[dogdots]

Everyone must have a sequence to which they edit a picture. What sequence do you use?

I think I have seen talk about this someplace in here--not sure tho, but thought it an interesting question, as I was editing a lot today wondering if I should do one thing before another

[stepheno]

You will probably et as many different replies as we have members - it's a very personal thing. But for the record I do as little as possible which is usually -

In Lightroom I adjust the RAW file for Exposure, White Balance and colour, crop and straighten (if necessary) and then export as a 100% quality JPG ( others may convert to TIF but the files are huge and I think there is one memer who converts to DNG).

In CS3 I will check levels and maybe adjust the curves for contrast and final sharpen with USM and that is it. There are countless other possibilities depending o what you need eg Mono. Save for web if needed otherwise move to a folder I keep for viewing.

HTH

[P-E]

My usual editing for Web is;

(1) RAW file in to Capture One.
(2) Check WB & Exposure.

(3) File in to CS3
(4) Add linear Curve.
(5) Duplicate image, mask and do selective sharpening with Focal Blade.
(6) Flatten and add border which I have as an action.

Sometimes there will be a bit of dodging and burning along the way

[Markulous]

Card Reader transfer of RAW to folder named by image number and location/shoot

Sigma SD10
At RAW conversion to TIFF (Sigma software):
WB, Shadows, Highlights, Exposure, Saturation

Canon 350D
Use CS3 RAW converter as above, which I find excellent (if slightly slow)

CS3
Auto Levels (but usually manual), Crop, Rotate, Dodge/Burn, Save as TIFF for print/submission
Save for Web for websites/email

Auto backup RAW files to another hard disk on a seperate system

[silkstone]

Transfer RAW files using card reader to specific folder labelled something like '30D Originals 2007-09-14'.

Use Bibble for all major adjustments - b/w conversion (rarely!), WB, levels, saturation, vibrance, lens correction, straightening, perspective correction, noise reduction, sharpening (in approx that order).

Save as low-compression JPEG.

If I want to do anything creatively fancy with layers etc, safe as TIFF and do second stage processing in Paint Shop Pro (PSP XI under Windows, PSP 7 for Linux).

[dogdots]

Wow--so many different ways people approach their editing.

[silkstone]

So much choice!

Well, it's either confusing or gives you plenty of options to suit the way you work, depending on your point of view.

The photographic world divides roughly into people who use Photoshop (CS/2/3) and those who think (rightly or wrongly) that there isn't a bargepole in the world long enough for anything made by Adobe. The truth is probably that CS3 is extremely good if you take the time to learn it (50 years should be enough ) and if you can stomach the price.

Lightroom has potential and can produce very good results - although you'll need second stage processing for many shots because there isn't a full editing toolbox with Lightroom at the moment. However if you use Lightroom's DAM/database as intended (and that's a prime feature of the application) you are locked into a proprietary database from a company that is not renowned for cheap upgrades.

I am biased against Adobe for all sorts of reasons, but also I use both Windows and Linux and therefore like an application that will run on both platforms. That's one reason for chosing Bibble, the other being that it's the closest thing to an all-in-one RAW converter and image editor right now. But I'm not suggesting that the final results are any better (or even as good) as you could get using Lightroom and/or CS3.

As for Paint Shop Pro, well it does most of what Photoshop does at a tenth of the price, but again I'm not saying it's better because it isn't.

Just my 2p. (Or 20p for Adobe. )