What are you guys doing in post processing?

I have Lightroom 4. Lets say you take a couple hundred photos, when you import them into your post processing program, what are the most common changes that you make to the photo before you present it to the world? I'm trying to understand what changes you guys and girls are making to the majority of your pictures.
As an aside, can you move folders with pictures you have already imported into lightroom? As an example if you have a folder full of pictures on your desktop that was imported into lR, can you then move it to another location? Or will it screw the database up. How do you move folders?

Last first...

Moving it outside Lightroom will cause problems as it will lose track of the images. They will then show in LR with a ? error. For this reason it is better to move the folder within LR if possible. In the Library module go to the Folders pane, click/hold the folder you want to move and drag it to the new location.

Unfortunately LR is a little odd. I can't find a way to (for example) move a folder or image to a second drive that I have not already imported images from. In this situation you just move the folder outside of LR then go back to LR, right click on the folder and select Update Folder Location.

Frodge wrote in post #16064634
I have Lightroom 4. Lets say you take a couple hundred photos, when you import them into your post processing program, what are the most common changes that you make to the photo before you present it to the world?

I most commonly make changes to the White Balance, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks, Clarity, Sharpness and (in the case of higher iso) NR.

Thanks Mr. Marchant. So if I have a folder on my desktop that I have made changes to already, it is impossible to move that folder to let's say, the "pictures" folder without losing what I had already edited?

Frodge wrote in post #16064634
I have Lightroom 4. Lets say you take a couple hundred photos, when you import them into your post processing program, what are the most common changes that you make to the photo before you present it to the world? I'm trying to understand what changes you guys and girls are making to the majority of your pictures.

Example, if I shoot a graduation party inside a building, and there's also the outdoor area, I honestly leave the WB on my camera the same throughout the day. Normally I'll see the WB for the outdoor shots, then when I go inside, the shots tend to look more orange or blue, but I leave it, because it can fixed easily in LR. Once I import all of them into LR, I select a single photo taken indoors, and fix the WB. Then I select the rest of the indoor shots and sync the WB. Done, and it took about 30 seconds to do them all. If you notice all your indoor shots are almost all equally overexposed, adjust one, then sync the rest. It's all about sync'ing settings to similar images. After all that, then you can go thru each image and adjust whatever you want

Another great tip. I was just wondering the basic changes everyone makes. It seems you have a ton of tools to use. It can be a bit overwhelming.

Frodge wrote in post #16064932
Thanks Mr. Marchant. So if I have a folder on my desktop that I have made changes to already, it is impossible to move that folder to let's say, the "pictures" folder without losing what I had already edited?

I listed two ways to move it in my post above.

So I'm assuming if you move within lightroom, it moves it physically on the HDD as well? Or if you move the folder and update in lightroom, it keeps your changes to he photos?

You can move a folder of photos either from within Lightroom or using your operating system's file manager (Finder of Windows Explorer). However it is not advisable to use the OS File Manager unless you know how to tell Lightroom's database the new location of the files.

To move files from within Lightroom
1. Go to the Folders panel on the left side of the Library Module. Use the arrow heads to expand the drive/folder locations to find the specific folder you want to move.
2. Click on the folder to select it, then drag and drop it to the new location.

If you're moving the folder to a DRIVE that isn't currently listed in the Folders panel, you need to use the (+) sign on the right of the Folders panel header to Add a Folder then drop the selected folder there.

Frodge wrote in post #16064634
I have Lightroom 4. Lets say you take a couple hundred photos, when you import them into your post processing program, what are the most common changes that you make to the photo before you present it to the world? I'm trying to understand what changes you guys and girls are making to the majority of your pictures.

Personally, I don't think that question can be answered if you don't specify whether you are shooting RAW or jpg's. I only shoot RAW, so all my photos are imported with one of my own presets I created that will apply a little contrast, vibrance, positive or negative clarity, sharpening, lens correction, color profile and a couple of others. Those that shoot jpg may respond to your question by saying, "Nothing!"

RandMan wrote in post #16066090
Personally, I don't think that question can be answered if you don't specify whether you are shooting RAW or jpg's. I only shoot RAW, so all my photos are imported with one of my own presets I created that will apply a little contrast, vibrance, positive or negative clarity, sharpening, lens correction, color profile and a couple of others. Those that shoot jpg may respond to your question by saying, "Nothing!"

This is what I did. Created an import profile to add clarity, vibrance, saturation in the values I land at most. 25, 20, 5 respectively. I can tweak them a little during post if needed but that's a good starting point. Once the photos are imported with those adjustments I add my camera color profile, lens correction, and fix white balance on the first photo off a capture of a color checker passport. Then sync this to the remaining photos. If it's a similar scene to a camera profile I already have I simply use that one instead of creating a new one.

These are the changes that get made to every photo immediately, takes 2 minutes at best. Then I scroll through and mark for delete any missed focus/poor photos. Once that's done I scroll through and do the cropping, developing on each photo.

carguy4471 wrote in post #16066163
This is what I did. Created an import profile to add clarity, vibrance, saturation in the values I land at most. 25, 20, 5 respectively. I can tweak them a little during post if needed but that's a good starting point. Once the photos are imported with those adjustments I add my camera color profile, lens correction, and fix white balance on the first photo off a capture of a color checker passport. Then sync this to the remaining photos. If it's a similar scene to a camera profile I already have I simply use that one instead of creating a new one.

These are the changes that get made to every photo immediately, takes 2 minutes at best. Then I scroll through and mark for delete any missed focus/poor photos. Once that's done I scroll through and do the cropping, developing on each photo.

Awesome trick if you didn't know--set the first lens correction dropdown to "Auto" and then update your input profile to include that setting. With auto selected, it will always choose the lens used regardless of what is being displayed when you initially save the setting. Then you don't have to tick "Enable Lens Correction" every single time.

I used an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport to create Dual Illuminant profiles for all my cameras. In fact I created two versions of each DI profile using the X-Rite software and Adobe's DNG Profile Editor. Those profiles are set as the defaults in Lightroom and ACR and since each camera's sensor is custom profiled, I get accurate renditions when raw files are imported and I've never had the need to use Import presets of any kind.

RandMan wrote in post #16066284
Awesome trick if you didn't know--set the first lens correction dropdown to "Auto" and then update your input profile to include that setting. With auto selected, it will always choose the lens used regardless of what is being displayed when you initially save the setting. Then you don't have to tick "Enable Lens Correction" every single time.

That's a killer trick, thank you!!

What does lens correction actually do?

Frodge wrote in post #16066831
What does lens correction actually do?

It will correct for distortion and vignetting.