order of alterations to digital images

Well Diane, you could get 100 emails with 100 different replies. Do what works for ‘you’. If your getting the desired results the way you do things now – why worry bout how everyone else does it… that’s valuable time you could be working!

=)
n8

I’m playing with the images I get from my digital camera with Photoshop 7 (just learning PS). I’ve done lots of tutorials (Janee and RetouchPro, Russell Brown and more) and I have ’50 Fast Photoshop Techniques’ book

and

now I am wondering which is the best ORDER to do the various ‘repairs’ an image might need or I might want to apply to an image for an effect. So

far

I am only making images for web sites and posting images on the web, so it doesn’t seem to make much difference, but I feel I should get into the

right

practice, especially since I am planning to make actions to batch changes and I may in the future wish to make prints on other images.
I guess I am generally confused about the theory of commands which make changes to the image itself and those which add layers and in what order these should be done, such as those below, which I seem to be using over

and

over again.

A. crop
B. rotate
C. levels/curves/set white point
D. filters
E. skew or alter shape to fix distortion of buildings, etc.,
F. selection to alter only a portion of the image (darken, lighten, blur
etc.)
G. resize w x h
Y. sharpen (at the end, I know this much)
Z. save for web (if appropriate).

Is there a list or cheat sheet somewhere? Send me off for more reading, please.

Thanks,
Diane

Al,

Thanks very much for the details and reasons. I know there must be some logic to which kinds of things to do first, but I am too new at PS (and PS is way too complicated) for me to understand what that logic might be. I’ve printed out your suggestions and I hope to get into a routine. And then make myself a nice action.

I take the photos at the highest resolution (just in case I get a really great one which I might want to print and/or so I can size up an especially nice area of a pic. But then they are very large to work on when I eventually just want them for the web. I thought possibly that re-sizing them first might alter or harm the organization of the pixels when I planned to do other changes after re-sizing. So I am glad to hear that I can make them a reasonable size first then play further.

All your tips are great. I read about LAB mode, but hadn’t tried it yet. Off to try all these suggestions now.

Thanks again.

Diane

"Al Denelsbeck" wrote in message

"D" wrote in
news:zraZa.5841$:

I’m playing with the images I get from my digital camera with Photoshop 7 (just learning PS). I’ve done lots of tutorials (Janee and RetouchPro, Russell Brown and more) and I have ’50 Fast Photoshop Techniques’ book and now I am wondering which is the best ORDER to do the various ‘repairs’ an image might need or I might want to apply to an image for an effect. So far I am only making images for web sites and posting images on the web, so it doesn’t seem to make much difference, but I feel I should get into the right practice, especially since I am planning to make actions to batch changes and I may in the future wish to make prints on other images.

I guess I am generally confused about the theory of commands which make changes to the image itself and those which add layers and in what order these should be done, such as those below, which I seem to be using over and over again.

A. crop
B. rotate
C. levels/curves/set white point
D. filters
E. skew or alter shape to fix distortion of buildings, etc.,
F. selection to alter only a portion of the image (darken, lighten,
blur etc.)
G. resize w x h
Y. sharpen (at the end, I know this much)
Z. save for web (if appropriate).

Is there a list or cheat sheet somewhere? Send me off for more reading, please.

Well, as, uh, "n8" said, there isn’t a definitive way, at least not that I’ve found. However, there are some things that may make it easier.
If your end result is *only* intended for web use, resize first. This saves a tremendous amount of time with all other changes because they have fewer pixels to screw with. BUT, this is shooting yourself in the foot if you want multiple uses, such as web and printing, out of it, since you’ll end up doing it all twice.

If I know it will always need distortion or perspective adjustments for whatever usage, I do this first, then crop off the skewed edges. This way you know what you’re keeping in the image, and you don’t waste time cloning out some bit of trash or scratches that later get cropped (I’ve done this a few times).

Brightness and contrast before color, since they can seriously affect saturation, shadow detail, and so on. Both of these before dodging, etc.
Resize and sharpen *before* esoteric effects or laying in text. Sharpening can do terrible things to them.

Oh, and as a side tip, I always sharpen in LAB mode, Lightness channel only, viewed at 200% and watching the highest contrast portion of the image. If you’re getting halos, back off. Works wonders. Occasionally sharpening in one of the color channels (like Blue in RGB mode) adds a bit of oomph to tricky areas, and many scanners don’t respond well in certain channels.

Hope this helps,

– Al.

—
To reply, insert dash in address to separate G and I in the domain

"D" wrote in
news:zraZa.5841$:

I’m playing with the images I get from my digital camera with Photoshop 7 (just learning PS). I’ve done lots of tutorials (Janee and RetouchPro, Russell Brown and more) and I have ’50 Fast Photoshop Techniques’ book and now I am wondering which is the best ORDER to do the various ‘repairs’ an image might need or I might want to apply to an image for an effect. So far I am only making images for web sites and posting images on the web, so it doesn’t seem to make much difference, but I feel I should get into the right practice, especially since I am planning to make actions to batch changes and I may in the future wish to make prints on other images.

I guess I am generally confused about the theory of commands which make changes to the image itself and those which add layers and in what order these should be done, such as those below, which I seem to be using over and over again.

A. crop
B. rotate
C. levels/curves/set white point
D. filters
E. skew or alter shape to fix distortion of buildings, etc.,
F. selection to alter only a portion of the image (darken, lighten,
blur etc.)
G. resize w x h
Y. sharpen (at the end, I know this much)
Z. save for web (if appropriate).

Is there a list or cheat sheet somewhere? Send me off for more reading, please.

Well, as, uh, "n8" said, there isn’t a definitive way, at least not that I’ve found. However, there are some things that may make it easier.

If your end result is *only* intended for web use, resize first. This saves a tremendous amount of time with all other changes because they have fewer pixels to screw with. BUT, this is shooting yourself in the foot if you want multiple uses, such as web and printing, out of it, since you’ll end up doing it all twice.

If I know it will always need distortion or perspective adjustments for whatever usage, I do this first, then crop off the skewed edges. This way you know what you’re keeping in the image, and you don’t waste time cloning out some bit of trash or scratches that later get cropped (I’ve done this a few times).

Brightness and contrast before color, since they can seriously affect saturation, shadow detail, and so on. Both of these before dodging, etc.

Resize and sharpen *before* esoteric effects or laying in text. Sharpening can do terrible things to them.

Oh, and as a side tip, I always sharpen in LAB mode, Lightness channel only, viewed at 200% and watching the highest contrast portion of the image. If you’re getting halos, back off. Works wonders. Occasionally sharpening in one of the color channels (like Blue in RGB mode) adds a bit of oomph to tricky areas, and many scanners don’t respond well in certain channels.

Hope this helps,

– Al.

—
To reply, insert dash in address to separate G and I in the domain