After taking the photographs, the following is a sample workflow for processing the images.

• Copy the images from the memory card to your computer, preferably using a card reader.  Place the images in an appropriate folder.
• Eventually delete the image files from the card when you are certain they are safe to kill.  This may actually be done much later in the workflow.  You can also delete them in your camera by having the camera format the card.
• Back up all of the originals on CD.  You can also do this later, but don't wait until it is too late.
• Display each image on the computer monitor, possibly using an image editor such as Photoshop Elements.  You can not accurately tell if an image is good or bad by looking at the small camera monitor.
• Delete all of the real bad images from your computer, but do not delete any marginal ones because they can be enhanced.
• For images that you like: (see Editing Example page)
• Open the image in the image editor
• DO NOT EVER EDIT THE ORIGINAL!!
• SaveAS to a new name and change the file type to that of the editor.  For Photoshop, SaveAs a PSD file type.  In this file type, you can save it as many times as you like without losing quality, as you would with a JPG file.
• Edit the image to make it beautiful!  Save it (it is still a PSD file).
• To ready an image for a print at a photo printing store, open the PSD image file and save it as a JPG file type.  For printing, be sure to save at the highest JPG quality possible with the least compression.  That is a 12 in the JPG dialog box for Photoshop Elements.  You can then copy the JPG image back onto a memory card and take it to the printer shop.  (see Editing Example page)
• To ready an image for a web page or an email, open the PSD image file and save it as a JPG file type.  For web pages, you usually want to save it at "medium" quality with a fair amount of compression so that the file size is not too large.  That is about a 6 or 7 in the JPG dialog box for Photoshop Elements.  You will also want to Resize the image to an appropriate size.  (see Editing Example page)
• You may need to move some of the image files to different folders in order to keep things organized.  This is best done using MyComputer or the equivalent, instead of doing repeated SaveAs's from the image editor.  However, one extra Save a JPG image at high quality will not really matter.
• Back up all your good stuff, and all of your originals.