# Order of edits?



## SquarePeg (May 28, 2021)

I’m curious what order other people use when they’re editing their photos. I have always saved the sharpening and the noise reduction for last but in a recent thread somebody mentioned that they did that first. Just curious everybody’s order of edits,  this is mine:

Exposure
Wb
Contrast
Clarity
Curves
Local brush adjustments
Sharpen
Noise reduction


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## SquarePeg (May 28, 2021)

Also, if you don’t edit and like your images SOOC, please scroll on by - no need to comment if you’re not discussing editing order.


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## Ysarex (May 28, 2021)

I edit parametrically for 99% of my photos in which case edit order doesn't matter. I only sharpen an image when I use it and then sharpen for the specific use.


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## photoflyer (May 28, 2021)

SquarePeg said:


> I’m curious what order other people use when they’re editing their photos. I have always saved the sharpening and the noise reduction for last but in a recent thread somebody mentioned that they did that first. Just curious everybody’s order of edits, this is mine:


 I edit in the sequence in which the user interface is laid out in the application I am using at the time.  Then I iterate back and forth between settings to find the best trade-off across settings. For example, if I am pulling up the shadows I will see how that increases noise Then I will experiment with noise reduction and asses if I can still get away with a bit of sharpening.  I almost never adjust exposure even on a shot that was intentionally underexposed favoring other methods for brightening shadows, etc.    So in short, it is interative until I think I struck the right balance.    I suspect that most of us, even if we have a preferred initial flow do the same thing in the end.


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## limr (May 28, 2021)

If it's a film scan, I tend to do dust removal first. Regardless, I do sharpening last as well.

What goes in between those two steps is very dependent on what the photo is, what I'm trying to achieve, and what the photo needs in order to achieve that, so I have no set order for edits.

What I can almost guarantee is one of my middle steps, however, is bitching and moaning about how editing color photos is a total mind**** and why don't I just stick to B&W which I'm probably better at anyway, or go all funky cross-processed color, because I've stared at the photo on this *%#$_(#& screen way too ^*#(&$@ long and my eyes hurt and time or space or color has no meaning anymore, and do I have any beer left?


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## jcdeboever (May 28, 2021)

Level
Crop
Remove dust
Double shot
Darkroom dishes
Oh crap  more dust
Double shot
Make some short rolls (12 exp)
Check ebay 
Scale ;export 
Pass out


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## petrochemist (May 28, 2021)

When I edit I tend to do it pretty much at random, but sharpening is generally left till the end (the degree needed depends on the output after all).
Much of the editing will depend on the image, with IR shots I often play with the hue drastically (near total reverse) but many other shots don't see that tweaked at all...


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## ac12 (May 28, 2021)

This is what I do for my high school sports pics.

For tennis, I will organize the pictures by players; singles (1,2,3,4), doubles, (1,2,3,4,5,6), BEFORE I edit.
I found that it is mentally easier for me to deal with a smaller number of pics of one player vs. couple thousand pics of all the players.

First are the culls.  You know the mistakes, like the shot of my foot.  Then OOF, blocked subjects, embarrassing images, etc.
The goal here is to "try" to bring 1,000 - 3,000 shots down to 200 - 500.  Often I don't reach that goal and have to do that in edit or post edit.

In editing I will evaluate the images again, and decide which to edit, and which to skip.
- Level.  A LOT of my sport images are not level, because when I move and shoot, leveling the camera is not a priority.
- Crop
- Exposure; usually lighten shadows first, boost dull highlights, etc.
- White balance. 
- Depending on the image, I may have to do some minor exposure adjustment after correcting the WB.
- Sharpen
- Save.  When I save, I will save with the jersey number in front of the file name.  ie. 10-NDS1234.JPG.  This sorts all the pics of player #10 together, and makes the next step easier.

Post edit I will look for dupes or near dupes, to eliminate the dupes.
For sports where I can identify the players, I will evaluate the number of pics of each player.  Players with too many pics, will have some of the pics deleted, to "try" to balance out the number of pics for each player.  So I don't have 30 pics of one player and only 2 of another player.
For players with only one or a few pics, I will sometimes go back into the culls or cropped pics, to look for more pics of them.  Again to try to balance out the number of pics of each player.


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## nokk (May 28, 2021)

i made a lr preset that does my usual edits, sharpening, clarity, etc.. on import.  i'll go through and adjust those settings when i need to after.  in ps i'll do the rest of the editing, but i don't resize or sharpen anything.  i'll resize and sharpen a copy of the photo when i need to for a specific purpose, resize first, sharpen last.


