Camera Raw is a special type of photo editing software that gives the user control over how the image is to be developed instead of leaving it up to the Camera to decide. While Camera Raw is designed to work with Raw file formats it can be used to work with any type of file. In this first section we will look at ways Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) can be opened.

The Camera Raw Interface

The Camera Raw Interface is simple, elegant, and powerful in it’s ability to manipulate images. The user has control over the development of the photo including: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, and a splash of Saturation. There are many more features of this powerful window.

Opening Camera Raw

Adobe Photoshop Working with Camera Raw in Photoshop is most valuable when you wish to make additional edits other than the ones you will make in Camera Raw. Photoshop can open Camera Raw as a filter which will allow you make edits then close the camera raw dialog and it saves the changes as a smart filter that can be changed in the layers panel, More about that later. For now just know that the Camera Raw Filter is located with the rest of your filters in Photoshop in Filter>Camera Raw Filter... (Shft+Cmnd/Ctrl+A). #1 Open the image in Photoshop, #2 Right Click the layer and Convert it to a smart object, #3 Filter> Camera Raw Filter... (Shft+Cmnd/Ctrl+A)

The Basic Panel

The Basic Panel is the back bone of the Adobe Camera Raw solution and provides many tools to help target different areas in the photograph. The histogram at the top of the panel is always visible regardless which panel you may choose to switch to.

The first section of the Basic Panel is used to adjust the histogram directly. Exposure adjusts the center of the histogram while highlights and whites adjust the right side (light colors). On the opposite side the shadows and blacks adjust the left side of the histogram or the dark areas of the image.

The Basic Panel is designed to be linear from top to bottom. You should adjust the sliders in the order they appear first then you go back and fine tune. The first thing to correct in an image is it’s white balance. The slider is measured in the Kelvin scale which for the purposes of photography generally the temperature is between 3500 and 6000 depending on the situation.

In the final section of the basic panel we find controls that focus in on the mid-tones in the image. Clarity is used to adjust the edge contrast and add depth, Vibrance is used to adjust the color saturation of the least saturated colors, and the Saturation slider adjusts the picture’s saturation as a whole.

HSL/Grayscale

One of the more recognizable effects that is added to photographs are when we add color to a black and white image. This can be done very easily with the HSL/Grayscale slides in combination with the targeted adjustment tool.

Saturation sliders are pushed to -100 great time to save a preset...

In this image it has been turned to black and white by pushing all of the saturation to -100. In other words all color as been removed from the image and we can use the targeted adjustment tool at the top of the page to click on the rose and drag to the right. The targeted adjustment tool will move the sliders of the currently open panel based on the pixels that were clicked on. Therefore when the rose is clicked on and we drag to the right with the targeted selection it saturates the rose’s color. This process works well until there are other shades of that color in the image, in which case we need to get the adjustment brush.

Rose colored using the targeted adjustment tool.

The Adjustment Brush

The adjustment brush is very useful when you need to apply local adjustments to a specific area. In the last example we used a targeted adjustment to re-saturate the rose in the image. What you may not have noticed is that the rose bud below it also turned pink along with it. The Targeted adjustment will apply to the entire image while the adjustment brush can be used in very specific ways. This time we will still remove the saturation and we will use the adjustment brush to bring the color back in. In this image the green pin on the image shows the adjustment brush location.

The adjustment brush isolates areas of the photo.

The mask has only been painted in on the left side. It is important to zoom in (ctrl/cmnd + to zoom in and ctrl/cmnd - to zoom out) so that you make sure to get a good selection. In this case since we are not targeting a specific color then the saturation slider will transform all pixels that are touched by the mask. You will also notice that this adjustment brush can do much more then just apply a saturation adjustment. Each adjustment brush pin you apply will allow you full control over that area with the same sliders that we used in the basic panel. Depending on the adjustment you are trying to make the adjustment brush may be just the thing to solve the problem quickly and non-destructively.

Quick tip #1: use the Left and Right “[ ]“keys to change the size of your brush. Use the right “]” to make it larger and the left “[“ to make it smaller. Quick tip #2: When Zoomed in hold the space bar to temporarily use the hand tool to move the image.

Presets

You may be tempted to check the saturation check box since that is what we adjusted for the flower. If you recall however the adjustments we made were in the HSL/Grayscale section not on the Basic Panel. You can use the check none box to deselect them all. Then apply the check to the HSL Adjustments. The new box looks like the image at the right. When it does just give it a name like “No Saturation” and then press okay. When you create new presets make sure to be specific with the naming so that you can easily identify them later when you need to use them.

Graduated Filter

Sometimes when we are out taking pictures the sun is bright but we are standing in the shade and it can make out pictures turn out like this one below. The simple answer would have been to make sure that I had a neutral density filter in my camera bag at the time. Not to worry though because Camera Raw will allow us to edit the image in post production.

Bright and Dark, ugh! Needs a graduated filter

You will notice there is a graduated filter button near the top of the image. The concept of a filter is simple, it is just a gradient that flows from the top to the bottom of the image. One end of the gradient is solid at 100% and the other is transparent at 0%. The idea being that the darker side of the gradient will have more impact on the image while the lighter side will have less impact. As we did with the adjustment brush we will click and drag out the gradient and then make changes with the basic sliders.

In this corrected image you can see the green dot at the very bottom of the image showing where the adjustment starts and the red dot at the top showing where the adjustment ends. Also the image shows us that the exposure and shadows have been increased dramatically and it has had zero effect on the sky and the rock all thanks to a graduated filter.

HDR Images

As we wrap up our discussion about camera raw it is critical that we discuss in brief one more type of photography and that is High Dynamic Range otherwise known as HDR. It is simplest to show how this is done with some images:

Three exposures are combined into one to create the perfect shot.

These images are opened in Adobe Bridge and as you can see each has some things we like. In the first image we are given great details in the shadow and the reflection in the water. In the Second we have great mid-tones in the trees and in the last we have a rich blue sky. It follows since we are going to merge these three images into one that you will need a tri-pod and I suggest a remote shutter release or setting your camera to a two second delay so you are not touching the camera while taking the images. Also you will need to set up auto bracketing so that the camera takes three images at one time with three difference exposures. Taking the images can be a bit technical and beyond the scope of this conversation, but for now we will assume these images are ready to be combined.

When you combine these images you can do it in either Bridge or Adobe Lightroom, it works the same way. For simplicity I will show you using Adobe Bridge, make sure all three images are selected then: Go to Tools>Photoshop>Merge to HDR Pro...

This will open the image up in Photoshop’s HDR Pro dialog box and looks like the image on below:

There are a few things that I’d like to point out before we get right to the editing of this image. The remove ghosts checkbox will work to remove any movement that may have happened during the three exposures. I had some leafs floating in the water and it did a pretty good job fixing them. Always use 32 bit mode, I will explain that in just a moment. Finally you want to use Camera Raw to complete the edit.

By using the 32 bit mode my sliders are able to move farther, for EX: my exposure in a single image is limited to +/- 5. When using a 32 bit mode I can get +/- 10. With this added flexibility it becomes very easy to get a great shot. In this image you can see I was able to get my shadows back and that fabulous blue sky. I love the Mid-tones in the green trees and if I decide that I need more shadows remember you are in Camera Raw, put a neutral density filter on it and balance the image.

Final HDR Photo

Camera Raw will change your creative workflow and produces some serious results in the process. Have fun with camera raw, and remember you can use it on your jpg’s as well.