How I Edit My Photos - From RAW to Ready

Editing is where the technical meets the creative, where an image that’s almost there (or sometimes not at all) transforms into something that fully captures the feeling of the moment. But for me, editing isn’t about turning a photo into something it wasn’t. Think of it more like refining, not reinventing.

Of course, sometimes you have a photo that looked great in your mind, the composition is there, but the settings (or you) messed up the exposure or colour rendering. In such instances, I do try to save as much as I can in post production and can get a little bit overly enthusiastic with the editing. But those moments are rare, luckily.

RAW over JPEG

That’s why I always shoot in RAW.

RAW files contain all the light, colour, and detail the sensor captured. Think of it as the digital negative. JPEGs, by comparison, throw away a lot of that information. With RAW, I can recover highlights, lift shadows, and fine-tune colours without breaking the image apart. More flexibility, more detail. Basically, your camera is doing less guessing, and you doing less panicking.

To show how my editing process unfolds, I would like to use a single photo and walk through each step, from the untouched RAW file to the final, polished version. You’ll see how each adjustment builds on the last. Stay tuned for the final before-and-after slider!

Let’s begin with the RAW image, straight out of the camera, it’s lacking both vibrance and colour, looking a bit flat and muted:

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Baseline - Building the Foundation

Now let’s start tackling the edit. The first stage is a baseline, it’s all about getting the fundamentals right, the technical backbone of the image, if you will.

White Balance
The goal here is realism. I correct any unwanted colour casts so that whites look white and skin tones or earth tones stay natural. Cameras don’t always interpret ‘colour temperature’ the way our eyes do. For example, shade can make photos look a bit blue, while indoor lighting can make them overly orange. Adjusting the white balance helps bring things back to how the scene actually looked. Often, that means warming up an image taken in the shade or cooling down one captured under orangey sunset light. Once the colours feel natural, everything else in the edit builds on a solid foundation.

Exposure
This step is all about balance. I adjust the overall brightness using the exposure sliders until the image feels well lit and natural, not too dark, not blown out. Then I fine-tune locally using linear or radial filters. These tools let me brighten specific areas, like a tree or a road, or recover detail in bright spots such as the sky. That said, exposure is also a matter of personal taste. You don’t always need a perfectly balanced photo, sometimes darker shadows can add mood or drama, while brighter highlights can make a subject pop against a clean, white background.

Lens Corrections
Every lens introduces a bit of distortion or vignetting. Enabling lens profile corrections ensures lines are straight, corners are clean, and everything looks as it should. It’s like giving your photo a little glasses adjustment. 

Straighten / Transform / Crop
Cropping is one of those deceptively simple tools that can make or break a photo. A tighter frame can make an image feel more intimate, while a wider one can emphasize space or context. As with exposure, there’s no single “right” crop, it’s about what best fits the composition you’re trying to convey. I start by correcting horizons and fixing perspective if needed, making sure buildings stand upright and horizons don’t tilt awkwardly. Then I adjust the crop to tighten the composition and draw more attention to the subject. There’s no single “right” crop, it’s about what fits the mood of your photo.

Overall Direction - Shaping the Mood

Once the image is technically solid, it’s time to shape the mood. This stage is about atmosphere, deciding how you want the photo to feel. The technical corrections you’ve made so far create a neutral canvas, but the mood, style, and storytelling come next.

Large Local Adjustments
This is where you can start to paint with light. Using tools like brushes, radial filters, and gradient filters, I selectively adjust specific parts of the image. A brush works like a virtual paintbrush: you “paint” the adjustment exactly where you want it, for example brightening a subject’s face so they stand out. A radial filter creates an oval or circular area where the adjustment applies, which is perfect for highlighting a person or object while gently fading out the edges. Gradient filters apply adjustments gradually across a straight area, like darkening the top of a bright sky without affecting the foreground. In the end, it’s the same idea: you’re just using one of a few tools to tweak a smaller area of the image.

These adjustments are usually subtle, but they guide the viewer’s eye and help tell the story of the image, drawing attention to the important parts while keeping everything else in balance.

