In the digital age, it is even more important to consider your RAW file a "digital negative" which requires post processing.

First, essentially all digital SLR cameras do not see the world in focus, no matter the quality of the lens. Why? Digital is not analogue, and every "focused" item is built from a matrix of color receptors, rather than a single RGB point. This way of rendering an image cannot achieve the pristine focus of analog. It is a dither. Thus, at the very least, the soft world of digital must be post processed into focus, if you want digital to look more like analog. Further, the CCD and CMOS approach creates edge artifacts often seen on high contrast diagonals which are mostly, but not all, "corrected" by in-camera processing.

Then there is color shift. Digital uses precise color temperature settings, but the world is not precise. While you might fastidiously do white balances or try to use the right "scene setting" there will always be images which slip through with questionable or bad color. Post Processing, again.

Further, the Digital Darkroom offers tools never dreamed of in the chemical labs of the past. The needs of commercial work depends on this new creativity.

Finally, the digital world offers archival nature beyond the analog nature of silver gelatin prints which made Ansel Adams famous. In fact, not every Ansel Adams print which was sold was perfectly made. Insufficient washing has cropped up in the yellowing and fading of certain collector's prints, say, of the famous "Moonrise Hernandez." You HAVE to wash away ALL of the hypo, folks.

Thank you wylie, I agree with every thing you say. having spent 40 years in the pre press section of the printing industry I understand about "work flow" there is one and has to be. But that should not stiffle creativity in the appropriate place. The one thing you said that got my attention is yoiu size (crop) last. No one else has said that and I'll wager most people crop first. But I believe it's right to do it last.