Pictures with a large amount of white

Question

I am digitalising the botanical paintings of my wife, and have some issues with getting the white background of the paintings white instead of light grey. I use the X-rite color checker passport for getting accurate colors, and I guess I should use the exposure correction to make the whites white, but I am not sure in which order to do things. Should I first adjust the exposure to get the background white instead of light grey and then do the white balance plus color profile adjustment, or do the white balance first, then the color, and then the exposure (or any other possible order)?

Answer 1

I like your advice, trshaner: that there is actually something to do/get right before the LR stage, in camera...
To give my 2 pennies worth to the opening question of the best sequence of adjustment, if still needed inside LR:
Technically Lee Jay is right: if you look at the final slider settings it is irrelevant in which order they have been set.
But process-wise you usually react to the intermediate result of the first adjustments to determine what to do with other sliders. You might not get the same feedback and do the next determination in the same way if you proceed in different sequence.
Good advice: adjust the Exposure first, close before clipping or even a bit beyond in case of specular highlights. Holding down ALT will give a clear indication when clipping starts. Then Blacks until the darkest blacks just start to get clipped. If the image was under-/overexposed it is best to deal with White Balance only then, not as the very first.
Then if needed Recovery & Fill Light, then fine-tune Brightness & Contrast.
Adobe's chosen sequence of the panels and the sliders therein are an indicator of usual best practices.
You could also auto-develop and start manual adjustment from there. I often prefer "Auto Exposure & Blacks" or "Auto Exposure & Blacks & Contrast" to the everything-auto-including brightness&contrast.