97% of Photographers Don't Understand the Process Chain

A few months ago, I learned about a concept that I wish I had learned about years ago, and it's called the process chain or the order of operations. Probably already familiar with the idea of an order of operations in a different context. Remember bedmass from math class? That's the strict order in which calculations must occur for math to deliver correct results. Image editing has its own version of this.

Sometimes it's out in the open, sometimes it's hidden. But the sequence is crucial because it determines how your edits stack up, interact, and ultimately create the final image that you see on screen and want to output.

Now, what makes this complicated is that while the concept is universal across editing software, each program handles it differently. But once you grasp it, your editing workflow becomes more intentional, predictable, and effective. [Music] Photoshop lays out the process chain in the most visually obvious way with layers. At your very bottom sits your background layer, your original image, right? Every layer above that introduces new modifications that cascade downwards.

Adjustment layers, black and white conversions, solid colors, and their selected blend modes interact sequentially building up from bottom to top. For example, let's say you apply a black and white adjustment layer above a layer. Add a solid color adjustment layer with a color blend mode above that one. Now, let's make it red. Now, you've created a two-tone image. The red influences everything beneath it, including the black and white conversion.

Now, if we flip their order, we can see that the red affects all of the pixels below its layer. But now, the black and white conversion layer has turned the red layer gray.

Now, the order in which you stack your layers determines how each adjustment influences the ones below it. However, if you clip an adjustment to a specific layer, its effect is isolated to that layer. So, it doesn't impact all of the layers below it, just the layer it's been clipped to. This is Photoshop's process chain in action. The flexibility is immense, but it hinges entirely on understanding that the stacking, grouping, and clipping of the layers shifts the order of operations, just like adding brackets or exponents to a math equation will dramatically change the outcome of that equation.

In Da Vinci Resolve, a popular video editing software that I use to edit and color these videos, takes a completely different approach entirely. So instead of vertical layers, you work with nodes flowing horizontally from left to right. Each node applies its changes and passes the modified image to the next node, creating a highly modular editing system. Now, in a very basic node setup, you might begin with exposure and contrast adjustments, followed by high dynamic range modifications and color balancing.

A color space transform, say converting this CLOG 3 footage to Wreck 709, and then finally a L that emulates a film look to finalize the whole look of it. For a slightly more advanced color grade, I begin with a color space transform that takes me from Canon CLOG 3 footage into Da Vinci's wide color gamut, which provides more versatility when making adjustments. Then I'll come back out of Da Vinci wide gamut into Rex 709 at the end of my adjustments.

Don't worry if you're not familiar with these terms. Rec 709 and Da Vinci wide gamut are simply different color spaces where you can work in when editing video. Similar to sRGB, Adobe RGB and Profoto RGB color spaces used in Capture 1 and Lightroom. So now Resolve adds another dimension with parallel nodes. These allow adjustments on each node to be processed simultaneously and independent of one another instead of sequentially.

For instance, you might apply sharpening in one parallel node while using a color warper in another. Each adjustment occurs independently after the exposure and contrast node and then merges back together before proceeding to the next serial node. More advanced node trees might include multiple serial nodes for distinct stages of color correction, exposure, color balancing, film looks, and multiple parallel nodes handling fine details like halation, selective sharpening, or color warping.

Essentially, you're building a custom assembly line for your final image. Now, this structure provides immense control, but requires a firm grasp of how each node interacts with the previous nodes. Now, Capture 1 and Lightroom are completely different. Since I use Capture 1, that's what I'll be talking about here, but the process will be similar in Lightroom as well. Capture 1 has a tool called layers and masks, which might make you think it operates like Photoshop, but it doesn't.

These layers don't follow a strict sequential order. In fact, I would argue they're not really layers at all. Instead, they act more like additive masks that apply adjustments simultaneously across different regions of the image. The stacking order of layers in Capture 1 doesn't really affect how adjustments are applied. Whether you put layer 1 above or below layer 2, their effects combine additively based on the masks that you creative, not based on their position in the layer stack.

Now, that can feel counterintuitive if you're familiar with the layer stack in Photoshop. However, Capture 1 absolutely follows its own process chain beneath the surface, one that's simply just less visible to us. So after extensive testing and observation and some educated best guesses, I've categorized Capture 1's adjustments like this. First, we have operational tools. These have no impact on image rendering whatsoever.

Annotations, camera settings, export recipes, filters, keyword libraries, metadata, and other workflow tools. They simply help you operate the program. Then compositional tools. These tools modify the geometry of the image rather than color and tonality. So like crop, grid overlays, rotation, and keystone corrections. So you're just changing and shifting the geometry of the image. Now, if we remove the composition tools and the operational tools, we're left with 26 tools that can impact the final look of the image.

