The Basic tab of the Camera Raw workspace is the most important control panel in the dialog box. It allows you to edit the image’s data by altering its white balance and exposure settings. You can also use this dialog to adjust the image’s shadow areas (the Blacks slider), and brightness and contrast—which has the same effect as the Brightness And Contrast dialog box in the CS3 workspace. There is also a new Fill Light feature that allows you to brighten shadow areas while leaving highlights unchanged, and a Recovery feature that allows you to darken highlight areas while leaving shadow areas unchanged. Fill Light and Recovery are Camera Raw’s equivalent to working with the Shadows and Highlights sliders in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog box. At the bottom of the panel, there is a set of controls for adjusting vibrance and saturation, as well as an option for converting images to grayscale.
White Balance Settings
The White Balance menu settings located in the Basic tab allow you to adjust the temperature and tint of a RAW image by choosing a preset lighting condition from the White Balance menu, or adjusting the settings manually with the Temperature and Tint controls. For RAW images, the preset menu includes the following options:
- As Shot applies the camera’s chosen white balance settings at the time of exposure.
- Auto attempts to balance the temperature and tint of the image automatically.
- Daylight adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect normal (or neutral) lighting conditions (5500° Kelvin). For this boat image, these settings are the same as As Shot.
- Cloudy adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect cool (or overcast) lighting conditions (6500° Kelvin).
- Shade adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect cool light, full shade lighting conditions (7500° Kelvin).
- Tungsten adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect balanced tungsten lighting conditions (2850° Kelvin). The name refers to incandescent electric lamps, whose filaments are made of tungsten.
- Fluorescent adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect fluorescent lighting conditions, usually containing a green cast (3800° Kelvin).
- Flash adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect balanced lighting conditions as produced by the use of a camera flash (5500° Kelvin, the same as Daylight).
- Custom balances the image based on the settings applied manually with the Temperature and Tint controls. Moving the Temperature slider to the left makes colors appear cooler (or more blue); moving it to the right makes colors appear warmer (or more yellow). Moving the Tint slider to the left applies negative values and adds green to the image; moving it to the right adds positive values and adds magenta.
As you can see, the top half of the RAW white balance preset options (except Auto) are meant for balancing outdoor lighting, and the bottom half for indoor lighting (except Custom). Note that when working with TIFFs and JPEGs, the only preset options available are As Shot, Auto, and Custom.
Tonal Controls
Below the Temperature and Tint controls in the Basic tab is a second group of sliders that allow you to apply tonal adjustments. To apply an automatic adjustment, click the word Auto above the sliders. In most cases, these auto settings do a great job of adjusting the image; however, to apply a specific adjustment or create a certain effect, you can always adjust the image manually by moving the sliders.
Exposure Moving the slider to the right increases the exposure, and as a result, lightens the image; moving it to the left decreases the exposure and darkens the image.
Recovery This slider works a lot like the Highlights slider in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. Moving the slider to the right allows you to darken highlight areas while leaving shadow areas unchanged.
Fill Light This slider works a lot like the Shadows slider in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. Moving the slider to the right allows you to brighten shadow areas while leaving highlights unchanged.
Blacks Moving the slider to the right increases the density of the shadow areas, and as a result, darkens the image; moving it to the left lightens the shadow areas. Highlight areas are not affected by this adjustment.
Brightness This control is similar to the gamma slider located in the Levels dialog box (the middle slider under the histogram) in that it can be used to adjust the midtones of an image; the only difference is that the Brightness slider redistributes the midtones by using a linear adjustment. Moving the slider to the right lightens the image; moving it to the left darkens it.
Contrast Moving this slider to the right expands the histogram to increase contrast between pixels; moving it to the left compresses the histogram to decrease contrast.
Vibrance This slider applies a nonlinear increase in saturation to lower-saturated pixels. It also contains a feature that helps prevent lighter flesh tones from becoming too red. In comparison with the Saturation control described next, the Vibrance control should prevent clipping from occurring as you increase the value.