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## CherylL (May 28, 2021)

In ACR
Profile color
Lens correction
Crop
White balance
Exposure  (sometimes I reverse and do White balance after Exposure)
Tint
Dehase to add contrast or contrast
Chroma fix if needed
may play with the white slider or the shadow slider

PS
retouch face if needed
stray hair
retouch background if needed such as a distracting blob or OOF blobs or remove leash on the pups
may add a little more warmth or any color correction I forgot in ACR
Denoise with Nik

I don't do everything listed in PS, only if needed


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## adamhiram (May 28, 2021)

In LR, I typically start with white balance and exposure - once you get those right, everything else follows.  If the exposure is way off, I'll correct that first, otherwise white balance and tint are my starting points.  From there, I work my way down the tone and presence panels in order.  I save the more computationally heavy tasks like spot healing, adjustment brushes, and radial filters for the end, since too many of these edits will slow down any system eventually, might as well get the rest of the processing out of the way first.

Lastly I will crop and straighten as needed and occasionally add a vignette, either using the effects panel or a radial filter.  However if I plan to continue editing in Photoshop, I will skip these until after final edits have been completed.  Most of my work in photoshop is retouching, spot healing, and content aware fill for more complex object removal or extending backgrounds.  I do my best to make everything non-destructive and use separate layers or smart objects where appropriate.  I will say that I try to keep things entirely in LR if I can, as this ensures I can go back and undo or redo any part of post processing.  For example, once I start doing spot healing in PS, I can't got back to the original Raw file and tweak the white balance, and of course once anything has been cropped beforehand, it's just gone in the final edit.

In short, my workflow is designed around saving computationally heavy processing that will bog my system down until the end, and doing everything as non-destructively and reversibly as possible.


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## Dean_Gretsch (May 28, 2021)

I am with @photoflyer as I usually edit in sequence using Camera Raw in PS, saving sharpening and noise reduction last unless the shadows or highlights get clipped according to the histogram. I will then go back and adjust curves or basic shadows/blacks and highlights/whites until I am satisfied with how it looks or the histogram is acceptable. If I like the look I get, the histogram is forgotten, lol.


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## Bytesmiths (Jun 2, 2021)

I do any re-sizing first, local corrections next, global corrections next, and any sharpening last.

In-between, I try to do things that reduce the gamut to near the end. This includes especially global contrast correction and to a lesser extent, colour correction.

For example, if you're woking on contrast, and you have luminosity values of between 128 and 255 in your high-key image, if you "correct" the contrast to go from 0 to 255, you end up having "holes" in your gamut — in this case, all even or all odd values may be missing. This can produce banding or solarization.

But for 95% of images, a lot of this would just be obsessive. I only worry much about order when working with "difficult" images.


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## ac12 (Jun 2, 2021)

I was just doing some edits of a lacrosse game.
- I did a basic exposure adjustment, 
- Then I had to do a white balance adjustment (because they were going in and out of the shade of the trees)
- The I did another exposure adjustment (the WB adjustment sometimes changed the illumination level on the faces).

I had to do this to MANY of the images.  Much more than I usually do.
So the image itself may drive what you do in what order.


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## RVT1K (Jun 3, 2021)

I always start out with highlights and shadows.

I do sharpening last simply because I remember reading tips from a "pro" way back when and that was the suggestion. There were reasons listed but I don't remember them anymore.


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## smoke665 (Jun 3, 2021)

My workflow is pretty standardized.

1.  I start in Bridge. Here I quickly do my first cull. Rename if necessary and transfer from card to files using the batch tools.

2. In LR since I use a top down file organization. Right clicking on the top folder then choosing Synchronize, brings everything into the Lr catalog as a batch.

3. In LR I first adjust exposure and WB to a common setting, then Sync that setting across all images in the file. Then I do my 2nd round of culling, removing the images I don't want with an X and using Rating to tag each image, from 1-3. Only the 3's get further editing. I use the "remove photos" option to remove all the images marked with an X.

4. Then I use Filter to only show those rated 3. Next on the first image in the series I set the contrast to a predefined point depending on what it's of. I adjust the Highlights, then set the White point and Black point, using alt/white and alt/black sliders. Next I adjust shadows using alt/shadows. Next I apply a preset curve. Next I set the sharpen to a predefined point, and mask it to around 70. From here I again use Sync to apply the settings to all images.

5. This is the point where I cull and rate again, only the best get a 4. I filter all the 4's and make individual adjustments to the HSL panel or the Split Toning panel,  fine tune the other sliders and curve, and straighten if required. Then it's back to Library for the final cull. The images I want to finish in PS get rated 5. I then filter and send them to PS.

I never crop an image until I export it, and the final sharpening layer is a High Pass Filter set to Overlay or Soft Light at the top of the stack in my layers. I use Profiles a lot, but very seldom use presets. Presets generally require fine tuning between images, and generally I can adjust the Basic panel sliders where I want them the first time faster than tweaking a preset.


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## paigew (Jun 3, 2021)

Do you edit in LR or PS? I use LR and I have a preset I made that adds all the stuff I like (contrast, sharpening, pull shadow, bump highlights etc). I then tweak as needed and export. I think with PS the workflow is different b/c of the way the images are saved....have you heard of damien symonds? He has really good PS classes that talk about workflow. I'm not a PS person though 

editing to add that I save cloning or brush work until I am almost done with the photo (gallery). There have been too many times I spent time cloning only to find the next shot was way better LOL~


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## weepete (Jun 3, 2021)

I'll cull then randomly move sliders about until something happens! 

