September 14th, 2025

My Workflow--Steps from RAW image to finished image.

Here is the original RAW file before any edits were made and before running through my current favorite denoise program.  Link is below if you want to check it out.

www.dxo.com/dxo-pureraw/

And here is the finished image.  I won't post every step like cropping or any of the other editing tools everyone is probably already familiar with.  I start all of my steps in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Here are my first basic adjustments.

Next I adjust the colors.  I usually find there is too much blue so I reduce that and increase the orange to enhance the tiger.  Every image will of course be different and it will be a matter of what you find works best for your image.

I then sharpen the image.  I usually start with the Masking at 100%.  That way I am only sharpening the edges of the pixels and not the whole image which would include any noise.  If the image needs more sharpening I drop the masking like I did for this image.  And one of my last steps also involves sharpening so be very conservative with this step.

I select the masking option which is found here marked in red.

Using the brush tool I select the tiger's eyes.  The 'Show Overlay' is helpful to make sure your selection is in the correct area.

The only thing I'm changing here are the Effects and Detail.

I then open the Lightroom image in Adobe Photoshop and address any small details like those I circled in red above.  I usually start with just a healing brush and then clean up any edges by erasing the edges on the layer mask. 
If I'm not happy with that I use the clone tool. 
If all else fails I select the area and use the Generative Fill found in the Edit tab.  If you are not familiar with that tool look for my previous blog post about it.

Here is probably my favorite plugin!  I have many Greater Than Gatsby actions and use them for many steps.  I use most of them but my favorites are Innocence Retouch, Carving Tree and Painterly Portrait.  
If you want to see more of this plugin the link is below.

https://www.greaterthangatsby.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopaf10pb2_GFnZDiQ1fp1Ezgrens2XD3ESH_UWa0b4NE7gka8rh

There are quite a few different things you can do in Innocence Retouch.  On this image I used the Iris: Darken Rim to enhance the black.

Still in Innocence Retouch I use the Iris: Soft Sharpen on the eyes.

Using Photoshop Adjustments I open Vibrance to add even more color to the eyes.  Again this is a preference but on this image I really wanted to make the eyes POP!

In the Vibrance adjustment layer and with the mask selected drop the Saturation all the way to the left making the image black and white.

With your mask still selected invert the mask so it is no longer white but now is black.  And your image will be full color again.

With your brush foreground color white paint over only the eyes.  This will now make only that area black and white.

Switch the mask being active to the Vibrance symbol.  Then drag the Vibrance and/or Saturation sliders right to increase.

In the Carving Tree Collection I use the Iris Sparkle action to add a big bang effect to the eyes.  Usually a very slight amount of this is the way to go.  But if you want over the top go extreme.  The amount of bang is controlled by changing the opacity.

Here is the after effect of brushing the  Iris Sparkle on the tiger's eyes and the percentage of opacity I used.

And this is probably my favorite plugin of the Greater Than Gatsby collections.

I used Hide The Highlights to cut down on the highlights.  It will flatten the layers.

Using a white brush I removed the effects from the eyes as I wanted them bright and removed the edges around the right and bottom portion of the image.

Still in the Painterly Portrait collection I use Kandiinsky.  This will flatten the layers and give it a softer and more glowing look.  I didn't want this to apply to the eyes or the nose so I painted over them with the black brush.  I also lowered the opacity as at 100% it is too smooth for this image.

Next I added a Photoshop Levels adjustment to brighten most of the image.

I still like the old school type of sharpening so after flattening the layers I create a duplicate layer.  Then open up the Photoshop High Pass filter found where else but in the Filter Tab.  It is located by hovering your mouse over 'Other' then clicking on High pass.  Keep the Radius at a level where you are just beginning to see the lines in the gray area.  For this image I used 2.2 Pixels.  Then click OK.

You can either use the Blend Mode of Overlay (stronger effect) or Soft Light (softer effect).  I used Soft Light on this image.  Plus either Blend Mode you use can be adjusted by moving the Opacity slider to the left.
This is the last step before I flatten the image and then using 'Save As' I create a new file name.