Saturation This control is similar to the Saturation slider located in Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation dialog box (the bottom slider) in that it can be used to adjust the strength, or color purity, of the image. Moving the slider to the right increases saturation; moving it to the left decreases it.
Tone Curve
The Camera Raw dialog box also contains its own curves controls that allow you to make precise tonal adjustments, just as you would by using the Curves dialog box in the Photoshop CS3 workspace. You can work with tonal curves in Camera Raw by using traditional points or parametric sliders. Click the Point or Parametric tab to access either panel. The Point panel works similarly to the Curves dialog when it is set to Light display in Photoshop. This means that when a selected point along the curve is moved up, that area of the image becomes lighter, and when it is moved down, it becomes darker. As you hover the cursor over the image and press F/Ctrl, Photoshop displays a circle along the diagonal line that represents the corresponding gray value for that area in the image. You can add a control point along the curve by F/Ctrl+clicking. Points can then be moved with the arrow keys, just as they can in the Curves dialog. To change your point selection along the curve, press Control/Ctrl+Tab. Doing so selects the next point on the right. The Parametric panel combines sliders (similar to those found in Photoshop’s Levels and Brightness/Contrast dialog boxes) with the Curves graph. Rather than clicking on the baseline to add points and move the curve, you can make adjustments by moving any of the four slider controls: Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows. As you move the sliders, the curve adjusts itself automatically.
For both the Parametric and Point tabs, the curves grid is permanently displayed in quarter tone (25%) increments and cannot be changed to 10% increments as in the Curves dialog. You can also apply a preset contrast setting by choosing one from the Point Curve menu. Depending on the image you’re working with, choosing one of these presets can be a good starting point when making tonal adjustments in Camera Raw.
HSL/Grayscale
Click the H tab to access the HSL/Grayscale control panel. This panel allows you to adjust colors in the image just as you would when using the Hue/Saturation and Black And White adjustment dialog boxes in the Photoshop CS3 workspace. The main difference between this panel and the Hue/Saturation dialog is that all of the colors are displayed with their own slider controls. You do not have to choose colors from a menu as you do with the Hue/Saturation adjustment dialog. Click the Hue, Saturation, or Luminance tabs to access the same color sliders for each control. Note that working with the Luminance panel in the Camera Raw workspace is the same as working with the Lightness slider in the Hue/Saturation dialog. Enabling the Convert To Grayscale option allows you to work with controls that are very similar to what is found in the Black And White adjustment dialog. The sliders allow you to modify the influence of red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta in the resulting black-and-white image.
Split Toning
You can use the controls located in the Split Toning tab along with the Convert To Grayscale option to create a sepia-tone effect directly in Camera Raw. To do so, first select the Convert To Grayscale check box in either the Basic or HSL/Grayscale tabs, and then make any necessary contrast adjustments by using the HSL/Grayscale sliders (see HSL/Grayscale explained in the preceding section). The Split Toning sliders are very similar to the ones found in Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation adjustment dialog. Using the Hue sliders, you can assign one color to the highlights and another to the shadows in order to “split” the tones of the image. You can control how vibrant the chosen Highlights and Shadows colors appear by moving the Saturation sliders. Use the Balance slider to favor one color over the other (shadow or highlight). To create more of a sepia effect, I raised the saturation value for the highlights significantly higher than the red shadows. I also adjusted the balance setting to favor the yellow highlights.
The Detail Tab
On its Detail tab, Camera Raw offers three controls that let you enhance sharpness, apply luminance smoothing, and reduce color noise.
Sharpening This control is similar to applying the Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask filters in Photoshop; it increases the amount of contrast between adjacent pixels. Unlike the Contrast slider, which affects the entire histogram, the Sharpening Amount slider increases edge definition and creates the appearance of sharper focus. Moving the slider to the right increases the sharpening effect; moving it to the left decreases it. To really see what’s happening to your pixels when applying sharpening, you should always preview the image at 100%. If necessary, you can navigate around the image in the preview window with the Hand tool to see the how sharpening is affecting different areas of the image.