More seriously, it depends what I think needs done in post. Generally I'll:

cull
level and crop
adjust exposure settings
local adjustments
burn and dodge
sharpen and reduce noise
WB and colour grade
then I can go back and fine tune some settings. 

Sometimes I jump about a bit, and sometimes I use a combination of settings to get a result. Today, for example, I was sorting exposure, then I added a local radial filter to burn the background, then I sorted the exposure again, added a vingette, sorted exposure again noise reduced, sharpened and then colour graded.

Often I'll just try and sort out the big issues first, then I can bin the shot if I don't feel it's working without wasting time on other stuff, so it's very dependant on where I'm taking the image.


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## SquarePeg (Jun 3, 2021)

Really interesting gamut of responses.  I straighten first but never crop until the very end.  And @paigew I have had that happen enough times to know better!!  I do my culling similar to @smoke665 making about 3 passes through and only working on the best ones. I use synch a lot. 

Definitely learned a few things by reading through these responses.


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## smoke665 (Jun 3, 2021)

SquarePeg said:


> Really interesting gamut of responses.  I straighten first but never crop until the very end.  And @paigew I have had that happen enough times to know better!!  I do my culling similar to @smoke665 making about 3 passes through and only working on the best ones. I use synch a lot.
> 
> Definitely learned a few things by reading through these responses.



There's a world of difference between working one or two images, and a couple hundred. You have to work smart, be organized in your approach and only doing something once if at all possible. Even when I get to PS, I frequently copy and paste adjustment layers between images, and use actions to save time. It also helps to remember when doing a shoot to try to maintain consistency in exposures.


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## weepete (Jun 3, 2021)

smoke665 said:


> There's a world of difference between working one or two images, and a couple hundred. You have to work smart, be organized in your approach and only doing something once if at all possible. Even when I get to PS, I frequently copy and paste adjustment layers between images, and use actions to save time. It also helps to remember when doing a shoot to try to maintain consistency in exposures.


Absolutley, but that depends on what you are shooting like. From a studio or portait point of view that makes complete sense and is something I've done in the past when shooting portraits or sport. Since a lot of what I shoot is landscape or widlife, my process is a bit different. My outlook is also perhaps a bit more unusual and a bit brutal, as I'm not shooting for a client. My lighting varies so much between shots that batch processing is often not an option. So when I cull, I look for the the best of the series. Maybe that's a pose I particularly liked that I think works with a particular crop, maybe it's the sharpest shot, or I had or the best lighting, or something grabs my attention. But generally, I'll really try to pick a shot an commit to it. Sometimes I edit 2 or 3 to final images, but generally I'll post the one that I think is best.


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## smoke665 (Jun 3, 2021)

weepete said:


> Absolutley, but that depends on what you are shooting like.


I tend to visualize the final image before I click the shutter. So whether it's one shot or a hundred my shots are geared to that end. Unlike my earlier spray and pray years.


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## AlanKlein (Jun 4, 2021)

I have a related question.  First I usually sharpen at the end.  But then, when I go to save the picture,  the program asks if I;m going to use it on the web, or print, or do other things and then applies additional sharpening or not by my choice.

Do people do the final sharpening the program recommends in addition to the first sharpening or skip the final sharpening?
PS  I use Lightroom.


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## smoke665 (Jun 4, 2021)

AlanKlein said:


> I have a related question.  First I usually sharpen at the end.  But then, when I go to save the picture,  the program asks if I;m going to use it on the web, or print, or do other things and then applies additional sharpening or not by my choice.
> 
> Do people do the final sharpening the program recommends in addition to the first sharpening or skip the final sharpening?
> PS  I use Lightroom.


 Output sharpening is different from camera sharpening and creative sharpening in post, because Output Sharpening is based on the final display of the image.  

Cambridge In Color describes output sharpening required for prints as "it relies on rule of thumb estimates for the amount/radius based on the (i) size and viewing distance of the print, (ii) resolution of the print (in DPI/PPI), (iii) type of printer and (iv) type of paper. For web, even if an image already looks sharp when viewed on-screen, resizing it to less than 50% of its original size often removes any existing sharpening halos. One usually needs to apply output sharpening to offset this effect:"


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## adamhiram (Jun 4, 2021)

AlanKlein said:


> Do people do the final sharpening the program recommends in addition to the first sharpening or skip the final sharpening?


When I export from LR, I leave the "Sharpen For" box unchecked under Output Sharpening.  I prefer to leave everything just as it looked on screen.


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## smoke665 (Jun 4, 2021)

adamhiram said:


> I prefer to leave everything just as it looked on screen.


But that's the point of Output sharpening.....without it won't look as it did on the screen. Here's the link to the article I quote from above. Guide to Image Sharpening


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## Original katomi (Jun 4, 2021)

Open in camera raw
adjust exposure
Contrast
Tweet shadow/highlights
Open images
Save
Straighten
Crop
Save v2
Start using layers
Save each layer as work is done
Never used sharpening


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