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Processing images is one of my favorite things besides taking portraits. I shoot in Camera Raw, which is a file with minimal processed data. In other words the camera isn't choosing the colors for you like in a jpg. file.
Here are the steps I use to process an image.
1. Select my images to process.
2. Pull the image into Adobe Camera Raw.
3. Choose my white balance. I prefer images on the warmer side for the most part. Especially for outdoor portraits, it brings out the golden colors from the sun.
4. Next I tweak the exposure, contrast, highlights, and shadows as needed. Depending on the image I may add a touch of vibrance or saturation. All of these things can be done in more detail in Photoshop.
5. Crop the image if needed.
6. Pull image into Photoshop.
7. Next I run my own action I created for other adjustments which include a warming filter, levels to add black in areas where it's needed, curves adjustment, and a 2nd levels adjustment for midtones if needed. I adjust the opacity of each layer as needed.
8. Retouching the skin as needed, which includes removing blemishes, scratches, or bruises. I leave scares, birth marks, and freckles as that is part of the person.
9. Then I take a look at the background if there is anything that is distracting that takes away from the subject that needs to be removed. For example a person in the background that wasn't part of the shot, trash, a power line, etc... I will remove any of these things as needed.
10. Then I check for any more added pop that needs to be added to the image. Such as a vibrance to pop the color, edge burn, etc...
11. The final step is to prepare the file for web sharing and printing. I run an action for each as web files need to be resized and sharpened differently than a file for printing.
As you can see I can spend 15-20 minutes just on one image! Imagine a full gallery of images.
Here is a Before and After, as you can see it makes a huge difference in this image!
Before/RAW image without processing
After Processing