Camera Raw Sharpening vs. Filter Sharpening
Once opened, the Camera Raw plug-in automatically sharpens the image based on the camera model, the image ISO, and exposure settings. Any further sharpening with the Sharpening slider is a step usually best saved for last. In most cases, it’s better to leave the plug-in Sharpening setting alone and not make any adjustments. Instead, use the Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask filters after you’ve opened the image in Photoshop.
Luminance Smoothing Shooting in low-light conditions can often cause random grayscale pixels (called noise) to appear in the image. Luminance noise is often caused by oversharpening an image as well. Too much noise can make your image look grainy. To soften these noisy areas, you can apply a Luminance Smoothing adjustment. Moving the slider to the right increases the smoothing effect; moving it to the left decreases it. There is a delicate balance between softening luminance noise and blurring your image, so be careful not to overdo it.
Color Noise Reduction Adjusting the Color Noise Reduction slider reduces the amount of random color pixels (or noise) that results from variations in image hue and saturation. Moving the slider to the right increases the amount of color noise reduction; moving it to the left decreases it.
Lens Corrections
The controls in the Lens Corrections tab can be used to fix specific image problems related to the lens that was used to take the photo. These types of adjustments are generally made by the photographer and not the layout artist, but on occasion you may find it necessary to make them yourself. For example, if you’ve ever received an image that contains halos of color around high-contrast edges, you’ve been faced with a lens-related problem known as chromatic aberration. This happens when the lens (usually wide-angle) has problems focusing different wavelengths of light at different points. The higher the contrast in the image, the more noticeable the halo is. If the halo is red on one side and cyan on the opposite, you can reduce it by moving the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe slider. If the halo is blue and yellow, move the Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe slider. Doing so scales the colors that make up the image, which can help reduce the appearance of the halo, but rarely gets rid of it entirely.
The Lens Vignetting sliders allow you to make up for light that has fallen off the edge of an image. By definition, a vignette (an “old school” photography term) refers to an image that features a bright center and dark edges surrounding it. Vignettes can be very effective when used in a print layout, as they tend to draw the viewer’s eye to the center of the image. The Lens Vignetting Amount slider allows you to remove an existing vignette by lightening dark edges, or to create one by darkening them. The Lens Vignetting Midpoint slider controls how far the edge moves in toward the center of the image.
Camera Calibration
The controls in the Camera Calibration tab allow you to adjust Photoshop’s interpretation of the color information provided by the camera that captured the image. For example, many digital cameras tend to produce images with a color cast in the shadow areas. By moving the Shadows Tint slider, you can shift the color present in the darkest areas of your image toward green (left) or magenta (right) and remove the cast. The primary red, green, and blue Hue and Saturation sliders behave similarly to the sliders in the HSL tab. The intent here is to use these sliders to simulate the color produced by different traditional film types; however, you can also use them to correct or enhance color.
The Presets Tab
The Presets tab allows you to save your favorite settings for later use with other images. Applying saved settings can be extremely helpful when preparing multiple images for print that were photographed by using the same camera under similar lighting conditions. Some prime candidates for applying saved settings are comparable catalog product shots, or similar headshots for a brochure. From the flyout menu located in the upper right of the panel’s title bar, choose Save Settings. This launches the Save Settings dialog box, where you can choose which of the Camera Raw adjustment settings you would like to save as a preset. Place a check next to the settings that you’d like to include, or choose from the individual options listed in the Subset menu at the top of the dialog. When all of the settings that you’d like to save are selected, click the Save button. In the dialog box that appears, enter a name for the preset and choose a location on your drive where you’d like to save the .xmp file. I find that it’s much easier to manage these files when they’re all saved in the default location. Click OK to close the Save Settings dialog. The new preset is immediately displayed in the Presets tab, and you will always have access to it, no matter what images you open in Camera Raw. To apply a preset, open an image in Camera Raw and click the preset from the Presets tab list. The saved settings are immediately applied.
