Thanks Paul. I don't think I have any step by step of my editing process, because it's not all that consistent except in the broadest strokes, which I'll outline for you in a minute. In terms of shooting settings, I shoot everything in raw, so none of the image manipulation settings are on or relevant to the output. My main thing with shooting is how I set the camera up to automate so much of the process. First, I use zone focus for pretty much all of my street stuff. So I set the camera to manual focus and almost always use 2 meters as a focus distance, deviating from that only if I'm shooting really close, in which case I'll bring it in to 1 or 1 1/2 meters. I'd go to infinity for landscapes, but I'm usually in auto-focus when I'm not shooting street. In good light, I'll set the aperture at f6.3 which is pretty close to a hyperfocal setting at 2 meters focus distance. In any case, anything I'll ever want to be in focus will be. In low light I'll open the aperture up to f3.5 and know I'm working with a much narrower "zone" of focus, but still everything from about 4 fwwt to 12 or 15 feet or so is in focus, and that works for 90% of my street stuff. In terms of exposure, I have one setting for street and one setting for everything else, each assigned to one of the custom settings on the mode dial. I use auto-ISO for both. For street I set the maximum ISO to 6400 and the minimum shutter speed to 1/500, which only comes down below that when the ISO has reached it's max of 6400 and there's still not enough light to maintain 1/500, at which point it comes down just as much as needed. This is the same logic I'd use if I was controlling the settings manually, so it frees me up not to have to think about exposure other than to adjust exposure compensation as the light situation changes. For non-street work, I still use auto-ISO, but I generally use a maximum ISO of 3200 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/80. For shooting outside of these two basic settings (which are on the custom slots on the mode dial), I just set the dial to A or S or M and adjust things from there. But my two primary settings are always there and ready.
In terms of processing, the broad strokes are importing into Lightroom using a preset with the Nikon lens profile enabled. Then I adjust basic exposure, highlights and shadows, and any NR that's needed there. I'll also adjust contrast and "clarity", but I try not to use more than a touch of either in Lightroom, leaving most of this kind of adjustment for whichever Nik plugin I use. Then I edit the photo further in Silver Efex Pro for B&W or a combination of Viveza and/or Color Efex Pro for color. This is where I do any larger and more area specific edits. I have a few presets or "recipes" I'll check out as starting points, but I always tweak images well beyond whatever I start with. Two controls I use in Silver Efex Pro and Viveza that probably lead to the contrast and "texture" you're seeing are the "structure" and "soft contrast" sliders, but you have to go really easy with these. There's a fine line between just enough and waaaaay too much. I've certainly crossed it quite often, but that's the challenge - to use these controls enough but not too much, which is easy to do. Also, in Color Efex Pro, I'll sometimes include the "Detail Extractor" filter, but that's another one you have to be REALLY careful with or you'll end up with a really cartoonish HDR effect. I rarely use it more than about 25%, sometimes as high as 35% in specific areas of an image, but not universally. That's as specific as I can get. Beyond that, it's just "adjust to taste" and my taste varies a lot day to day, image to image, so I can't really explain anything beyond those general guidelines. Those are the only things consistent enough to even try to explain.
If that's of any use, great. If not, well, you asked for it!
-Ray
