I am in the heat of editing a few weeks of weddings. After I shoot a wedding, I see peoples faces I've photographed in my dreams. Still images of them in perfect detail. I wish I were only able to remember my grandmother's face so well. I run a typical workflow...All images from my chips are loaded into an Epson 4000 (on site as back up) If I am traveling I take it from there to my laptop...When I get home to my studio computer, burned DNGs,transfered to 800 GIG Box, then edited in Lightroom 1.2, the edited version burned again to DVD-r, one for me one for my clients. In between all those steps are their faces and emotions. My priority in editing the images is easy. After all images are backed up and I have had a quick overview I dive into the body of the work, hunting for raw emotion and beauty. The emotion is not one dimensional...I am looking for all range of emotion joy, fear, intimacy love, lust, confidence, overwhelm insecurity. There is no emotional category I wont shoot, but there is many I won't show. When I edit I am editing for 2 people, me (what I want to add to the body of my work) and my clients. Coming to know them I have an inkling of what they want to see. I look for light behind the eyes a glowing from within. On the exterior my priority is light that accentuates their beauty, makes the skin glow and pulsate, blows out circles and blemishes. Once I crop and adjust the image for white balance and saturation I am usually finished. Because I am looking for the truth in the shot touching it up beyond recognition for me isn't my fancy. I paint in watercolor and if I want an image not to look like the photo I took, I will opt to paint it. I don't paint on my computer but in my studio, on a table, on a giant peice of 300 lb Arches Rough with lots of water and pigment and big sable brushes. I long to move water and paint, but if I choose take that path I have committed 20 hours to an image (at least). If shoot for an hour I edit for an hour, if shoot for 10 I edit for 10. If I were to work some magic is Photoshop CS3 (which I have and use rarely) that time would be tripled. In the middle of that I am also on Neapolitan Mastiff puppy watch. We took in beautiful Kira who is 5 weeks pregnant and expecting her first litter in a few weeks. We find out Tuesday how long and how many. Pictures and puppies lots of beautiful imagery coming on, as well as editing photos.