So from here, I break these down into two distinct categories. First, image integrity tools. These act as your foundational cleanup crew, correcting technical issues before you dive into the creative work of processing your image. You have your base characteristics, dehaze, dust removal, lens cast corrections, lens corrections, moira removal, noise reduction, and purple fringing corrections. These adjustments happen very early in the pipeline and almost exclusively at the primary image level even though a couple of those tools can be used on masks as well.

Then we have our image adjustment tools and these are the tools that shape the creative look of our image. Now among these however tools like style brushes, normalize, match look and smart adjustments. They don't create unique processing adjustments. They simply apply preset configurations to the other tools. So let's remove these from the mix. I'll also remove most of the image integrity tools since those are designed to correct things like mechanical flaws in lenses, reduce noise from high ISO images, and remove sensor dust that's showing up in your images.

All of these adjustments happen early on in the process chain. Retouch faces is a new tool that I'm pretty sure is applied independently of other adjustments and at the image layer before any other creative adjustments are masked on top of the image. So, let's also take that out of the mix. And finally, we have what I refer to as the finishing tools. These sit at the tail end of the process chain applying final refinements, black and white conversions, color balance, film grain, and vignetting.

And even though Capture 1 doesn't make its process chain obvious, it's still happening in a consistent sequence. So here's my best guess at how all of this works in Capture 1. First, we're going to start with the base corrections. This is the processing engine, the ICC profile, and the curve selection in which we want to process. And then we move to global exposure and tonal balancing. So exposure, brightness, HDR, white balance.

Then we're going to work on RGB based tonal shaping such as our levels and curves. After that, Capture 1 applies creative adjustments to color and details. So color editor, clarity, and sharpening. And then it finishes with aesthetic adjustments, black and white, the color grading, film grain, and vignetting. So understanding the process chain transforms our editing from trial and error into a controlled predictable system.

We're no longer guessing or compensating for unintended side effects caused by adjusting things out of sequence. Instead, we work with the software's internal logic, which leads to cleaner files, faster workflows, and consistently better image quality.

Okay, so now that we understand the process chain, I want to address the techniques I've seen used to obtain a neutral white balance in images. White balance deserves special attention because it plays such a crucial role early in the process chain. Having white balance adjustments take place early in the process chain ensures that everything that comes after it builds upon a neutral foundation. So, let's take a look at this image of a color checker that I photographed.

Using Capture 1's white balance picker directly on a neutral gray patch immediately aligns the RGB values, giving you a strong baseline. Now, from there, any fine-tuning should be done using the levels tool or the curves tool, where you can adjust each channel's shadows, midtones, and highlights independently until everything lines up across the histogram. This helps get rid of any color casts in your images.

Now, this iterative balancing results in highly neutral, consistent color. Now, despite its name, the last thing you want to do is use the color balance tool to color balance your images. The color balance tool only comes into play later in the process chain once exposure, white balance, tonal adjustments are set. This tool allows you to push your color creatively, warming the highlights, cooling the shadows, adding mood or style.

Like, I know it's confusing, but let me explain. The color balance tool operates by shifting hue and saturation in highlights, midtones, and shadows simultaneously, making it excellent for creative color grading. And because its adjustments take place near the very end of the process chain, it's a color grading tool, not a color correcting tool. So here's how we know the adjustments in the color balance tool take place near the end of the process chain.

If we take an image and apply a black and white conversion to it, then make the adjustments using the color balance tool. You can see that the color grade is being applied after the black and white conversion. And we know that the black and white conversion happens at the end of the process chain. So this makes the color balance tool a color grading tool, not a color correction tool. So yeah, while it can neutralize color casts and establish accurate white points, this only really works if you make no other adjustments to the image that affect the color in any way, shape, or form.

Any adjustments that you do make using any tools that come earlier in the process chain that have any effect on color are not being made on a neutral image that has a neutral base. The color balance tool adjustments are just not happening early enough in the process chain to establish a neutral base image which you can build on creatively. So true color balancing belongs much earlier in the process and should be handled with the white balance tool due to its position early in the process chain.

Levels and curves can build off of that to correct slight casts and bring them into alignment. When done at this stage, all subsequent edits will build off of that neutral base. When you handle exposure and white balance early, you avoid chasing problems downstream. When you sequence color adjustments correctly, you maximize detail retention and color integrity. So, my advice, edit your images in the same order the software processes your images.

You'll not only produce better images, but also work more efficiently and reduce your frustration and be able to confidently handle more complex edits. Now, if anyone has further insights into Capture 1's internal process chain, I'd love to hear them, cuz I don't know if I have this 100% right. I know I have the color balance tool thing right. I don't know about the rest of the process chain. Now, while I think I'm pretty close, there's always more to uncover in how these tools actually work beneath the surface.

And I want to know how they work so that I can produce better images.