance Details helps.
10.) See if overall contrast needs a tweak but more often than not leave it at default.
11.) Clone out sensor dust or insects etc if I see any.
 
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