Editing Basics

Here are some things to check before editing:

• Photo editing applications generally run better the more RAM they have, and the easiest way to give a computer a speed boost is to install more RAM. The more RAM a computer has, the less time it has to spend accessing the relatively slow hard drive.
• Every monitor is slightly different. In order to see an image the way a printer will see it, monitors need to be calibrated. Aside from removing color casts, calibration will also adjust the brightness of the monitor.
• Working on a copy of the original image prevents accidentally saving over the original.

Here is the order to do steps while editing:

1. Rotate the image to the correct alignment. This includes rotating vertically oriented photos and correcting photos where the horizon is not level.
2. Crop the image to prevent spending time and processing power on the parts of the image that will not be used, unless material outside the crop area will be needed for cloning. If the final image is to be printed, make sure to leave enough of the image to print at sufficient dpi for good quality.
3. Fix problems with dust and noise using cloning, filters, or blurring.
4. Fix color, brightness, and contrast related problems, such as color casts, dark subjects, or washed out tones. Adjust the saturation of the image last.
5. Remove items that need to be cloned out of the photo. If the photo wasn't cropped earlier, crop it after cloning.
6. Resample the image if the final image will be a different size than the original.
7. Blur or sharpen the image as needed to soften the background and emphasize the foreground.
8. Save the image in a lossless format.