White Balance Settings
The White Balance menu settings located in the Basic tab allow you to adjust the temperature and tint of a RAW image by choosing a preset lighting condition from the White Balance menu, or adjusting the settings manually with the Temperature and Tint controls. For RAW images, the preset menu includes the following options:
- As Shot applies the camera’s chosen white balance settings at the time of exposure.
- Auto attempts to balance the temperature and tint of the image automatically.
- Daylight adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect normal (or neutral) lighting conditions (5500° Kelvin). For this boat image, these settings are the same as As Shot.
- Cloudy adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect cool (or overcast) lighting conditions (6500° Kelvin).
- Shade adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect cool light, full shade lighting conditions (7500° Kelvin).
- Tungsten adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect balanced tungsten lighting conditions (2850° Kelvin). The name refers to incandescent electric lamps, whose filaments are made of tungsten.
- Fluorescent adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect fluorescent lighting conditions, usually containing a green cast (3800° Kelvin).
- Flash adjusts the temperature and tint to reflect balanced lighting conditions as produced by the use of a camera flash (5500° Kelvin, the same as Daylight).
- Custom balances the image based on the settings applied manually with the Temperature and Tint controls. Moving the Temperature slider to the left makes colors appear cooler (or more blue); moving it to the right makes colors appear warmer (or more yellow). Moving the Tint slider to the left applies negative values and adds green to the image; moving it to the right adds positive values and adds magenta.
As you can see, the top half of the RAW white balance preset options (except Auto) are meant for balancing outdoor lighting, and the bottom half for indoor lighting (except Custom). Note that when working with TIFFs and JPEGs, the only preset options available are As Shot, Auto, and Custom.
Tonal Controls
Below the Temperature and Tint controls in the Basic tab is a second group of sliders that allow you to apply tonal adjustments. To apply an automatic adjustment, click the word Auto above the sliders. In most cases, these auto settings do a great job of adjusting the image; however, to apply a specific adjustment or create a certain effect, you can always adjust the image manually by moving the sliders.
Exposure Moving the slider to the right increases the exposure, and as a result, lightens the image; moving it to the left decreases the exposure and darkens the image.
Recovery This slider works a lot like the Highlights slider in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. Moving the slider to the right allows you to darken highlight areas while leaving shadow areas unchanged.
Fill Light This slider works a lot like the Shadows slider in the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. Moving the slider to the right allows you to brighten shadow areas while leaving highlights unchanged.
Blacks Moving the slider to the right increases the density of the shadow areas, and as a result, darkens the image; moving it to the left lightens the shadow areas. Highlight areas are not affected by this adjustment.
Brightness This control is similar to the gamma slider located in the Levels dialog box (the middle slider under the histogram) in that it can be used to adjust the midtones of an image; the only difference is that the Brightness slider redistributes the midtones by using a linear adjustment. Moving the slider to the right lightens the image; moving it to the left darkens it.
Contrast Moving this slider to the right expands the histogram to increase contrast between pixels; moving it to the left compresses the histogram to decrease contrast.
Vibrance This slider applies a nonlinear increase in saturation to lower-saturated pixels. It also contains a feature that helps prevent lighter flesh tones from becoming too red. In comparison with the Saturation control described next, the Vibrance control should prevent clipping from occurring as you increase the value.
Saturation This control is similar to the Saturation slider located in Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation dialog box (the bottom slider) in that it can be used to adjust the strength, or color purity, of the image. Moving the slider to the right increases saturation; moving it to the left decreases it.
