Quel est votre flux de travail de post-traitement photographique de prédilection ?

Post-processing is a misnomer. It's simply processing. And the sequence takes a long time to get right, experimentation, mistakes, and you must decide on the software. I use Photoshop for everything, and it's taken years to learn it. The exact process depends on what sort of photography you do.

I’m just going to give my Cliff Notes here as my secret sauce may ruin your recipe. I don’t follow the norm either but I’m comfortable with my process: 1. Format cards and external SSD pre-shoot. 2. Raw only capture, tethered in studio or when there’s a client on set, cards when it’s a small production. 3. Everything gets imported into a new session in capture one, either on set or immediately after session, usually to laptop HD. 4. Entire capture one session is backed up to travel ssd or my 32TB raid in the studio. 5. Images are “optimized” for basic color or look, blinks and blurs deleted, low res files output with watermark, uploaded to Dropbox to share with client. 6. Selects are optimized for edit in Affinity photo and ai plug ins…

I mainly use Capture One as I shoot connected for fashion brands. After the first pictures I tweak the settings how I like to match the AD idea and ...that's it ! I almost never retouch my photos with photoshop because in fashion and beauty I feel it's harmful for mental health. Models are perfect the way they are, no need to create this "out of the world" beauty that people will compare themselves to. It also gives the message to models that "they are not beutiful enough". I would use it for landscape though.

Import with presets if your shooting conditions were consisently lit, if there is a mix of lighting and light sources batch apply presets as the time this saves is huge.

I appreciate your insight! Personally, I rely on Lightroom for the initial adjustments and then move to Photoshop for finer details. What's your preferred software for post-processing?

Once imported, the cull starts and the images I want to keep are rated, those that are not rated are culled, if they are not good enough on the first view, that is unlikely to change on a second or third viewing.

I love culling images. I sit there with a Cheshire Cat smile from ear to ear. My partner's words, not mine 😁 I mostly shoot headshots and brand. First I go through each image zoomed in and cull any photos where the main focus is NOT in focus. Then I zoom out and go through them all again checking for poses, facial expressions, composition etc. I only flag the images I'm keeping, I don't flag using ratings. Only 5* images will stay, not 1s, 2s, 3s, well, sometimes 4s if I know I can take crisp eyes from one image to use on an otherwise perfect image.

The edit depends on the shoot subject and often the image within the picture needs a crop to bring balance and to highlight the subject, especially if shooting wide at events. The subject gets the most attention and work, the background is usually secondary in importance.

Lightroom is my go-to as I've used the Adobe suite since I can remember. With some of my packages, my clients get ALL images that pass quality control, in which case I get straight to work on the edits. Others have a set number of images, so I upload all unedited (but culled) images to Pixieset for my client to choose their final selection. I then edit the ones they want. I create a virtual copy of all images and begin to perfect each image. My other half always jokes that all I do is, "crop and twist" 😂 but we all know how intricate some of our editing work can be.

I really enjoy retouching, especially if I'm asked to touch up roots, whiten teeth, or reduce lines around eyes. I point out that minor edits are included, but the finer tweaks are chargeable. I often shoot stuff knowing there will be a lot of time back in the studio getting things right - and that's fine. There's this fab shot with beautiful leading lines, but an ugly lamppost, offensive graffiti, lots of cigarette nubs, and it's quite dirty 😂 but the edited shot is amazing! I find some editing challenging and am often researching into better ways to do something, or reminding myself how I do this or that. Everyday is a learning day 🎓 If I can do my finer retouches in LR I will, otherwise I use Photoshop.

Eyes and teeth get special treatment because in any shott of a person you should be drawn to the eyes first and they should always look amazing.

I do think the term “post-processing” is appropriate as it implies a workflow that takes place after the shoot aka “post-production”. Not to riff on this subject too much but most photographers learn a separate jargon from filmmakers which can lead to confusion when working together. I have theories on this for another discussion.

My editing process is pretty simple: - export photos from card to hard drive - use Bridge to choose the best ones - save them in the separate folder - open them in Lightroom - edit your way or use presets (I use the ones from dvlop.com) - export - send your client by WeTransfer or one of the galleries (I use PicTime) Done!

It's worth mentioning the importance of file organization. In post-production houses, files are usually built non-destructively and systematically from bottom to top as follows: base layer (original image) > pixel work (healing/clone etc.) > dodge & burn > colour adjustments This allows for alterations at any stage of the process and avoids image data loss/degradation which can be caused when flattening certain adjustments and then working on top of that. It also allows for easier matching of images across a set