PICshopy: Using Camera Raw 5.0

Using Camera Raw 5.0 in photoshop

I not only use all the brains I have, but all
that I can borrow.
—Woodrow Wilson

Using Camera Raw 5.0

It has been an ongoing dilemma for digital photogra-
phers in recent years: JPG or raw? Some might say that
only high-end photographers with high-end gear (read:
“expensive”) could afford to shoot raw, in all forms of the
word. But raw-format photography is now a fairly com-
mon technique used by photographers of all skill levels
to ensure maximum image quality and a higher level of
editing latitude. Raw ﬁles are different from JPEG or TIFF
images in that they contain all the data that was captured
from the camera, but with minimal processing. Many digi-
tal cameras today shoot raw—even small pocket cameras.
For this reason, understanding how to process raw ﬁles is
more important than ever so you can properly evaluate
your workﬂow.

What Is Raw Format?

Your digital camera has to do quite a bit of processing to
turn the raw data from your camera into a JPEG or TIFF
ﬁle. It must interpolate color, adjust for white balance,
correct gamma, convert to a color proﬁle, sharpen, and
perform saturation and other adjustments before ﬁnally
compressing the ﬁle into a JPEG image. Think of a raw
ﬁle as the pure data that comes from the camera’s sen-
sor. Many image editors can open raw images on both PC
and Mac, but occasionally raw formats won’t communi-
cate. This situation leaves you frustrated and stuck with a

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bunch of images you won’t know how to handle. However,
Photoshop CS4 can open your raw ﬁles, so don’t worry.
Raw offers several advantages over shooting in JPEG:
 Because the ﬁles aren’t compressed, you don’t have to
worry about the resulting images exhibiting unsightly
JPEG artifacts.

 Most digital cameras capture 10–14 bits of color per
pixel, but JPEG ﬁles allow for only 8 bits per pixel,
meaning that your camera must discard some of its
color data when it converts to a JPEG ﬁle. With a raw
image, you can keep all of the color data, which means
that you can push your edits further before you run
into posterization, poor exposure, bad color depth, etc.
 With raw format, you don’t have to worry about the
white balance setting on your camera, because you
can specify that setting when opening the image in
Photoshop.
 Raw ﬁles often allow for recovery of overexposed high-
lights. You read that correctly: The details in highlight
areas that have blown out to complete white can be
restored.
 When improved raw converters are released, you can go
back to your raw images and reprocess them, possibly
securing a higher-quality image. A raw ﬁle is truly like a
“digital negative.”
 When working with raw ﬁles in Photoshop and Bridge,
you have access to handy batch-processing mechanisms
that can greatly speed your raw-based workﬂow.

Photoshop’s RAW format isn’t the
same as Camera Raw format. The
names sound almost identical,
but Camera Raw files can only
originate from a digital camera, and
Photoshop cannot change the file
at all. Camera Raw files are locked
because they’re designed to contain
only the information that came
from the digital camera; therefore,
they cannot be directly modified
after the photo is taken. Think of it
like the files on a CD. You can open
them, but you can’t save back to
the CD because it’s locked. That
doesn’t limit what you can do to
the images; it just means that you
have to save the changes under a
different name. With Camera Raw
files, changes have to be saved in a
different file format (such as TIFF or
JPG). Photoshop’s RAW file format,
on the other hand, is mainly used
to export images so they can be
imported into unusual software
that can’t handle common file
formats. (I doubt that you’ll ever
have to use this option.)

When you attempt to open a raw format image in Photo-
shop, the Camera Raw 5.0 dialog opens. This is where you
can adjust everything from the overall color of the image
to the brightness and contrast, as well as control how much
sharpening will be applied.

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The Camera Raw 5.0 Dialog

Zoom Tool
Hand Tool
White Balance
Color Sampler

Let’s start with a brief overview of the layout of the Camera
Raw 5.0 dialog (Figure 4.1), and then we’ll dive deeper and
look at each speciﬁc setting.

Crop
Straighten
Spot Removal
Red Eye Removal
Adjustment Brush
Graduated Filter
Open Preferences

Basic Tools
Tone Curve Tools
Detail
HSL / Grayscale
Split Tone
Lens Correction
Camera Calibration

Rotate 90° Counterclockwise
Rotate 90° Clockwise

Toggle Full
Screen Mode

Presets
Histogram

Figure 4.1 The Camera Raw 5.0 dialog opens when you load a raw image in Photoshop.

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Across the top of the dialog are a set of tools and rotation
icons:
 Zoom and Hand tools. The Zoom and Hand tools

navigate around the image, like elsewhere in Photo-
shop, but I ﬁnd the following keyboard shortcuts to be
more efﬁcient: Hold down Command/Ctrl and press
the plus (+) or minus (–) key to zoom in or out on the
image, and hold down the spacebar to make the Hand
tool active temporarily. The current magniﬁcation is
indicated just below the image.
 Eyedropper tools. Next to the navigation tools are two
eyedropper tools. The left eyedropper (White Balance)
works much like the middle eyedropper in both the
Levels and Curves dialogs. The right eyedropper (Color
Sampler) causes RGB readouts to appear above the
image preview, much like what you’d get in the Info
panel. (We talked about the Info panel and the eye-
dropper tools in Chapter 1, “Tools and Panels Primer.”)
You’ll see how to use the White Balance tool shortly,
when we start looking at the features that appear on the
right side of the Camera Raw dialog.
 Crop and Straighten tools. Next to the eyedropper tools
are the Crop and Straighten tools. After choosing the
Crop tool, you can click and drag across an image to
control how much of the image will appear when it’s
opened in Photoshop (Figure 4.2). Clicking and hold-
ing on the Crop tool presents a menu of preset width/
height ratios and an option for a custom size (Figure
4.3). Choosing Custom allows you to enter a precise
width and height, such as 8 × 10 inches (Figure 4.4).
After you choose a preset or custom crop setting, the
cropping rectangle becomes constrained when drag-
ging over the image.

You can find updates to Camera
Raw by visiting www.adobe.
com and clicking > Support >
Downloads > Photoshop. Once
you’ve downloaded the update,
double-click it to decompress
the file. Place it in the following
location on your hard drive: Library/
Application Support/Adobe/Plug-
ins/CS3/File Formats (Windows: C:/
Program Files/Adobe/Plug-ins/File
Formats).

Figure 4.2 The cropping rectangle
indicates which portion of the image
will appear when it’s opened.

Figure 4.3 Click and hold the Crop
tool to access this menu.

Figure 4.4 Clicking
the Crop tool and
choosing Custom
allows you to enter a
precise image size.

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Figure 4.5 An image that could benefit from using the
Straighten tool.