Tone Curve
The Camera Raw dialog box also contains its own curves controls that allow you to make precise tonal adjustments, just as you would by using the Curves dialog box in the Photoshop CS3 workspace. You can work with tonal curves in Camera Raw by using traditional points or parametric sliders. Click the Point or Parametric tab to access either panel. The Point panel works similarly to the Curves dialog when it is set to Light display in Photoshop. This means that when a selected point along the curve is moved up, that area of the image becomes lighter, and when it is moved down, it becomes darker. As you hover the cursor over the image and press F/Ctrl, Photoshop displays a circle along the diagonal line that represents the corresponding gray value for that area in the image. You can add a control point along the curve by F/Ctrl+clicking. Points can then be moved with the arrow keys, just as they can in the Curves dialog. To change your point selection along the curve, press Control/Ctrl+Tab. Doing so selects the next point on the right. The Parametric panel combines sliders (similar to those found in Photoshop’s Levels and Brightness/Contrast dialog boxes) with the Curves graph. Rather than clicking on the baseline to add points and move the curve, you can make adjustments by moving any of the four slider controls: Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows. As you move the sliders, the curve adjusts itself automatically.
For both the Parametric and Point tabs, the curves grid is permanently displayed in quarter tone (25%) increments and cannot be changed to 10% increments as in the Curves dialog. You can also apply a preset contrast setting by choosing one from the Point Curve menu. Depending on the image you’re working with, choosing one of these presets can be a good starting point when making tonal adjustments in Camera Raw.
HSL/Grayscale
Click the H tab to access the HSL/Grayscale control panel. This panel allows you to adjust colors in the image just as you would when using the Hue/Saturation and Black And White adjustment dialog boxes in the Photoshop CS3 workspace. The main difference between this panel and the Hue/Saturation dialog is that all of the colors are displayed with their own slider controls. You do not have to choose colors from a menu as you do with the Hue/Saturation adjustment dialog. Click the Hue, Saturation, or Luminance tabs to access the same color sliders for each control. Note that working with the Luminance panel in the Camera Raw workspace is the same as working with the Lightness slider in the Hue/Saturation dialog. Enabling the Convert To Grayscale option allows you to work with controls that are very similar to what is found in the Black And White adjustment dialog. The sliders allow you to modify the influence of red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta in the resulting black-and-white image.
Split Toning
You can use the controls located in the Split Toning tab along with the Convert To Grayscale option to create a sepia-tone effect directly in Camera Raw. To do so, first select the Convert To Grayscale check box in either the Basic or HSL/Grayscale tabs, and then make any necessary contrast adjustments by using the HSL/Grayscale sliders (see HSL/Grayscale explained in the preceding section). The Split Toning sliders are very similar to the ones found in Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation adjustment dialog. Using the Hue sliders, you can assign one color to the highlights and another to the shadows in order to “split” the tones of the image. You can control how vibrant the chosen Highlights and Shadows colors appear by moving the Saturation sliders. Use the Balance slider to favor one color over the other (shadow or highlight). To create more of a sepia effect, I raised the saturation value for the highlights significantly higher than the red shadows. I also adjusted the balance setting to favor the yellow highlights.
The Detail Tab
On its Detail tab, Camera Raw offers three controls that let you enhance sharpness, apply luminance smoothing, and reduce color noise.
Sharpening This control is similar to applying the Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask filters in Photoshop; it increases the amount of contrast between adjacent pixels. Unlike the Contrast slider, which affects the entire histogram, the Sharpening Amount slider increases edge definition and creates the appearance of sharper focus. Moving the slider to the right increases the sharpening effect; moving it to the left decreases it. To really see what’s happening to your pixels when applying sharpening, you should always preview the image at 100%. If necessary, you can navigate around the image in the preview window with the Hand tool to see the how sharpening is affecting different areas of the image.
