cbercy Loc: Santa Rosa Valley, CA

The PP depends on the control I had of the subject and the lighting when I took the shot. I take a lot of travel photos and I rarely have perfect lighting. First I get rid of the losers and then I work on each picture like it was my baby. Best case I'm done in a few minutes, worst case it becomes a never ending work-in-progress. I have no shame; I will add sky and clouds, remove people and objects and even create HDR from one exposure. Sometimes I just decide to go in another direction and completely redo the PP.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

I did a lot of tutorials on youtube so I became fairly competent with LR. I find I spend maybe a minute or two at most. In general, the better you get the shot in camera, the less time you need to spend in PPing.

If you're a perfectionist, you can spend forever. :)

fjrwillie Loc: MA

I took your advice and looked up the bridge. Neat place, reminds me of the Kenzua in PA, but that one got blown down by a wind sheer. They left it there. Another neat place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinzua_Bridge

Willie

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

2 to 60 minutes, usually less than 15.
But I have one at the moment that I want to get right.
Have wrecked it 5 times ... 5 hours ..... will wait a fortnight or so and have another go.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Very much so, Willie! Thanks for sharing. It seems photographers and bikers know all the remote destinations! :-) I'm getting some age, and climbed off my Harley the last time a couple years ago.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Often I will edit a set of 500 images from an event in about an hour or two, to a point that is good enough to present to a client as proofs.

On my personal work, the raw conversion is quick - I apply adjustments in Lightroom quickly, and will often finish the image in either Photoshop CC or OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 8, or Portrait Pro Studio 12, depending on the image. The raw conversion is usually not more than a minute or two at most for each image. Sometimes I will be able to batch a group of images that will get the same adjustments, and that saves a ton of time. Images converted in raw converters are seldom finished, nearly all benefit from additional finishing in pixel editors.

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

I start out usually with a quick touch up, maybe less than an hour. But as I am trying for the high grade professional look, I generally come back the next day and see some further adjustments to make. I do not see how I could just restrict this to Raw processing, that is only the precursor to various stages of processing in Photoshop. These processes in Photoshop may repeat as appears necessary, until anything further generates a step backwards, for instance too much noise, too much saturation of color, or too little, too much contrast, so I have to go back a step and realize this is the best I can get. The problem is one evolves, or at least I seem to, and after a long period of time I can see how to use some newfound 'tricks' to make it look even better. I have improved sales considerably with this method. It does work better with say a photo of a popular landmark. If it is a portrait commission you of course may not have the luxury of lengthy critiquing. One way that works for me for a quicker critique is to post it on Facebook. Once I see it in a small almost thumbnail size, a lot of changes of tone and color become more obvious immediately, perhaps the fact that I know it is going to be seen in a few hours by a group of people as it is now 'on display' changes my whole perspective. I get the photo pretty good and then after a few minutes I go back to Facebook and immediately see it is too dark, for instance, or a certain area needs a little burning or dodging, or a color adjustment would make it look better. Again, this procedure is on the quick deadline, tomorrow, but I often end up spending hours making 5 or 6 adjustments. But know if I display it at a gallery in the future I feel much more confident it may become a multiple seller, where I sell one, make another, sell that, etc. Of course you must make your own judgement on how much time you can afford to spend. Knowing when to stop is not always obvious, I save my work in various stages of development, for instance "File 1", "File 2", "File 2a", "File 2a crop" etc. Often I realize I have made it worse but am able to go back to the better version. Sometimes you mess up and overwrite something you should have saved.

redpepper Loc: Central NY

If I get WB and exposure right in camera it takes about 30 seconds to tweak clarity and tonal curve. If the WB is off I can spend 10 minutes tweaking skin tones on one image.

Then there're times that I have a certain vision for which way I'd like the image to go. I spend 10 minutes or more on that one image. I'm quite picky and always zoom in at 100% to analyze which way I will go with it. I've found myself getting frustrated with editing and need to walk away and come back to it later too. PP is an art that takes time to perfect. That justifies my time spent doing it.

mikedidi46 Loc: WINTER SPRINGS, FLORIDA

I do not spend a lot of time, but in LIghtroom 5 I have designed some useful Presets for my use. Usually 3-5 minutes per photo, but I have made copies to use as testing units.

drmarty Loc: Pine City, NY

I work very hard to get my images right in the camera so my pp time is fairly short. Sometimes I spend some extra time experimenting with other settings.

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

Simply put, about a minute average. I do have some self made presets and a few downloaded ones though. But, I just do them for me. ;-)

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

This may be misleading since I use a 7i with 32MB and SSD drives. I can get quite a bit done in a minute.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

:thumbup:

aaciolkowski Loc: Sugar Grove Illinois

After importing My process is the same as Lis Stockton above. I only go to Photoshop if I am changing background or retouching something.

aaciolkowski Loc: Sugar Grove Illinois

Sorry should be Les Stockton