Photoshop Order of Operations

[AverageJoe]

I'm wondering if it matters when I do what, here's what I typically do in the order I do it:

1. Open JPEG
2. Crop subject
3. Sharpen
4. Sharpen Edges
5. Levels or Auto Levels
6. Resize image
7. Save

What's everyone's take? Does it matter?

 

[dxqcanada]

I would change step 1

1 Open RAW file

or

Use Canon utility to convert RAW to TIFF

1 Open TIFF file

 

[Overread]

Sharpening should be the last stage of your editing - it can cause your problems if you sharpen first and then start editing things like levels.
Further when resizing you lose sharpness in a shot - so before resizing perform your sharpen - then after resizing sharpen the shot again - chances are you will need a lesser amount of sharpening the second time around.

 

[AverageJoe]

I would change step 1

1 Open RAW file

or

Use Canon utility to convert RAW to TIFF

1 Open TIFF file

Every other weekend I shoot about 100-200 shots of cats and dogs for a animal rescue, managing that many RAW files would get annoying fast considering I'm sending the agency files that are about 650 pixels wide.

Overread, I'll take that into consideration and try some samples, thanks.

 

[Honu]

I can't remember where i found this list but I've been using it -

• Crop
• Contrast
• Brighteners
• Color
• Defects
• Sharpness

Any thoughts on this list?

I just don't know where noise correction would fit in - would that fall under defects?

 

[Overread]

For me I would move crop to just before sharpening and I would put colours higher up on the list. Cropping very much changes the view on the image and can be well used to remove waste space or to draw attention to a key element - however sometimes you need to see the shot as it is finished in editing to fully understand where it is best to crop a shot.
Colour also needs to really be hammered out near the start of editing. For me I use RAW to try to set white balance to the right amount -- I then use curves/levels to correct colour casts in the shot. I think its important to do this first before you look to boosting or reducing things in contrast, brightness and saturation.

Noise correction for me is just before sharpening - its not really going to majorly affect the end result on the other edits and sometimes things like contrast editing or curves can lead to more noise being made in a shot. In those cases it might be better to reduce noise first so as to reduce the boosting effect of other edits. I try not to use hardfast rules amd be adaptable to what I get in each shot.
Also note that (when working properly) I will save a shot as a PSD (or a TIFF) before noise and sharpening - and then after that I will flatten the layers and then use 2 layers and layer masks to selectivly reduce noise in the background areas and to boost sharpness in the infocus areas - sometimes the main subject areas will get a lesser noise reduction as well if there is bad noise in the shot. One does not need to sharpen background noise just as one does not always need to remove noise (and also reduce sharpness) from the main subject areas

 

[abraxas]

I'm wondering if it matters when I do what, here's what I typically do in the order I do it:

1. Open JPEG
2. Crop subject
3. Sharpen
4. Sharpen Edges
5. Levels or Auto Levels
6. Resize image
7. Save

What's everyone's take? Does it matter?

It matters. Try;

1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 4, 7

 

[Captain IK]

Should levels (contrast, brightness and colour temp) be adjusted while still in RAW format?

 

[Miami Photographer]

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Overread]

I think its best to adjust as much in RAW as you can - the limit with RAW (at least with my RAW editer I am not sure of others) is the fact that any changes are global - they affect the while image - whilst in the editing program you can be selective as to what areas get what editing. If you can edit it in RAW then do it

 

[photogincollege]

Mine is.

1. Open image.
2. Adjust white balance, open in photoshop.
3. Copy background (non destructive editing)
4. Crop if needed.
5. Curves, 1 for luminosity, 1 for color.
6. Any dodging/burning etc. here.
7. Unsharp mask.
8. Save image.

 

[DRoberts]

I agree with Overread on this. Do as much correction as you can to the original image before crop, resize and final sharpness.
My order is...open file is obvious so I won't include that in my list.
1. duplicate file and work on copy...
2. levels
3. curves
4. final color adjustments
5. exposure/contrast fine tuning
6. crop
7. resize
8. sharpening/blurring whichever I'm doing...
9. details ie...cloning, healing, etc...
10. optional conversions

 

[Big Mike]

I don't know if it's been mentioned in here yet, but it should be noted that Lightroom has a workflow that is different from Photoshop in that everything you do is non-destructive. Changes that you make are saved, but not applied to the image...so it doens't matter what order you do things in. You can even bring the image into Photoshop, do some things there, then bring it back into Lightroom.

I've read that some of the big names in Photoshopery are hoping that Photoshop itself adopts this type of workflow in the future.

This doens't really answer any questions in this thread...but I thought is was worthy of note.

 

[Mindy]

That's good info there, Mike. Right now I am trying out elements 7 and have wondered how lightroom would fit in. I think I'll give that a shot as well.

 

[MHVishal]

I just want to say thanks for this even though I use arc soft photo studio 5 for my coloring I still found it useful as it helped me to work out what order to things in so thank you skins always been the hardest thing for me to color. a powerful work flow automation tool that lets you easily