Figure 4.6 Straightening the image in the Camera Raw 5.0
dialog.

If an image is crooked, click the Straighten tool and
then click and drag across any straight line that should
be horizontal or vertical in the image, such as the
horizon line (Figure 4.5). Release the mouse button
to display a cropping rectangle that reﬂects how the
image will be rotated when it’s opened in Photoshop
(Figure 4.6). You can then press the Enter/Return key
to conﬁrm the cropped and rotated version, or simply
click the Open Image button at the bottom of the Cam-
era Raw 5.0 dialog to see the cropped and straightened
image in Photoshop (Figure 4.7).
 Spot Removal and Red Eye Removal tools. Next to the
Crop and Straighten tools are the Spot Removal and
Red Eye Removal tools. The Spot Removal tool lets you

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Figure 4.7 The adjusted image,
opened in Photoshop. (Looks like we
need to do a bit more straightening.)

If you happen to draw the first
line incorrectly, click the gray area
to lose the crop review, and then
redraw with the Straighten tool.

perform adjustments similar to those you can do in
Photoshop using the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp
tools (Figure 4.8). The options allow you to choose
from Heal or Clone. When set to Heal, the correction
works similarly to the Healing Brush tool in Photoshop,
except that you “stamp” your adjustments: After copy-
ing the data from the source location to the destina-
tion, Photoshop blends the copied pixels with the
surrounding areas to make a cleaner patch. If you set
the menu to Clone, the pixels are copied without any
blending.

II: Production Essentials

Figure 4.8 Use the Spot Removal tool to remove spots,
such as sensor dust.

Figure 4.9 The Adjustment Brush increases or decreases
exposure throughout an image.

The Spot Removal tool is not intended for any complex
retouching or fancy effects. Rather, these tools provide
a simple way to handle sensor dust and scanning arti-
facts that need to be removed.
We’ve all seen red-eye, the demonic look that can show
up in people’s eyes when the light from a camera’s
ﬂash bounces off their retinas. You can correct red-eye
in the Camera Raw 5.0 dialog by selecting the Red Eye
Removal tool and then clicking the red part of the per-
son’s pupil. The Pupil Size and Darken sliders let you
reﬁne your correction.
 Adjustment Brush. New to Camera Raw 5.0, this tool
allows you to paint exposure, either less or more on
speciﬁc areas of an image. It’s not exactly a dodge and
burn function, but you can think of it in those terms
when working with raw images. You can vary exposure
throughout the image quickly and effectively (Figure
4.9). Additionally, you can paint brightness, contrast,
saturation, clarity, and sharpness. Brush and feather
sizes can be adjusted on the ﬂy. Holding down the
Option key lets you brush to revert the effect and allows
you to tweak the Size, Feather, Flow, and Density sliders
to change the brush size and behavior.

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Figure 4.10 The graduated filter allows you to refocus the
viewer’s attention within an image.

Figure 4.11 Graduated filters are great for darkening and
coloring skies.

 Graduated Filter. Also new to Camera Raw 5.0, this
handy option can help to pull the viewer’s eye closer to

Most raw files contain 12 bits of
information, but Photoshop can
deal with 8-bit or 16-bit files. That’s
like owning 12 cars and having to
choose between an 8- or 16-car
garage. The 8-car garage would
cost half as much (in Photoshop,
that means half the file size), but
you’d have to give up something
to use it. A 16-car garage might be
more than you need, but since 8
or 16 are your only choices, it’s the
only choice that doesn’t make you
compromise.

the center of an image (Figure 4.10). But the gradu-
ated ﬁlter is more complex than just adding a gradient
to the image. Figure 4.11 shows the ﬁlter applied to
the top of an image, with the color set to a deep blue,
and the contrast increased. The result is not so much a
darker sky as a deeper, richer sky. Conversely, you can
lighten areas of an image with the graduated ﬁlter by
increasing exposure.
 Camera Raw Preferences. To the right of all these
adjustment tools is a button for opening the Camera
Raw Preferences dialog. There are a number of settings
that you can customize from the Preferences dialog.

 Rotating tools. Finally, two tools are available for rotat-
ing the image 90° to the left or right. It might be more
efﬁcient to type L or R, respectively.
 Management controls. Further to the right at the top of
the Camera Raw 5.0 dialog are two important window-
management controls. When the Preview check box is
turned on, the image is displayed with all of your cor-
rections applied. Turn off the Preview check box to see
your original, unaltered image. This feature provides a
simple before-and-after switch that you can also access
by simply pressing P.

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The button on the far right side is the Toggle Full
Screen Mode button, which expands the Camera Raw
window to ﬁll the full screen. In addition to displaying
a larger image, Full Screen Mode hides other distract-
ing interface elements and controls. As in Photoshop
itself, you can toggle in and out of Full Screen Mode by
pressing F.
 Workﬂow options. Beneath the image preview are the

workﬂow settings for the image—a line of text that indi-
cates color space, bit depth, pixel dimensions, and reso-
lution setting (Figure 4.12). You might notice that these
settings look like a link on a Web page; sure enough,
clicking the link displays the Workﬂow Options dialog
(Figure 4.13).
The workﬂow options let you specify how much infor-
mation will be delivered to Photoshop when you open
the image. The Space pop-up menu controls the range
of colors the image is capable of using (also known
as a color space). It’s recommended that you set it to
the same RGB working space that you’ll read about in

Figure 4.12 You can view your image
workflow, such as resolution and color
space, at the bottom of the Camera
Raw dialog.

Figure 4.13 Clicking the workflow set-
tings link at the bottom of the Camera
Raw dialog displays the Workflow
Options dialog.

Chapter 7, “Setting Up Images for Final Output.” For
now, you can leave it set to Adobe RGB.
The Depth pop-up menu determines how many shades
Photoshop can use between black and white. Choos-
ing 8 Bits/Channel delivers an image that contains a
maximum of 256 brightness levels, which makes for
16.7 million colors. Choosing 16 Bits/Channel delivers
an image that contains a maximum of 65536 brightness
levels—giving you millions of colors in the image. The
problem is that 16-bit ﬁles take up twice as much space
as 8-bit ﬁles on your hard drive, and neither your com-
puter screen nor your printer is capable of reproducing
more than 8 bits of information.
There’s a lot of hype out there about the advantages of
16-bit ﬁles, but when it comes down to the end result,
the difference between 8 and 16 bits is barely detect-
able (except in some circumstances, which you can
read about in the sidebar). Some folks out there might
try to shame you into using 16-bit mode by showing

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you a histogram (bar graph) that shows the difference
between 8- and 16-bit results. If that ever happens to
you, please ignore the bar graph and ask to see two

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Computer monitors and desktop
printers are not capable of repro-
ducing more than 256 brightness
levels (also known as 8 bits). Are
the 4096 brightness levels that
come with a 12-bit image overkill,
or are they worth keeping? What
if you have a very dark image that
only contains brightness levels from
black to 90% gray, and you end up
adjusting the image in Photoshop
to make the brightest area white
while keeping the darkest area
black? Since the original image
contained only 10% of the shades
available, an 8-bit version would
contain a maximum of 26 bright-
ness levels and the 12-bit version
would have 410! Wouldn’t the
12-bit image produce a smoother
result? It’s only in extreme cases
that the extra information is help-
ful, so use them only when you plan
to make an extreme adjustment in
Photoshop (all adjustments in the
Camera Raw dialog are applied to
the full 12 bits of information).