Tone Curves
The tone curve is one of my favorite tools for controlling contrast and depth. Think of it as a stretchy graph: the bottom represents shadows, the middle is midtones, and the top is highlights. By bending the curve, you can make shadows darker, highlights brighter, or adjust midtones for a softer or punchier look.

For example, a gentle S-curve adds punch, making shadows richer and highlights brighter, while flattening the curve slightly creates a softer, more film-like feel. Tone curves let you define the overall mood of an image. Dramatic and bold, soft and airy, or somewhere in between.

Playing with Colour

This is where emotion enters the photo. Technical fixes give the image accuracy, but colour gives it feeling. Warmth, coolness, contrast, and mood all define an image in their own way. The choices you make can completely change how a viewer experiences the scene.

HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance)

HSL lets you adjust individual colours in three ways:

• Hue changes the shade of a colour (e.g., making green slightly more yellow or blue).

• Saturation controls the intensity of that colour (muted vs. vibrant).

• Luminance adjusts brightness of that colour specifically.

For example, I might mute greens in the background to create a calmer scene, or brighten oranges to make leaves glow naturally. These small tweaks help unify the overall ‘palette’ so nothing clashes and the image feels cohesive.

Split Toning / Colour Grading

This tool lets you add subtle colour to shadows and highlights separately. It’s like giving the image a gentle colour “vibe” without changing the underlying tones. For instance adding warm highlights can make sunlight feel golden and inviting, whereas cooling the shadows can create depth or a cinematic feel.

It’s a powerful way to guide the viewer’s emotional response to the image without turning the photo into a disco.

Vibrance & Saturation

Finally, I use vibrance to boost muted colours while keeping skin tones and autumn tones natural. This prevents people from looking overly orange, or keeps grass from looking too green. Saturation affects all colours at once, so I use it sparingly, it’s very easy to go too far, and suddenly your photo looks like a bag of M&Ms.

The key is subtlety: colour grading should support the story and mood, not overpower it.

Finishing Touches

This is the polish, the final 10% that takes an image from “good” to complete. It’s all about refining the details so the photo feels cohesive, intentional, and ready to share.

Exposure Sliders

After colour grading, I often give the exposure a quick recheck. Sometimes the shadows need lifting, or highlights need toning down, once all the colour adjustments are in place. These micro-adjustments ensure that the light feels natural and balanced, while still emphasizing the subject.

Small Local Adjustments

Next comes the subtle work that most viewers won’t consciously notice, but that makes a huge difference. This can include spot removal, for example, cleaning up dust, sensor spots, or tiny distractions. Nothing here is extreme; it’s all about refinement rather than dramatic change.

Effects

Finally, I add finishing effects carefully:

• Texture & clarity enhance micro-contrast, adding definition without over-sharpening.

• a vignette subtly darkens the edges to naturally draw attention toward the center or subject.

• Sharpening & noise reduction prepare the image for final output, whether for web or print, ensuring it looks crisp without introducing unwanted grain.

Individually, these tweaks are small; together, they give the image that “wow, this looks professional” finish.

Less Is More

Editing is about control, not exaggeration. With the endless sliders and tools available today, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overediting. Push clarity too far, and skin can look harsh or gritty. Boost saturation too much, and skies can start glowing unnaturally.

I’ve found it helps to take a step back after finishing an edit and ask yourself: “does this still look believable?” or “does it feel like how the scene actually looked in real life?”.

If the answer is yes, that’s usually where I stop. Sometimes, restraint is the most powerful tool, a subtle, thoughtful edit often makes a photo more timeless than anything flashy.

Before, After, and from RAW to WOW

So that’s my editing process, from RAW capture to final export. Every image goes through the same core steps, but each one gets its own treatment depending on the story, mood, and light I want to bring out. Think of it like cooking: the recipe is the same, but every dish tastes a little different depending on the ingredients and the chef’s whim (and yes, sometimes you sneak in a little extra spice).

Below, you can check out the final before-and-after slider. The full transformation from the untouched RAW file to the polished image. It’s a great reminder that photo editing isn’t about flashy, over-the-top effects. It’s about revealing what you actually saw when you pressed the shutter… just with a touch more magic (and fewer dust spots).