The Ultimate Photo Editing Workflow

In this article, I share the photo editing workflow I use for all my photos, and if you want to achieve high-quality results, this is for you.

The focus of this article is not on the individual editing techniques, as I've written detailed articles on focus stacking, exposure blending, getting brilliant colors, and print preparation in the past.

Here, I present a workflow containing all the steps to create professional results that look great on the web and in print. I use Lightroom and Photoshop, but you can apply this workflow in any photo editing software.

Image Selection

When I'm out in the field, I invest a lot of time looking for compositions that best showcase the subjects I photograph, and once I find those, I set up my tripod and keep it in place for most of the shoot.

I typically take between 30 and 60 photos of the same scene throughout the morning or evening as the light changes, and I do focus stacking and bracketing of exposures for most of my photos.

The first step in any photo editing is to go through this sequence of images and find the ones for the edit—it can be a single photo if no stacking or blending is required, while ten or more images might be needed for complex scenes.

In Lightroom, you can use the number keys to rate your photos: I like to use the key "8" to mark photos green so I can easily filter for those afterward.

DXO PureRAW

Since I started using DXO PureRAW, it has become integral to my photo editing workflow. I use its batch processing, mostly with default settings, on all the selected photos to reduce noise and increase detail—lens corrections and the removal of chromatic aberrations are also part of this step.

Since PureRAW duplicates the images I marked green before, I give the processed photos five stars using the "5" key to distinguish them from the originals.

Lightroom Editing

I filter for the green, 5-star photos, select one, and apply basic editing: I raise the shadows, bring down the highlights, fix color shifts, fine-tune colors and contrast, and use masks for some selective edits.

The goal is to reveal as much detail as possible to provide a solid foundation for further edits in Photoshop.

Synchronization

Once the edits are applied to one photo of the selection, they must be synchronized by selecting all images: hold down "SHIFT" while clicking on the first and last photo in the selection and click on "Sync..." at the bottom of the editing panel on the right. A "Synchronization Settings" dialog appears in which you click on "Check All" and "Synchronize."

Equalization

To make your life easier when blending bracketed exposures, you should equalize them beforehand. The goal is to get the photos to look nearly the same in terms of brightness, even though they've been captured using different exposure times. Use the "Exposure," "Shadows," and "Highlights" sliders to achieve this.

Exposure Blending

If you combine exposure blending and focus stacking, you'll usually only need exposure bracketing for the background images. And if you use tools like Helicon Focus to perform the stacking, I suggest doing the exposure blending first.

Select the images of the bracketing sequence, "right-click," and select "Edit In - Open as Layers in Photoshop." Because of the equalization, the blending can be done mostly with standard masks, while luminosity masks are seldom required.

Save the image as a 16-bit TIFF and return to Lightroom.

Focus Stacking

If you don't want to use additional plugins for the stacking, you can continue in Photoshop and use its automatic stacking feature or perform manual stacking.

For the best results, I recommend Helicon Focus: Select the images of the stacking sequence and the blended background photo, and open them as TIFF via "right-click - Export - Helicon Focus (TIFF)."

I use Method 2 in Helicon Focus most of the time, combined with manual retouching for complex woodland scenes.

Cleanup

After saving the stacked image in Helicon Focus, open it in Photoshop. Now is a good time for cleaning up dust spots and minor distractions using tools like the "Spot Healing Brush," the "Remove Tool," and the "Clone Stamp."

Perspective

Some photos require perspective corrections and other image transformations, and you have more control by performing those in Photoshop than in Lightroom.

Pressing "CTRL/CMD+T" accesses the transformation tool, and by holding down "CTRL/CMD" and clicking on the corners of the image and dragging, you can achieve precise adjustments.

Contrast

I usually work on contrast first because changing contrast and brightness in an image also alters colors. You can start with some "Curves," which you apply selectively to the image using masks. With dodge and burn, you can further guide the viewer: Create an empty layer and set its blend mode to "Soft Light" before drawing with a black brush to burn and a white brush to dodge.

Color Efex

I like to bring more punch to my photos using the "Pro Contrast" in Color Efex, whose three sliders can create a big difference in a few seconds.

If you're using a Windows system, you can get Color Efex for free, as I explain in this article. Otherwise, you can either purchase the latest version from DXO or emulate this step using adjustment layers in Photoshop.

Color

From my experience, you'll have to reduce saturation in many areas of a photo after working on contrast. Dark tones will often attain a bluish color cast that should be reduced. If your image contains yellows and greens, use a "Hue/Saturation" adjustment layer to control those—reducing the luminance will often do the trick.

You can also become creative and introduce color contrast by selectively warming up parts of a photo while cooling others.

Luminar Neo

Most of the time, the creative editing is finished after the color adjustments. If you own a plugin like Luminar Neo, you can now experiment with some of the effects it offers. It can sometimes improve the look of a photo, but it doesn't always work, so be careful when applying effects.

Output Sharpening

The final step in any photo editing is the preparation for either web or print. The Web Sharpener makes the preparation for social media or your homepage very simple. Print preparation is a bit more involved, and depending on the size of the print, it can take nearly as long as all the previous editing.

Conclusion

These 14 steps might look like a lot, but with some routine and practice, an edit can be done in less than an hour, which is the average time I spend editing a photo. Difficult edits can take up to two hours, but since I started using tools like DXO PureRAW and Helicon Focus, those have become rare.

To conclude this article, I want to give you a final tip: Don't edit in one go. Especially after the creative edits, it's good to let a photo rest for a few days and then apply the finishing touches.