Figure 4.14 A handy histogram and
the image’s f-stop data are provided in
the upper-right corner of the Camera
Raw dialog.

prints side by side. If you actually see a noticeable
difference between the prints, consider taking the
person’s advice and using 16-bit images. On the other
hand, if having reasonable ﬁle sizes and a relatively fast
computer are your priorities, stick with 8-bit images;
your results will still look great. I suggest using 16 Bits/
Channel only when you plan to make major adjust-
ments to the images within Photoshop, or when you
really don’t care how large your ﬁles become or how
slowly your computer runs while you’re working on an
image.
The Size and Resolution settings in the Workﬂow
Options dialog determine the physical size of the image
when it’s opened in Photoshop. This interpolation is
discussed in the bonus video “Resolution Solutions” at
www.danablan.com/photoshop.
Finally, there’s that Open in Photoshop as Smart
Objects check box. We’ll discuss Smart Objects in detail
in Chapter 10, “Collage Effects.”
Once you’ve conﬁgured your workﬂow settings, click
OK to return to the Camera Raw dialog.

In the upper-right corner of the Camera Raw dialog is a
histogram that shows how the sliders in the dialog affect
the overall tonality of the image. You just read about
histograms in Chapter 3, “Layers and Curves,” and this
one works the same way. The histogram and its uses will
be discussed further when we get to the point where we’re
adjusting images.
Directly beneath the histogram, Adobe has conveniently
placed a simple readout that shows the f-stop, shutter
speed, ISO, and focal length that were used for the
image (Figure 4.14). Next to that information is an RGB
readout that shows the component color values for any
pixel that you mouse over, just like the Info panel does
in Photoshop.

II: Production Essentials

Below these readouts are an array of sliders organized into
tabs of different categories, each with its own set of con-
trols. Let’s look at these settings one at a time.

Basic Tab
The Basic tab should be your mandatory ﬁrst stop in the
Camera Raw dialog (Figure 4.15); all the other settings on
the other tabs can be considered optional. The Basic tab
is where you can change the overall tone and color of the
image. It’s often good to start with the White Balance set-
ting. If the overall color temperature of your image is off,
you’ll have a difﬁcult time evaluating the proper exposure,
contrast, and other necessary values.

White Balance
The White Balance setting allows you to shift the overall
color of your image, making it feel warm, cool, or neu-
tral. There are three ways to set the white balance of your
image: by using the pop-up menu, the sliders, or (in most
cases) the eyedropper tool.
The White Balance pop-up menu contains presets for
different types of lighting conditions (Daylight, Cloudy,
Tungsten, Fluorescent). If you know in which type of light
an image was shot, choose that preset so Photoshop will

correct for that particular light source. If you’re not sure
what the lighting conditions were when the image was shot,

Figure 4.15 The Basic tab contains
tools you’ll use on all of your images.

just click through the various options and watch the image
change until you ﬁnd the setting that makes the colors in
the image look the best (Figures 4.16 and 4.17). If you’re
in a big hurry, set White Balance to Auto, and Photoshop
will choose a setting that’s appropriate for the lighting
conditions of the image. The White Balance pop-up menu
moves the Temperature and Tint sliders to preset posi-
tions. Before you start ﬁddling with those sliders, choose
a setting on the pop-up menu to give you a good starting
point, which you can then ﬁne-tune with the sliders.

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Figure 4.16 A raw image loaded into Camera Raw and set
to a Fluorescent white balance preset makes the outdoors

Figure 4.17 The image from Figure 4.16 with White Balance
set to daylight.

look too blue.

Moving the Temperature slider to the left shifts the colors
in the image toward blue; sliding it to the right shifts toward
yellow. The Tint slider shifts the color in the image toward
green (left) or magenta (right). The combination of these
two sliders allows you to shift the image toward just about
any color. For instance, if you move both the Temperature
and Tint sliders to the right, you’ll simultaneously shift
the image toward yellow and magenta. Those two colors
combined produce red, so that’s the color toward which the
image will shift. Moving the sliders left shifts toward both
blue and green, which sends the colors toward cyan.
If you want the image to look completely neutral (not
warm or cool), consider using the eyedropper tool located
at upper left in the Camera Raw dialog. With the White
Balance tool active, click the image, and Photoshop will
ﬁgure out the proper Temperature and Tint settings to
remove all the color from the area you clicked. All you
have to do is ﬁnd an area that shouldn’t contain color and
then click it (Figures 4.18 and 4.19). Just look for anything
that appears to be a shade of gray in the image. It could
be someone’s gray sweatshirt, a wall that’s painted white, a
button on someone’s shirt, or anything else that shouldn’t
contain a trace of color. Then, if the image looks too sterile,
you can adjust the Temperature and Tint sliders to make

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Figure 4.18 An outdoor image with the wrong white bal-
ance setting in the camera.

Figure 4.19 The image from Figure 4.18, quickly adjusted in
Camera Raw.

the image a little warmer (move right, toward yellow and
magenta) or cooler (move left, toward blue and green).
It doesn’t really matter which of the three methods you use

(pop-up menu, sliders, or eyedropper); all of them manip-
ulate the Temperature and Tint sliders to produce the ﬁnal
result. Your personal interpretation of how you’d like the
image to look will dictate the result.

Exposure Slider
The Exposure slider controls the brightness of the bright-
est area of the image. As you move the Exposure slider
farther to the right, more areas of the image become pure
white. Be very careful; otherwise, you’ll end up trashing
the detail in the brightest part of the image.
There are four ways to tell if you’re losing detail. The least
reliable is watching the image to see whether any areas
are becoming solid white or black. You often can’t tell the
difference between a very bright area and one that has
become solid white. An alternative is to watch the histo-
gram while adjusting the Exposure slider (Figure 4.20). If
a spike appears on the right end of the histogram, you’re
starting to lose highlight detail.

