What is the right order for things to happen?

[peerke]

Hi all,

I am struggling with LR and PS to do image processing in the right order.

I import RAW images in Lightroom, first crop to the interesting bit, then do some non-destructive processing, mainly with white balance, toning and some color correction. Basically I am following Lightroom's development tools from to top to bottom, assuming that that is meant to be how they are used.  But then I am at a fork in the road. I can continue and use Lightroom's non-destructive noise reduction and sharpening or convert to tiff and then switch to Photoshop and use Imagenomic Noiseware and Photokit Sharpener or similar tools. Is this really the correct order to do things?

Then the following question is: what should come come first, noise reduction or sharpening? My gut feeling says noise reduction since I don't want to sharpen noise, but I would appreciate some more experienced based feed-back.

Regards,
Tom

[Monito]

The main thing to get exactly right in the Raw converter is the White Balance and the Picture Style conversion choice (usually broad categories are available like Landscape, Portrait, Faithful, Neutral, etc.).

Then set the capture sharpening, which is the sharpening over the whole image to counteract the effects of the anti-aliasing filter.  It should be minimal.  Sharpening is a three step process.  The second step is creative sharpening and blurring and noise reduction in the Photoshop processing.  Finally, do output sharpening after each final resizing of the image depending on destination medium.

Noise reduction and sharpening are counter to each other, so use masks in Photoshop, including masks that you might generate from edge detection, for example, or that you might paint, or that you might alter an automatically generated mask with blurring or painting.

In the converter, you can do basic cropping and adjustment of exposure, contrast, and saturation, but be conservative, underdoing it, erring on less rather than more, since you need a little headroom for all of them to get it just right in Photoshop.  I don't crop until after correcting any rotations in Photoshop, since a rotation correction, even of 0.8 or 1.2 degrees, will require cropping afterward.

[Jonathan Wienke]

I use the RAW converter to set WB, color, and tonality, correct lens distortion, vignetting, and CA, and occasionally crop in cases where there is something in-frame that I will never want in a print, like a finger in front of the lens, or the lens hood getting knocked out of position to cause vignetting). Sharpening and noise reduction are much better done with other tools, like PK Sharpener, Focus Magic, Neat Image, and Noise Ninja. Good noise reduction will reduce noise without softening edges. Do noise reduction first, then sharpen.

[Wayne Fox]

LR's RAW sharpening is not intended to be a "final" steps, and NR in lightroom can be used similarly.

When developing the image, LR sharpening is the equivalent to what has become known as capture sharpening in a sharpening workflow.  It is very slight and not intended to be the final sharpening step.   The idea of a mulit-pass sharpening workflow is the subject of Bruse Fraser's book Real World Image Sharpening, and the basis for Photokit sharpener.  This sharpening workflow is used by a great many photographers to maximize image quality.

Noise reduction can also be used similarly, but I do not believe the slight capture sharpening is detrimental to using a more aggressive NR tool such as Noise Ninja once you bring the image into photoshop.

I think it is pretty common practice for people to move to Photoshop for output sharpening, soft proofing and NR, then load the tiff back into lightroom and actually print it from there. My memory might be off here (getting old you know), but it seems that is currently the approach discussed in the camera to print video until LR improves output sharpening as well as Soft proofing.

[wilburdl]

I use the RAW converter to set WB, color, and tonality, correct lens distortion, vignetting, and CA, and occasionally crop in cases where there is something in-frame that I will never want in a print, like a finger in front of the lens, or the lens hood getting knocked out of position to cause vignetting). Sharpening and noise reduction are much better done with other tools, like PK Sharpener, Focus Magic, Neat Image, and Noise Ninja. Good noise reduction will reduce noise without softening edges. Do noise reduction first, then sharpen.
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Agreed. I generally follow this formula--aside from cropping. I never crop in the converter. Mostly because I can do it with more control in PS. Sharpening and noise reduction are better done in PS (or with you're desired plug-in/program). If noise is an issue then reduce it first then sharpen. But really question whether you truly need to reduce noise.
In good lighting conditions I wouldn't bother because you do lose detail and then there is the possibility of introducing a watercolor effect into the image.

Aside from that, there really isn't a particular step by step order to take. You could just as easily adjust the contrast then the color temp and then saturation. The raw converter should be seen as a way of tweaking the image. So you can adjust to you're liking. Increase this setting then that one and if it doesn't suit your taste adjust the settings again. That's the good part about non-destructive. Critical steps come when you've opened you're image in PS. Then you should mind what you do first  

[Misirlou]

I never crop in the RAW converter because I run most images through a distortion corrector, either PTlens or DXO Optics.

My theory (perhaps wrong) is that the distortion correction programs expect to operate on the whole image frame. If substantial portions of the image are removed, especailly if they're not symmetric around the center of the image, the correctors might not be able to warp the image predictably.

Does anyone disagree?