Camera Raw Sharpening vs. Filter Sharpening
Once opened, the Camera Raw plug-in automatically sharpens the image based on the camera model, the image ISO, and exposure settings. Any further sharpening with the Sharpening slider is a step usually best saved for last. In most cases, it’s better to leave the plug-in Sharpening setting alone and not make any adjustments. Instead, use the Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask filters after you’ve opened the image in Photoshop.
Luminance Smoothing Shooting in low-light conditions can often cause random grayscale pixels (called noise) to appear in the image. Luminance noise is often caused by oversharpening an image as well. Too much noise can make your image look grainy. To soften these noisy areas, you can apply a Luminance Smoothing adjustment. Moving the slider to the right increases the smoothing effect; moving it to the left decreases it. There is a delicate balance between softening luminance noise and blurring your image, so be careful not to overdo it.
Color Noise Reduction Adjusting the Color Noise Reduction slider reduces the amount of random color pixels (or noise) that results from variations in image hue and saturation. Moving the slider to the right increases the amount of color noise reduction; moving it to the left decreases it.
Lens Corrections
The controls in the Lens Corrections tab can be used to fix specific image problems related to the lens that was used to take the photo. These types of adjustments are generally made by the photographer and not the layout artist, but on occasion you may find it necessary to make them yourself. For example, if you’ve ever received an image that contains halos of color around high-contrast edges, you’ve been faced with a lens-related problem known as chromatic aberration. This happens when the lens (usually wide-angle) has problems focusing different wavelengths of light at different points. The higher the contrast in the image, the more noticeable the halo is. If the halo is red on one side and cyan on the opposite, you can reduce it by moving the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe slider. If the halo is blue and yellow, move the Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe slider. Doing so scales the colors that make up the image, which can help reduce the appearance of the halo, but rarely gets rid of it entirely.
The Lens Vignetting sliders allow you to make up for light that has fallen off the edge of an image. By definition, a vignette (an “old school” photography term) refers to an image that features a bright center and dark edges surrounding it. Vignettes can be very effective when used in a print layout, as they tend to draw the viewer’s eye to the center of the image. The Lens Vignetting Amount slider allows you to remove an existing vignette by lightening dark edges, or to create one by darkening them. The Lens Vignetting Midpoint slider controls how far the edge moves in toward the center of the image.
Camera Calibration
The controls in the Camera Calibration tab allow you to adjust Photoshop’s interpretation of the color information provided by the camera that captured the image. For example, many digital cameras tend to produce images with a color cast in the shadow areas. By moving the Shadows Tint slider, you can shift the color present in the darkest areas of your image toward green (left) or magenta (right) and remove the cast. The primary red, green, and blue Hue and Saturation sliders behave similarly to the sliders in the HSL tab. The intent here is to use these sliders to simulate the color produced by different traditional film types; however, you can also use them to correct or enhance color.
The Presets Tab
The Presets tab allows you to save your favorite settings for later use with other images. Applying saved settings can be extremely helpful when preparing multiple images for print that were photographed by using the same camera under similar lighting conditions. Some prime candidates for applying saved settings are comparable catalog product shots, or similar headshots for a brochure. From the flyout menu located in the upper right of the panel’s title bar, choose Save Settings. This launches the Save Settings dialog box, where you can choose which of the Camera Raw adjustment settings you would like to save as a preset. Place a check next to the settings that you’d like to include, or choose from the individual options listed in the Subset menu at the top of the dialog. When all of the settings that you’d like to save are selected, click the Save button. In the dialog box that appears, enter a name for the preset and choose a location on your drive where you’d like to save the .xmp file. I find that it’s much easier to manage these files when they’re all saved in the default location. Click OK to close the Save Settings dialog. The new preset is immediately displayed in the Presets tab, and you will always have access to it, no matter what images you open in Camera Raw. To apply a preset, open an image in Camera Raw and click the preset from the Presets tab list. The saved settings are immediately applied.
The Basic Tab When Working with RAW Images and Camera Raw in Photoshop
![The Basic Tab When Working with RAW Images and Camera Raw in Photoshop]()
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