Depending on how much you’ve
zoomed in, the eyedropper will look
at different numbers of pixels in
the image. If you view the image at
100%, it will look at the pixel that’s
under the cursor when you click.
Viewing the image at 50% makes
the eyedropper look at an area of
2×2 pixels. When viewing at 25%
or 50%, you don’t have to worry
about clicking an odd-colored pixel
that would get averaged into the
surrounding colors.

Figure 4.20 The histogram in Camera
Raw can let you know if the image is
clipping highlights.

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As you know, an image is made out of red, green, and blue
light (also known as channels). If the spike is in color, you’re
losing detail in one or two of the three colors that make
up the image, but you still have detail left in the highlights.
If the spike is white, on the other hand, the highlights
are becoming solid white and have no detail. A spike only
matters if it shows up on the absolute right end of the
histogram. A spike in the middle or near the end doesn’t
indicate a loss of detail. (To learn more about histograms,
check out Chapter 7.) The problem with this approach is
that light sources and reﬂections of shiny objects (such as
glass, water, or metal) look better when they don’t contain
detail, and the histogram can’t distinguish between those
areas and other important parts of the image.
In the upper corners of the histogram are two small but-
tons, one above the right side (Highlights clipping) and
one above the left (Shadows clipping). Clicking the right
one toggles the highlight clipping view. When it’s turned
on, any areas that are losing highlight detail turn red in
the Camera Raw dialog (Figure 4.21). That makes it much
easier to know when and where you’re starting to lose
detail. The only snag is that the red overlay doesn’t differ-
entiate between losing detail in just one or two of the three
colors that make up the image (in which case you still
have some detail remaining) and losing detail in all three
colors, which produces solid white.

Figure 4.21 The highlights clipping
warning shows red in the image
where you’re losing detail.

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To get the most informative and useful indication of lost
detail, hold down the Option/Alt key while you move the
Exposure slider. That will cause Photoshop to change the
way it displays the image. In this view, areas that show up as
solid white have lost all detail and will end up solid white
when the image is opened in Photoshop. Areas that show
up in color indicate where you’re losing detail in one or
two of the colors that make up the image, but the areas
have not become solid white yet. Finally, areas that appear
solid black have detail in all three of the colors that make
up the image and are therefore not at risk.
A good approach to adjusting this slider is to move it
toward the right (with Option/Alt held down) until you

see the ﬁrst hints of white showing up (Figure 4.22). Then
back off a tiny amount and think of that as the farthest
you’d want to move it (Figure 4.23)—unless the area
that’s becoming white is a light source or reﬂection of
the light source, in which case forcing it to white might

Not all clipping is bad. Sometimes
you want window light completely
blown out, for example; and it’s
okay to have some highlights lose
detail, such as specular reflections.

actually improve the look of the image. Then look at the
colored areas that are showing up, and if there are areas
that contain critical detail, continue to move the slider
back to the left until you see only small areas of color. You
shouldn’t mind having large areas of color if you want the
image to look really saturated, because you have to max
out at least one of the colors that make up the image (red,
green, and blue) in order to get a truly saturated color.
Once you’ve found the general range that you like, release
the Option/Alt key and see how this setting is affecting the
brightest areas of the image, and then ﬁne-tune if neces-
sary. The majority of the time, you may end up leaving it
at the position that was just shy of seeing solid white when
you had the Option/Alt key held down.
The Exposure setting is only used to control how bright
the absolute brightest areas of the image should be. Don’t
try to control the overall brightness of the image with this
slider. There are better ways to do that, which we’ll get to
in a few moments. Right now, let’s talk about the Recovery
slider and how it can come to the rescue when the image
has clipped highlights.

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Figure 4.22 Holding down the Option/Alt key while drag-
ging the Exposure slider helps you to determine where

Figure 4.23 A little highlight clipping may be okay,
depending on the image.

highlight clipping occurs.

Recovery Slider
One of the most important things to take away from the
previous section is the understanding that highlights don’t

Most digital cameras also capture
“headroom”—additional informa-
tion above the brightest levels
represented in the file. This data
is necessary for some of the color
and white balance calculations that
must be performed to produce an
image. This data is also stored in the
file, and Camera Raw can reach into
that data to bolster its highlight
recovery efforts.

always clip in all three channels. Very often, a highlight will
clip in only one or two channels, though it might appear to
be completely blown out, or to have lost detail. When a high-
light is only partially clipped, there’s a chance that Camera
Raw can use the remaining channels to rebuild the clipped
channels, and thus restore detail to areas that appear to be
blown out. The Recovery slider attempts to do just that.
If you have clipped highlights—as evidenced by a big
spike on the right side of the histogram—try sliding the

Recovery slider to the right. In Figure 4.24, the white hat is
losing detail. As you slide the Recovery slider to the right,
you might very well see the spike shrink and disappear, and
in the image see detail appear in the blown-out highlight
sections (Figure 4.25).
Highlight recovery can work wonders, turning seemingly
unusable images into well-exposed shots full of detail. It
often works well in portraits where the model’s skin gets
a little too bright when the rest of the image is properly
exposed. You can also perform highlight recovery by mov-
ing the Exposure slider to the left. This will perform the
same recovery operation as the Recovery slider, but will
also darken the midtones and shadows in the image. The

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Figure 4.24 The white hat is losing detail in this image, as
you can see by the spiked histogram.

Figure 4.25 A slight drag to the right of the Recovery slider
restores detail in the hat, and the histogram no longer

spikes.

Recovery slider constrains its effects to just the highlights
in the image, which means that you won’t have to do as
much work later to try to restore brightness.

Fill Light Slider
Chapter 3 introduced Photoshop’s Shadows/Highlights
adjustment, which lets you brighten only the shadow areas
of an image (or only the highlights). The Fill Light slider
works just like the Shadows slider in the Shadows/High-
lights dialog; slide to the right, and the shadow areas of
the image brighten. It’s called Fill Light here because the
overall effect is very similar to what you’d see if you shined
a ﬁll light—or ﬁred a ﬁll ﬂash—into the scene. Shadows
under people’s eyes and chins lessen, and overall contrast
is reduced (Figure 4.26).

The Fill Light slider lacks the reﬁned degree of control
that the Shadows/Highlights dialog provides, but having it
in Camera Raw is a great convenience because it just might

Figure 4.26 Using the Fill Light feature works won-
ders to add more light to areas that need it, such as
under the brim of a hat.

save you an additional processing step.

