Tips, Tricks & Tutorials

PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE CLOUD: ADOBE CAMERA RAW TIPS

Software

New features in Camera Raw 8, including cloning and healing!

Basic panel

If the White Balance drop-down menu on the Basic panel in Camera Raw does not provide satisfactory results when correcting color in your photos, use the Temperature slider to make the image cooler or wamer. If the image exhibits a green or magenta tint after being white balanced, you can use the Tint slider to compensate for any bias.
To recover detail in the shadows, without unduly affecting highlights or causing posterization, use the Fill Light slider on the Basic panel.
To recover detail in the highlights (the highlights are clipped), use the Recovery slider. Hold down the Alt key as you drag the slider to see where the highlights are clipped. Keep dragging until all the clipped areas disappear.
To add depth to an image by increasing local contrast, with greatest effect on the midtones, use the Clarity slider. This slider focuses on the midtones and add a punch to the image. Should be used sparingly though as too high of a setting may introduce undesirable halos. To best view the effect, magnify the preview by 100% or greater.
Increase saturation without clipping colors (without losing details) to full saturation by using the Vibrance slider. Less saturated colors are affected more than highly saturated colors. It also prevents skin tones from becoming oversaturated. Works th same as the Vibrance adjustment on the Adjustments panel (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Vibrance).
See only the pixels that are being clipped by holding down the Alt key while dragging the Exposure, Recovery or Black sliders. For the Exposure and Recovery sliders, the image turns black, and clipped areas appear white. For the Black slider, the image turns white and clipped areas appear black. Colored areas indicate clipping in one or two of the color channels.
To reset only one of individual tone controls, such as Exposure, Recovery or Brightness, double-click its slider. To apply automatic settings in only one of the individual tone controls, press Shift and double-click the slider.

Tone Curve panel

After the adjustments on the Basic panel are complete, you can use the Parametric curve or the Point curve on the Tone Curve panel to fine-tune the tonal range. The three sliders located under the graph in the Parametric panel determine the range of the Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadow Sliders. For example, if you move all three sliders under the graph to the right, the Highlights slider becomes restricted in its movement.

Detail panel

The Detail slider in the Detail panel in Camera Raw suppresses halos around edge detail. When using the sharpening controls in Camera Raw, if you notice halos around the edges, use the Detail slider to reduce the halo effect. In other words, the Detail slider allows you to increase the amount of sharpening while also minimizing the halo effect. Use a low Detail value to reduce halos or a high value to accentuate halos.
The Masking slider in the Detail panel in Camera Raw allows you to sharpen the image and restrict sharpening to areas near the strongest edges in your image. It does this by applying an edge mask. When the Masking value is set to zero, sharpening is applied to all areas of the image (no masking). As the value is increased, the sharpening is restricted more and more to the areas near the strongest edges (increased masking).

HSL / Grayscale panel

Modify skin tones and minimize affecting other tones in an image using the sliders in the HSL / Grayscale panel (Vibrance slider on the Basic panel protects skin tones). For example, use the Reds and Oranges sliders in combination with the Saturation to modify a portrait taken outdoors without affecting the sky or foliage that may be present in the background.
Target and adjust specific colors using the Luminance tab in the HSL / Grayscale panel. For example, to make a yellow flower brighter without affecting other colors (such as the green leaves), move the Yellow slider to the right in the Luminance panel.

Lens Corrections panel

Use the Chromatic Aberration sliders in the Lens Corrections panel to minimize color fringing due to the camera lens failing to focus different wavelengths of light onto the exact same focal plane. For example, your photo displays distinct red/cyan fringing in high contrast areas. To correct the fringing, use the Red/Cyan chromatic aberration slider to minimze it.

Tool bar (located in the upper-left of the Camera Raw window)

The Targeted Adjustment tool (fifth from the left, looks like a target with a crosshair), allows you to click and drag in an image to apply many different adjustments. Click on the tool and hold down your left mouse button to see a pop up menu. From the pop up menu, choose saturation, luminance, parametric curve or grayscale mix (parametric curve is selected by default). After choose an adjustment, click and drag in the image to make adjustment. Dragging left or down reduces values, while dragging right or up increases values.
The Graduated Filter tool allows you to increase/decrease exposure gradually in one region of the image without affecting other regions. For example, you wish to darken the sky of an image and leave the other areas unaffected. Click the tool (fourth from right), set options using the sliders on the right (such as move the Exposure slider to the left), then click at the top of the image and drag down to apply the effect (use Shift to constrain the effect).

Other

Color Spaces. If colors are being clipped (lost detail) while using the default Adobe RGB (1998) working space in Camera Raw, consider changing to a larger working space. Clipping can occur if the color gamut of the working space is too small to contain all the colors. Choosing ProPhoto RGB may solve the issue (should also be 16-Bits/Channel to avoid posterization). Click the link below the image preview in Camera Raw to open the Workflow Options. In the Workflow Options dialog box, choose the ProPhoto RGB Space from the pop-up menu.

Also, if you would like to work in a color space that is not available in Camera Raw, export the image as ProPhoto RGB 16-Bits/Channel, open in Photoshop and then convert to the working color space of your choice. ProPhoto RGB has the widest color gamut out of all the available color spaces, therefore can accomodate colors without clipping during the conversion.