My Digital Workflow

This is a work in progress. I've been trying to get a good work-flow taking a photo from Lens to Print (or at least to final file). I've gone through a number of iterations of this but at this point in my sophomoric place as a photographer, I'm here. Granted, I know this is not the most efficient flow by a long stretch, but I think I'm utilizing the best of each of the steps.... or at least as far as I know.

1. I take the photo in my D300 as a 14 bit RAW. I figure might as well get the most information I can at the time of the shot. I have a few custom picture controls set up in the D300 but I tend to take most of my Landscape shots in Vivid mode at +3. I'll drop that to +2 sometimes. I've just uploaded the D2x controls to the D300 so I haven't used them yet, but will be messing around with them. I also have a custom set up for shooting people (something I really have room for improvement) that is Standard with saturation at +2.
2. I download all of the RAW files into Adobe Lightroom 1.4 so that I can organize them. Once I get them in I go through and start flagging the ones I want to work on.
   
3. I open each of the files in Capture NX 1.3 because I think that it does a better job at the raw conversion that Lightroom or ACR, at least for my Nikon NEF files. Plus It will use the picture controls from the camera which the adobe products strips out.
4. I'll do some color, Black and white points and contrast plus a few other adjustments in CaNX and then save the file as a 16 bit Tiff back into the same folder that I saved the original NEF file appending a _NX.tiff to the file.
5. Next I synch the folder in Lightroom and then tell it to open for edit in Photoshop CS3.
6. In photoshop it really varies with the file but typically there are some or all of these adjustments, all in layers of course
   
1. Crop
2. Multiple exposure blending
   
3. curves plus and minus with masking layers if needed and brush tool to bring out highlights or darken areas
4. dust specks removal
   
5. color saturation
6. color adjustment with Color Effect plug in
   
7. Sharpen using unsharp mask
8. Noise Reduction with Noise ninja (though i sometimes find this causes some issues)
9. any other number of adjustments
   
7. Save the file as a PSD back in the folder with other files.

Ok so I know that is not efficient but it's where I am. I'm frightened at trying batch processing but I need to give it a shot.

If I'm working on an HDR I'll take the raw files directly into Photomatrix Pro and adjust then save off as a .tiff. Then open it in Photoshop CS3. I haven't tried taking each raw into Capture NX first then bringing the .tiffs into Photomatrix but I'll probably give it a shot.

As far as printing goes, I currently do not have a decent printer so I upload photos to my ImageKind account and have been pleased with their result over all so far.