Blacks Slider
The Blacks slider controls how dark the absolute darkest
areas of an image will be. It works just like the Exposure
slider in that you can hold down Option/Alt to see which
areas are becoming solid black (they’ll look black), which

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areas are starting to have less detail (colored areas), and
which areas haven’t lost any detail (they’ll look white).
The Shadows clipping button above the left side of the
histogram makes areas that are losing detail appear in blue
in Camera Raw. Unlike the Highlights clipping button at
right above the histogram, the Shadows clipping button
only indicates where an area has become solid black. It
doesn’t indicate areas that are losing detail in just one or
two of the colors that make up the image. You may still
prefer to use the Option/Alt method because you’ll often
want to know where you’re losing detail in just one or two
colors in the image. Hold down Option/Alt and move
the Blacks slider until you see the ﬁrst hints of pure black
showing up; then back off just slightly so you don’t trash
the detail anywhere (Figure 4.27).

Figure 4.27 Hold down the
Option/Alt key and move the Blacks
slider to see where the pure black is
within the image.

If you decide not to use the Shadows clipping warning
feature when moving the Blacks slider, be sure to keep an
eye on the histogram. If you see a spike on the left side,
you’re losing shadow detail. If the spike is white instead
of a color, you’re starting to get some solid black areas in
the image. One quick way to make images really “pop” is
to bring up the Blacks slider just to the point where the
image is looking too dark and then bring the exposure up
slightly to compensate, being careful not to overexpose the
image. Figures 4.28 and 4.29 show an image loaded and
then adjusted with Blacks and Exposure. You can use the
Recovery slider to pull in detail to highlight areas.

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Figure 4.28 An original raw image loaded into Camera Raw.
Seems okay, but lacks the punch needed for a final portrait.

Figure 4.29 The image from Figure 4.28 with the Blacks
slider raised and Exposure added to compensate.

Brightness Slider
Now that we’ve determined how bright the brightest areas
should be and how dark the darkest areas should be, it’s
time to adjust the brightness levels that fall between black
and white.
The Brightness slider attempts to adjust the overall bright-
ness of the image without screwing up the brightest or
darkest areas. Move the slider to the left if the image needs
to be darker (Figures 4.30 and 4.31), or move it to the
right to brighten the image (Figure 4.32). If you’re plan-
ning to make radical changes in brightness, use Curves
(see Chapter 3) after you’ve opened the image in Photo-
shop. You’ll have a lot more control over the process with
Curves, but it won’t hurt if you make a slight tweak using
the Brightness slider.

Figure 4.30 An original image with
the brightness set to a default of 50.
(©2008 Dan Ablan.)

Figure 4.31 The image from Figure
4.30 with the Brightness slider set all
the way to the left.

Figure 4.32 The image from Figure
4.30 with the Brightness slider all the
way to the right.

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Contrast Slider
Most of the time, you should adjust the contrast of your
images using Curves, which provides much more control
than you’d ever get by moving a generic Contrast slider.
In a hurry, though, you might limit adjustments to what’s
available in the Camera Raw dialog. In those instances, it’s

Figure 4.33 An original image with
Contrast set to 25.

Figure 4.34 The image from Figure
4.33, with Contrast set to 85.

okay to settle for the generic Contrast adjustment instead
of spending the time it would take to ﬁne-tune it with
Curves (Figures 4.33 and 4.34 show the kind of results you
can get with a quick adjustment to the Contrast setting).

Clarity Slider
The Clarity slider can be used with a wide variety of
photographs. It was devised to boost contrast at the micro
level; even though it’s a relatively subtle adjustment, it
can add noticeable punch and crispness to images. Clar-
ity is a unique adjustment in that it can’t be reproduced
in Curves, because it uses the image itself to make a mask
on which to apply the midtone contrast adjustment. Tread
lightly with this slider—a heavy hand can make the image
look too contrasty (Figures 4.35 and 4.36).

Figure 4.35 An original image with Clarity set to 0. (©2008
Dan Ablan.)

Figure 4.36 The image from Figure 4.35 with Clarity set
to 87.

Vibrance Slider
The Vibrance slider is a variation on a saturation adjust-
ment. Rather than adjusting the saturation of the entire
image, the Vibrance slider attempts to protect ﬂesh tones.
If you’ve ever performed a saturation boost on an image
and found that skin tones ended up too red or splotchy,
you’ll appreciate the Vibrance slider (Figure 4.37).

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Figure 4.37 Vibrance is a great way
to boost colors in an image without
oversaturing it.

Saturation Slider
You’ll have much more control over your image if you
adjust it in Photoshop with a Hue/Saturation adjust-

ment. But if you’re in a hurry, or you’re batch-processing
a large number of images using the same settings, you
might decide to use the Saturation slider instead. If you
have more time, test the waters with this slider and make
the actual adjustments with a Hue/Saturation adjustment

Toggling the Preview check box off
and back on again will effectively
show a before-and-after version of
how the settings in the active tab
(Basic, Detail, etc.) are affecting
the image.

afterward (Figures 4.38 through 4.40).

Figure 4.38 An image with a -25 saturation level. Figure 4.39 The image from Figure 4.38 with a 0 (default)
saturation level.

Figure 4.40 The image from Figure 4.38 set
to +50 saturation.

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If you want a better idea of how the White Balance setting
is affecting the colors of an image, you can temporarily
pump up the saturation of the image with this slider. Then,
once you like the overall color of the image, bring the
Saturation slider back to zero.

Tone Curve Tab
The Tone Curve tab (Figure 4.41) works much like the
Curves dialog covered in Chapter 3. The Tone Curve tab
is divided into two sub-tabs: Parametric and Point, with
Parametric mode as the default. Point mode is more like a
normal Curves interface, so let’s look at that one ﬁrst.
Like the normal Curves dialog, the Tone Curve shows a
histogram with an editable curve laid over it. By default,
the curve includes some points that are intended to pro-
vide a medium contrast adjustment. The Tone Curve has
four preset curves that you can select.
Figure 4.41 The Tone Curve tab

allows you to make tonal adjustments
to an image.

The Point and Parametric curves are
not different representations of the
same tone curve; they’re individual
curves, and you can apply both of
them at the same time. Sometimes,
you may find that one interface
is easier for adjusting one part of
the image, and the other is easier
for adjusting another part of the
image.

