Adobe Camera Raw - Basic Applications
The objective of this lesson was show the student how to use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for the initial processing of their digital photographs.
First Photo
This first photo, captured here by a screen shot of the ACR window, was taken with available light using a point and shoot Canon G6. It was hand-held, and the dog moved slightly during the shot. The image shows the clipping of the highlights against the left wall, with a slight clipping of the dark tones on the dog's sweater. The image also shows a false color of the walls because of the bad exposure.
I cropped the image to concentrate on the dog, before making changes.
The primary changes were made using the Basic tab of the ACR window. I changed the Temperature of the White Balance to warm up the photo and get a more natural color. I increased the Recovery to 38 to remove much of the clipping from the highlights in the wall. I added a little Fill Light and increased the Brightness to brighten the photo. I adjusted the Parametric curve to lower the accent on the highlights and add intensity to the midtones.
I did try the adjustments in the Detail tab, but the improvements were minor because of the picture was taken hand-held and the dog moved his head during the shot. At least, in this final version, I can tell that he was also licking his nose. Low light, slow camera with minimal lens opening makes for a shaky photo, but fun to try and recapture.
Second Photo
I took the second photo of a sign, outside on an overcast day. I had preset the White Balance to an incorrect level to create a false exposure. Since the picture was captured with RAW, I expected to recover the correct color with ACR. This is a screen shot of the initial photo. The clipping is so severe it looks like a false color shot.
I changed the White Balance drop down menu to Cloudy, and increased the Recovery to minimize the clipping highlights. I had to leave some clipping there in order to retain some correct color and clarity to the rest of the sign. The other change I made was to increase the Brightness to +51, and the Vibrance to +33. Changes to the Parametric curves did not do much to this picture, so I concentrated on the Detail tab. Since I am relatively unfamiliar with sharpening, I just "played" with the settings until I had something I liked.
This is the photo after the adjustments.
I was suspicious of what appeared to be a visual defect in the picture, just above the horizontal white strip at the top of the sign. But in a closer look, it turned out to be small pine needles and leaves from adjacent trees. I am providing an enlargement of that area, just for the fun of it.
Third Photo
The third photo was provided by Ron Lacey, and is shown here. It had a slightly overexposed sky with a dark foreground.
I selected Daylight for the White Balance, added fill light, greatly increased Brightness, and modified the Tone Curve to give the midtones more brightness. I also increased the Vibrance level.
This was an excellent detailed exposure in the first place, with what appeared to be a very good lens. So I was able to make adjustments to the Detail which significantly improved the sharpness of the image at a Zoom of over 100%.
The final adjusted image is show next.
That's all for this lesson.
