sharing our processing habits

[hiero]

We all do it regularlarly or once in a while, don't we? I know it is probably not crucial for the artistry or basic quality of an image, but our image processing workflow does affect the outcome of our photography. It is a part of what we see here on Pbase. However, it is only scarcely discussed. I think it is nice and probably helpful for many to share what I call "your average image enhancement habits". I am not talking about using the software to create new images, but just to enhance what your camera delivers. And by average I do not mean sub-standard of course To kick off, I share my own habits and I am very interested to read about yours.

Allmost all my images since 2008 are made in raw format with neutral camera settings and processed afterwards. I use Canon's Digital Photo professional to develop the raw images and Photoshop CS (versions 2, 3 and 4) for image optimisation and occasional more extreme treatment. The whole process on average takes some 5 minutes per image. The list below gives an impression of the treatment of my images here on Pbase. The items listed are in the order I apply them and between brackets is an estimation of the the percentage of my Pbase images that have undergone that treatment.
- colour temperature: in raw conversion, to correct my lazy standard cloudy white balance (70% of the images)
- automatic lens correction: in raw conversion for Canon lenses, mostly done for architecture images (3% of the images)
- crop (70%)
- shadow/highlight: mostly to lighten up shadows a bit; I seldom use the highlight treatment (50%)
- channel mixer: almost exclusively for B&W conversions (5%)
- curves: often on specific sections of the image (15%)
- saturation: sometimes when stray light has eroded colours (4%)
- spot healing and clone stamp: to remove effects of dust on the sensor and in rare cases to clean up the background of a portrait (5%)
- noise reduction: for dark areas in high ISO images, although seldom necessary with the 5DII camera (5%)
- gaussian blurr: sometimes to make a cluttered background less distractive
- unsharp mask: sometimes on a section of the image, sometimes on the whole image (60%)
- border (100%)

Cheers,
Jeroen

[ericvision]

That sounds very, very familiar!

The only way my workflow deviates is that I use an Unsharp mask on nearly all the pictures I have on PBase after I have shrunk them to 800 pixels on the long side. I don't generally use it on the large images that I print.

Oh, and I use Paint Shop Pro 'cos Photoshop is a hassle...