In Photoshop, you simply click the image, which causes a
circle to appear on the curve. The circle indicates the area
of the curve that will affect the brightness level on which
you’re clicking. In the Camera Raw dialog, you have to
hold down the Command/Ctrl key and hover the mouse
pointer over the image (without pressing the mouse but-
ton) to see the circle appear. If you click the mouse while
holding down Command/Ctrl, a dot will be added where
the circle appeared.
Two things to note about the Point curve: When you add
a point to the curve and move it up or down, you won’t
see its effects until you release the mouse button; the tone
curve is much more sensitive than the Photoshop Curves
dialog. You’ll most likely ﬁnd that your curve adjustments
are very small.
The Parametric curve provides a very different way of
working, one that combines the power of Curves with the
ease of a Levels adjustment. The Parametric tab has the
same curve/histogram display, but beneath it are four

sliders—Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows. As you
slide these sliders, the appropriate part of the curve will

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automatically bend and reshape to affect just the tonal
range speciﬁed by the slider (Figure 4.42).
For further reﬁnement, you can adjust the three sliders
shown at the bottom of the curve display. These change
the midpoint of each of the slider ranges. For example,
use the bottom sliders to specify how much adjustment you
want, and then use the sliders directly beneath the curve
graph to ﬁne-tune that adjustment to a very speciﬁc part of
the curve (Figure 4.43).

Figure 4.42 Sliding the Parametric
sliders automatically reshapes the
appropriate part of the curve.

Figure 4.43 Sliding the sliders directly
beneath the curve lets you adjust the
midpoint of each Parametric slider.

After using the Tone Curve tab for some time, you’ll
probably feel that it’s not as intuitive as the one built
into Photoshop. You might miss the ability to use Curves
combined with some of the more sophisticated features
in Photoshop (adjustment layers, blending modes, layer
masks, and so on), which is what really makes Curves pow-
erful and gives you the ability to make much more precise
and effective adjustments (see Chapter 3 for information
on Curves, Chapter 5 for more on adjustment layers). For

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those reasons, you may only use the Point curve in Camera
Raw when you plan on saving the image directly out of the
Camera Raw dialog or when images will be used with the
automated features found under the Tools menu in Adobe
Bridge. For all other purposes, try to use the Curves dialog
within Photoshop.

Detail Tab
Digital cameras often produce images that look a bit soft
and can contain tiny specks of noise that are distracting.
The Detail tab (Figure 4.44) is where you can deal with
these problems and hopefully produce a sharp and noise-
free image. These settings make rather subtle changes, so
it’s best to work with them when you’re viewing the image
at 100% magniﬁcation.

Sharpening

Figure 4.44 The Camera Raw
Detail tab.

Many photographers prefer to sharpen their images as the
ﬁnal step before printing. Ideally, you should sharpen an

image after it has been scaled down to its ﬁnal size. The
sharpening defaults are not set to zero, so you might want
to adjust the sharpening within the Camera Raw dialog as
part of your workﬂow.
If you’re in a hurry or feeling just plain lazy, there are
merits to using the Sharpening sliders. Camera Raw 5.0
has six sliders (Amount, Radius, Detail, Masking, Lumi-
nance, and Color), allowing for a great deal more control
over sharpening than with previous versions. With the
added controls, it might be useful to save combinations
of these sliders as presets for speciﬁc image types such as
portraits or landscapes. (We’ll talk about the Camera Raw
Presets tab later in this chapter.) In some cases, moving
the sliders doesn’t appear to do anything to an image.
That usually happens when you’re zoomed out to see
the entire image. Before you start to sharpen an image,
double-click the Zoom tool in the upper-left corner of the
Camera Raw dialog. That will get you to 100% view, where
you’ll be able to see exactly what the Sharpening sliders
are doing. When you’re done sharpening, you can double-
click the Hand tool to get back to the view that shows the

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entire image. I won’t say much about sharpening here
because Chapter 6, “Sharpening,” dedicates an entire
chapter to the subject.

Noise Reduction
Digital image noise comes in two ﬂavors: luminance and
chrominance, or color. The Luminance slider is designed to
reduce the noise that shows up when you use high ISO set-
tings with your digital camera. Luminance won’t deal with
those colorful specks you see on occasion (that’s handled
by Color Noise Reduction, discussed next), but it should
be able to handle the dark specks that you get when you
try to brighten an image that was shot in low lighting con-
ditions. All you need to do is zoom to 100% view (double-
click the Zoom tool to get there), and then experiment
with the slider until the noise is minimized. Just be sure to
look at the ﬁne detail in the image to make sure that you
haven’t removed important detail such as freckles or skin
texture.
The Color Noise Reduction slider attempts to blend in
any colorful specks that appear on the image, by making

them look similar to the colors that surround them.
These colorful specks are often the result of shooting
with high ISO settings on your digital camera. As with
luminance reduction, start at 100% view and move the
slider just high enough to blend the multicolored specks
into your image.
Be careful with the Luminance and Color Noise Reduction
sliders. Both will soften the image, which is why they’re
grouped in this tab with the Sharpening sliders. Be sure to

If you plan to sharpen your images
in Photoshop, choose Prefer-
ences from the side menu in the
upper-right corner of the Detail tab
and change the Apply Sharpening
pop-up menu setting to Preview
Images Only. When you do that, the
sharpness setting will apply only to
the onscreen image preview, and
no sharpening will be applied when
you open the image in Photoshop.

toggle the Preview check box at the top of the image off
and on to make sure that it’s worth applying these settings.
Sometimes it’s better to have a noisy image that still has
detail and sharpness than one with no noise that looks
overly soft. Also, remember that you can always sharpen an
image after you open it in Photoshop, which means that it
doesn’t have to remain as soft as it might appear after you
apply noise reduction.

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HSL / Grayscale Tab
Sometimes you may need to make color shifts and adjust-
ments to speciﬁc parts of the color range. For these times,

Each HSL / Grayscale tab includes a
Default link that resets the sliders
for that particular tab. If you want
to reset all three tabs, click each

Camera Raw provides the options on the HSL /Gray-
scale tab. Like many other additions to Camera Raw, the
HSL /Grayscale control was purloined from Photoshop
Lightroom.

Default link individually.
The HSL control is divided into three tabs: Hue, Satura-
tion, and Luminance. In each tab you’ll ﬁnd the same
selection of color ranges: reds, oranges, yellows, greens,
aquas, blues, purples, and magentas. One tab doesn’t
override another; you can make adjustments on each tab
to create a cumulative correction. You’ll probably need to
switch from tab to tab to make your adjustments, however.
If you increase luminance, for example, very often you’ll
have a different impression of the hue or saturation in
your image.

Hue
In the Hue tab, you can adjust the hue of each color range
simply by dragging the slider to the left or right (Figure
4.45). The Hue tab doesn’t let you make huge swings
in hue; you can’t turn reds into blues, for example. For
those extreme shifts, you’ll need to use the hue controls in
Photoshop. The Hue tab is for making slight adjustments
to remove casts or slight corrections to particular color
ranges. If the reds in an image are a little too orange, for
example, slide the Reds slider to the left.

Figure 4.45 By using the sliders in
the Hue tab, you can shift the hues of
specific color ranges in an image.

