may i ask you which is the first edit steps in your post processing?

Hi

may i ask a question which is the first step/steps when you are going to edit a photo?

the thirst thing is watch the lights in camera raw , and the white balance
after straighten , and find the black,white, gray point and use a level

so
1) tweak lights
2) white balance
3) straighten using natural vertical or horizontal lines
4) the level with black white and gray point


about the fourth point , i would like ask an opinion
reading a Scott Kelby's old book he suggests to find a black point with photoshop threshold adjustament layer and a white point moving the slide
after create a 50%gray layer blend mode difference and find the gray point and use level eyesdropper (black / gray/white)

now ,is still necessary or useful the fourth step?

thanks
cheers

No, not if you are using ACR. In ACR6 use Exposure to set white point and Black to set black point. When ACR7 comes it will be White to tweak white point (after Exposure) and Black for black point.

My steps are quite similar to yours. Basically in ACR I....
1. Crop and level the horizon (only if necessary)
2. Edit Exposure and WB
3. Then adjust contrast using the curves. Followed by color saturation/clarity/and ACR sharpening
4. Lens Distortion correction (only if necessary)
5. If the exposure of my subject and background is not too my liking, I'll do some blending at this point. Again, only if necessary.
6. Final sharpen for output.

tzalman wrote in post #13783333
No, not if you are using ACR. In ACR6 use Exposure to set white point and Black to set black point. When ACR7 comes it will be White to tweak white point (after Exposure) and Black for black point.

thanks
on my laptop i run photoshop cs3 and i have ACR 4.6 (i guess it's the latest for cs3)
is enough my version or should i use cs5 ACR?

by the way , i guess ACR6 will be available on photoshop cs7 sadly (another upgrade €€€ or $$$)

so fourth point makes only if shooting jpg , right?

thanks again

With ACR 4.6 you can just use the Exposure and Black controls like mentioned above.

I would I the same thing as well, but i'm 2 ashamed I have CS5, but I don't know how, or even understand how to use it I have Apples Aperture, and its hard to use as well I am color blind, and thankfully CS5 has the option to choose my condition, but still, I can't grasp how to use it! I'm to lazy to learn tutorials as well sadly

Something to consider... sometimes, I will crop first. If I take a shot with a highlight, for example, that I don't want in the shot, I crop it out first, so that it doesn't affect other adjustments that I make.

1. Lens profile correction
   
2. Crop and straighten
   
3. white balance
   
4. white and black points
   
5. basic S tone curve
   
6. highlights, shadows
   
7. clarity and then re-adjust tone curve if necessary
   
8. HSL
   
9. NR
   
10. Sharpen
    
11. adjustment brush for whatever if I need it
    

Golden Hunter wrote in post #13783931
Something to consider... sometimes, I will crop first. If I take a shot with a highlight, for example, that I don't want in the shot, I crop it out first, so that it doesn't affect other adjustments that I make.

+1
this is why I crop first, the crop can impact the overall tonality of the final image.

+1 again.

I also correct WB before clipping adjustments as altering the WB can change the highlights and shadows.

Stone 13 wrote in post #13784184

1. Lens profile correction
   
2. Crop and straighten
   
3. white balance
   
4. white and black points
   
5. basic S tone curve
   
6. highlights, shadows
   
7. clarity and then re-adjust tone curve if necessary
   
8. HSL
   
9. NR
   
10. Sharpen
    
11. adjustment brush for whatever if I need it

thanks

alwatys with exposure (white) and blacks (black point) ,right?

with recovery and fill light?


in short do you use (i mean plural ) lightroom for the first editing ?

i like a lot more the capture one , or even rawtherapee 3 or 4beta to edit the raw files


that's almost off topic
buy the way never understood what photoshop does in autolevels , autocontrast , autocolor , i read the guide and the manual but there is not deep information about it

mantra wrote in post #13786909
thanks


alwatys with exposure (white) and blacks (black point) ,right?

with recovery and fill light?


in short do you use (i mean plural ) lightroom for the first editing ?

Yes, I use lightroom almost exclusively with a little CS5 when necessary. In my post, I was referring to my workflow in LR4 beta, but you're mostly correct. In LR3 it works as follows:

Exposure sets the overall image brightness, with a greater effect in the high values and sets the white point

Recovery controls highlights and can be used to recover highlight detail lost because of overexposure.

Fill Light is used to lighten the shadows when you want to show more detail while maintaining your blacks.

Blacks sets the black point

mantra wrote in post #13786909
i like a lot more the capture one , or even rawtherapee 3 or 4beta to edit the raw files


that's almost off topic
buy the way never understood what photoshop does in autolevels , autocontrast , autocolor , i read the guide and the manual but there is not deep information about it

I don't have any experience with CaptureOne and it just takes me too long to get good results out of RawTherapee so I'm probably not the best person to ask. As for photoshop, have a look at this link for and explanation of those controls:

http://help.adobe.com …3e41001031ab64-7647a.html

My first step in post is to download the images from the camera to the PC.

sorry for my ignorance. But if I read this correctly. It's not enough to use Lightroom/Aperture to convert your raw files. Some use ACR prior to LR/Aperture processing. Is ACR a stand alone application or do you have to have CSx to run it?

On the other hand, I've also read that DPP is also a good converter. I assume that ACR/DPP does similar functions.

I love everyone's workflow and subscribing to this thread. I hope my question is still within the topic of discussion.

Canajun wrote in post #13788423
Is ACR a stand alone application or do you have to have CSx to run it?

ACR is the photoshop camera raw plugin , you can find in cs2,cs3,cs4 and cs5 , don't know about cs
so when you open a raw file in photoshop ,it loads the plugin (acr)
in lightroom is the base of develop module ,

i guess dpp or capture one are the best converters

sadly no
acr has more features

cheers