As I learn and continue with my photography, things will change. For the future, I'm writing this.
I shoot usually on aperture priority. If I need a shorter or longer exposure time, I go fully manual to make an appropriate shutter speed for the shot. Until recently I have not shot RAW, but I do now. After I hit the button, I view the photo on the LCD to see if the exposure was correct. When I return home, I plug my Nikon D70s into the computer and pull the images I want into Adobe Lightroom. I go through the Library and select the image I want to process. Over in the Develop module, I may try a few presets, including the custom presets I've made. If those don't suit the photo, I go through and adjust everything. Hopefully I've captured the scene correctly and there is little to do to the image. However, if the exposure is too much or little, or if I simply want to give the photo a certain mood or tone unachievable by camera alone, then I have fun with all the sliders. When I've done all I want in Lightroom, I save a full size and quality TIFF version of the photo. The photo currently in processing is then exported to Photoshop CS in sRGB color, 300 dpi, 16 bit. Adjustments are made accordingly with levels, curves, or whatever I want. It's cropped if necessary, usually with a maximum side of 900 pixels. Other modifications are performed if the photo asks for it. The photo is finalized, sometimes with vignetting. It's saved as a JPG with 95-100 quality.
For other photos I choose to do something more special. Right now I call it "digital painting," though I'd like a better term. What I mean is that I often use various brushes, gradients, many different kinds of layers, multiple uses of curves, colors, levels, selective colors, hues, etc. to dramatically alter a photo. This takes a lot of time and RAM, which makes it a slow process.
Shooting RAW creates large image files—several megabytes each. I've taken about 10,000 shots in the last year and a half, so storing and organizing is essential. I sort all my photos by date, with folders for each year and multiple folders therein. I keep my photos in three external hard drives (60, 120, and 250 gigabytes, which also hold 69 gigs of music and other stuff) and lock those in fire- and waterproof safes. I'm careful.
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