Saturation
The Saturation tab lets you adjust the saturation of each
speciﬁc color range (Figure 4.46). You can adjust the satu-

ration of just the red tones in the image, for example, by
dragging the Reds slider back and forth. Slide to the left to
desaturate a particular color range; slide right to increase
the saturation.

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II: Production Essentials

Figure 4.46 The Saturation tab’s slid-
ers let you increase or decrease the
saturation of specific colors.

Figure 4.47 The Grayscale Mix sliders
let you create custom grayscale con-
versions directly within Camera Raw.

Luminance
In the Luminance tab, you can adjust the luminance
(brightness) of each color range. Sliding to the right
brightens a color range; sliding to the left darkens colors.

Convert to Grayscale
Above the three tabs in the HSL / Grayscale tab is a Con-
vert to Grayscale check box. If you select it, the three tabs
disappear, replaced by a single Grayscale Mix tab (Figure
4.47). The image preview shows your new grayscale image,
and the histogram changes to a single-channel histogram.
The color sliders work much like in Hue/Saturation/
Luminance mode, but instead of altering hue they alter
the shade of gray of those particular colors. So if you slide
the Reds slider to the right, for example, any red tones in
the image will get lighter.

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By default, when you turn on the Convert to Grayscale
check box, Camera Raw analyzes your images and calcu-
lates initial settings for the sliders. If you alter the sliders
and want to go back to the initial conversion settings, click
the Auto link. Clicking the Default link restores all sliders
to their default positions. If you haven’t changed them
manually, all the default positions will be zero.
There’s no image-quality advantage to be had by perform-
ing grayscale conversions in Camera Raw rather than in
Photoshop (see Chapter 7). The advantage of grayscale
conversion in Camera Raw is that, like all other Camera
Raw adjustments, grayscale conversion is nondestructive,
and you can batch-process it by using any of the normal
batch-processing operations.
Remember that Camera Raw is a nondestructive editor. As
you adjust settings, it constantly reprocesses your origi-
nal raw camera data to present a new image onscreen.
When you turn on the Convert to Grayscale check box in
the HSL / Grayscale tab, the grayscale conversion is just
another item added to the list of edits and adjustments that
the software must make before it can show the ﬁnal image
onscreen. Even after you’ve told Camera Raw to convert
the image to grayscale, you can continue to alter color and
tone by using any of the program’s controls (Figure 4.48).

Figure 4.48 After converting the
image to grayscale, you can use
the Grayscale Mix sliders to change
the gray value of specific tones in
the image. Shifting the Blues slider,
for example, pulls out detail in the
railings.

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II: Production Essentials

You’re effectively changing the color of the image “under-
neath” the grayscale conversion. When you convert to
grayscale, Camera Raw uses the original color values to
determine a resulting grayscale value. So if you alter the
color values by using any of Camera Raw’s color-editing
tools, the resulting gray values will change. This is yet
another way that you can alter the gray values in your
ﬁnal image.

Split Toning Tab
Split toning allows you to apply separate toning to the
shadows and highlights in your image. For each area, you
can select different hue and saturation settings. Split ton-
ing works with either grayscale or color images, but you’ll
probably use it most often on grayscale pictures.
It doesn’t matter whether you tone highlights or shadows
ﬁrst. For this example, start with the highlights. First, slide
the Highlights Saturation to around 50 (Figure 4.49),
goosing saturation because it can be difﬁcult to see the
effects of a hue choice when saturation is at zero.

Figure 4.49 Begin your split-toning
operation by increasing the Saturation
setting in the Highlights section of the
Split Toning tab. (©2008 Dan Ablan.)

Next, use the Hue slider to choose the hue you want for
toning, and slide the Saturation slider down to something
reasonable (Figure 4.50). Then perform the same steps
using the Shadows sliders, to produce the image shown in
Figure 4.51.

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Chapter 4 Using Camera Raw 5.0

Figure 4.50 After setting the Hue slider, set the Saturation
slider back to something more reasonable.

Figure 4.51 Perform the same operation on the shadow
tones in your image to complete the split toning.

The Balance slider lets you shift the highlights toning more
into the shadow areas, and vice versa. This option allows
you to have more or less of either type of tone.
Split toning can be applied to color images or to images
on which you’re performing a black-and-white conversion.
As explained earlier, when you’re converting to black-and-
white, changes to color affect the ﬁnal gray tones that Cam-
era Raw produces. So performing a split-toning operation
on an image that has a grayscale conversion applied will
alter the ﬁnal gray tones that Camera Raw generates.

Lens Corrections Tab
The Lens Corrections settings are completely optional
(Figure 4.52). You may prefer to use them only when you
notice speciﬁc problems with an image. These problems
are often a result of the lens that was used to shoot the
images.
Some lenses—particularly wide-angle lenses—focus
different wavelengths of light at different points. When
that happens, you can end up with a halo of color on the
edges of high-contrast lines in your image. This is called
chromatic aberration. You might need a very ﬁne eye to
see the particular problem, but the higher the contrast
between objects, the more obvious it will be. What you’ll
see is a shift in color around edges, or fringes within the
image. This problem can happen with any lens, and chro-

178

Figure 4.52 The Camera Raw Lens
Corrections tab.

matic aberrations are often what separate an inexpensive
lens from a pricier one.

II: Production Essentials

If you notice a halo of red on one side of an object and
cyan on the opposite side, try moving the Fix Red/Cyan
Fringe slider back and forth to see if you can reduce the
halos (Figures 4.53 and 4.54). If you see blue and yellow
halos, adjust the Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe slider instead. You
might need to adjust both of the sliders, depending on
what colors you’re seeing on the edges of objects. Because
these sliders are performing a very simple operation—
scaling the colors that make up your image—they can’t
always get rid of this type of problem.

Figure 4.53 Looking very closely at
an image, you can see bands of color
pulling away from the subject. This is

Figure 4.54 Camera Raw’s Chromatic
Aberration settings remove unwanted
halos of color.

called chromatic aberration.

When you have images with specular highlights (such as
the surface of a windy lake on a sunny day), you’ll often
encounter some degree of fringing, which is purple, red,
or magenta color surrounding the hot specular highlights.
The new Defringe pop-up menu in the Lens Corrections
tab will help to reduce this negative effect. There are three
options: Off, Highlight Edge, and All Edges. Selecting the
Highlight Edge option removes most of the color addi-
tions, but there may still be a degree of fringing. Setting
to All Edges removes the majority of the fringe effects, but
it can negatively affect color saturation in areas where the
defringing is occurring, so you’ll have to decide whether
this adjustment is useful on an image-by-image basis. As
with sharpening and noise reduction, you really only see
the effect at 100% zoom or higher.

