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Here's my own Digital Workflow............

[STEPS]
#1. Crop to desired size
Cropping is one of the most destructive things you can do on your digital image enhancement tasks. Especially if you do both cropping & increase resolution at the same time, as most do. It takes away pixels and if you are increasing resolution, it has to resample the image (add pixels) thru interpolation.

Cropping is an art in itself. (maybe i'll do a separate article on this.) It makes
compositions stronger. The most common use is to cut away clutter and distractions in order to focus on what really matters.

So, the best tip I can give you is to make this your first step in your workflow.

#2. Check Histogram for Tonal range (ctr+L in Photoshop)
it helps me decide what color enhancements to do next, if necessary.

#3. Decide to use Auto Color, Auto Levels, Manual Levels and or Curves.
Auto Color was great on PS7. I try auto color/levels first (ctr+shift+B/ctr+shift+L) because it's fast and in CS, you can dock the Histogram and instantly see the changes. Then, if I'm not satisfied w/ it, I'd go to Manual Levels or Curves.

I would recommend using curves. Levels also allows you to adjust the tonal range of an image But with it, you have much greater control.

#4. Decide for needed (specific) enhancements (Heal,stamp,soften,etc)
Do your specific enhancements here, be it red eye correction, complexion ehancements, wrinkle reduction, special effects/toning, etc.

#5. Soften if needed
I consider myself to be more of a people shooter. So this is my most often used digital enhancements effect (plus the fact that I don't use a lens filters on my digicam).
This is more of a personal workflow step for me. It's also maybe because of my camera. :P

#6. USM
...And the last step in almost everyone's digital image enhancement workflow,...USM or the UnSharp Mask.

Tip: If ur purpose is to contrast, you should sharpen first bec. sharpening always increases contrast.