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The Vignetting sliders are designed to compensate
for light falloff on the edge of an image. Vignetting is a
photography term referring to lighter centers with darker
edges. If you notice that the outer edges of an image
are darker than the middle, move the Lens Vignetting
Amount slider to the right until the brightness of the edge
looks more like the middle of the image. Once you’ve
done that, you’ll need to adjust the Lens Vignetting Mid-
point setting to control how far the brightening effect of
the last slider encroaches on the center of the image. Just
move it until the formerly dark edges blend into the rest
of the image.
You can also use these sliders to add vignetting to your
image (Figures 4.55 and 4.56), which will effectively
darken the corners and edges of the image. Photographers
often like that effect because it draws the viewer’s attention
toward the center of the image. You can add to the effect
by lowering the Saturation and Contrast sliders under
the Basic tab to simulate the look of an old, faded photo
(Figure 4.57).

180

Figure 4.55 The original image is
okay, but could be better.

Figure 4.56 With vignetting applied,
the viewer’s eye is pulled toward the
center of the image.

Figure 4.57 Adjusting the saturation
and contrast help give the photo a
unique look.

II: Production Essentials

Camera Raw 5.0 also offers the ability to set a vignette after
you’ve cropped an image. With the Post Crop Vignetting
sliders, you can set the Amount and Midpoint, as with the
lens vignette, but you can also set Roundness and Feather
values. You don’t have to crop your image to use these
tools. Sometimes they can give you a more interesting look
than the standard vignetting does.

Camera Calibration Tab
The sliders in the Camera Calibration tab (Figure 4.58)
allow you to change the way Photoshop interprets the color
information that your camera delivers. You can use these
settings to simulate different ﬁlm types and to compensate
for problems that come with certain digital cameras.
Certain models of digital cameras produce images that
have an annoying color cast in the darkest areas of an
image (Figure 4.59). If you have one of those cameras, just

about every image you open will have a cast in the shadows
of the image. The Tint slider in the Shadows section allows
you to shift the color of the darkest areas of the image
toward green or magenta (Figure 4.60).

Figure 4.58 These settings allow you
to change how Photoshop interprets
the colors in an image.

Figure 4.59 In the original image, the marble has a
green tint.

Figure 4.60 Adjusting the Shadows Tint slider helps
remove unwanted color.

If you’re not happy with the color in your digital camera’s
images, experiment with the Red Primary, Green Primary,
and Blue Primary Hue and Saturation sliders. These sliders
can also be used to simulate different ﬁlm types (Figures
4.61 and 4.62).

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Chapter 4 Using Camera Raw 5.0

Figure 4.61 The original image. Figure 4.62 The image from Figure 4.61, after experiment-
ing with the RGB settings in the Camera Calibration tab.

The sliders won’t change areas that are neutral gray. The
Red Primary sliders mainly affect the appearance of reds
in the image, affecting yellow and magenta areas to a
lesser extent. The Green Primary sliders mainly affect the
appearance of greens, affecting cyan and yellow areas to
a lesser extent. The Blue Primary sliders mainly affect the
appearance of blues, affecting magenta and cyan areas to a
lesser extent.

Presets Tab
If you regularly make the same adjustments to your
images—perhaps because your camera has certain charac-
teristics that always need to be corrected in the same way—
you might want to save your adjustments as a preset, so that
you can easily apply it to images in the future. A preset is
simply a saved set of Camera Raw parameters that you can
assign to any image.
To save a preset in Camera Raw, conﬁgure the parameters

Figure 4.63 Create a new preset by
clicking the New Preset button at the
bottom of the Presets tab.

the way that you want them, switch to the Presets tab, and
click the New Preset button at the bottom of the panel
(Figure 4.63). Next, conﬁgure the New Preset dialog by

selecting any items you want to save in your preset. (If
you want your preset to use any of Camera Raw’s auto-
adjustment features, for example, turn on the Apply Auto
Tone Adjustments check box.) After selecting the desired

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II: Production Essentials

settings, enter a name for your new preset in the Name
ﬁeld and click OK.
To apply a preset to a raw ﬁle, open the image in Camera
Raw, switch to the Presets tab, and click the preset you want
to apply. The image will be adjusted according to the set-
tings saved in the selected preset.

Adjusting Multiple Images

To adjust multiple images in the Camera Raw dialog, select
more than one image in Adobe Bridge. The images will
appear as thumbnails down the left side of the Camera Raw
dialog (Figure 4.64). You can click between the thumbnails
to view and adjust each image individually, or use the same
keys as in Bridge to select multiple thumbnails. When
multiple thumbnails are selected, a blue border appears
around the thumbnail that’s currently being viewed, and
any changes made to the sliders in Camera Raw will affect
all the selected images.

Figure 4.64 Multiple images appear
as thumbnails in Camera Raw. (©2008
Dan Ablan.)

The Synchronize button above the thumbnail area pres-
ents a dialog that allows you to copy some of the settings
from the image you’re currently viewing and apply them to
all the selected images.

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Finishing Touches

Camera Raw never makes any changes to your actual raw
ﬁle. In fact, it’s not possible to make changes to a raw ﬁle,
because it doesn’t contain any ﬁnished image data. The
adjustments that you make in Camera Raw are stored
separately from your image data. What’s great about this
scheme is that you can go back at any time and change
your Camera Raw settings, and then reprocess your raw
ﬁle. In this way, you can derive lots of different corrections
from the same ﬁle.
After you’re done adjusting your settings, you need to
decide what you want Camera Raw to do. At the bottom of

By default, Camera Raw stores your
changes in sidecar XMP files. These
are small text files that Camera Raw
creates in the same directory as
your original file. The advantage of
sidecar files is that you can copy and
move them along with the original
raw file. The advantage of storing
settings internally is that you don’t
have to keep track of extra data.

the dialog are four buttons:
 Done: This button saves your settings (in either the
internal database or as a sidecar XMP ﬁle, depending
on your settings) and then closes the raw ﬁle.
 Open Image: This button does the same thing as
the Done button, but also opens the image within
Photoshop.
 Cancel: This button discards any adjustments applied to

the images and closes the Camera Raw dialog.
 Save Image: This button saves your settings, and then
saves the selected images in one of four ﬁle formats
without leaving the Camera Raw dialog.

The Next Step

At ﬁrst glance, the Camera Raw dialog may look like an
unruly beast, but it usually takes only a few minutes to pro-
cess an image once you’re familiar with Camera Raw. On
your next photographic adventure, even if it’s just a Hal-
loween party or a weekend get-together, shoot raw images
and work through the options discussed in this chapter to
create even better images.