Adobe Photoshop CS6 Camera RAW, Part 2

Hi everyone, Michael Brown again.0000

Welcome back to educator.com's Adobe Photoshop CS6 course.0002

In the last lesson we took a preliminary look at Camera Raw, and I explained the difference between jpeg and raw formats, showed you the actual difference inside of Camera Raw.0006

In this lesson, we're going to take a close look at Camera Raw, the workspace, basic editing and my workflow philosophy--we'll look at the tools, we'll look at the panels and I'll show you how it works, taking an image through Camera Raw, so let's get started.0019

First off, I want to show you this little chart and page here.0037

The first question that always comes up is "why should I use Camera Raw, I came here to study Photoshop and we're working our way into Photoshop?".0041

Camera Raw is a very good tool for initial overall image adjustment.0050

It's not that great on specific areas being very precise, but it does have some tools in it that work extremely well, taking an image right out of the camera, and making some minor modifications that are really good to prepare the image to get it in Photoshop.0057

So, then your next question obviously would be "why bother with Photoshop?" because Photoshop has a greater variety of tools, functions and techniques for a wider variety and more precise adjustments and corrections--that's the big key here.0077

Photoshop also has layers that allow you to add unlimited items, or effects, to an image, and they also provide a means for non-destructive edits and adjustments in a different way but still performing the same non-destructive end product that Camera Raw does, as well as options for blending and adjusting opacity, and entire diverse tools and functions to create all sorts of effects that you can't do in Camera Raw.0092

Then you ask "why bother with Camera Raw?".0123

Camera Raw offers several non-destructive adjustments and edits for quick initial improvement of your image right out of the camera so that you can step it right into Photoshop.0126

Also, there are a few of the tools and functions that personally, I feel that are better than the same tools that are given to us for the same usage in Photoshop.0138

So what I do is, I use Camera Raw to make quick initial overall image corrections very quickly and easily--takes almost no time at all and then move on to Photoshop for more precise and much wider variety of options.0151

So let's take a look at why that works and how it works.0169

OK, principal features of Camera Raw, let's take, for starters, a quick look at the Toolbar and tools, so I want to go in (let's get Bridge open here, it's already open but I want to pop it back up) and I'm going to open up an image that we can use to take a quick look, OK, here we go.0173

Now, I want to show you something here in Bridge--notice this icon at the upper right, that means this image has already been edited in Camera Raw, so we're going to go ahead and open it up, and it's just getting ready--it's all ready to go but what I'm going to do is I'm going to take those...see in this panel the sliders are already set, that's because it remembered what the settings were.0194

I'm going to take...and go to the dropdown menu all the way to the bottom, reset Camera Raw defaults, and now what that did, is it removed all of the changes that I made when I was doing a test on this.0217

So here is our initial raw image.0229

Now, basic workspace, tools across the top, panels on the right...we have a save image, open that we'll save as a regular formatted file--if you save it (I think we went over this before) you have the option of four different formats that you can save an image if you choose.0232

I never do that, I'm using Camera Raw only to get some initial corrections in and move on to Photoshop.0255

So...we can also open image which is the primary button that'll pull it right into Photoshop, cancel if you don't want to do anything at all, and the done button of course will apply the changes as you saw, right back into Bridge (and there was that correction, that will go away once I cancel that) in fact I'll show you right now since we changed it...it should...no, it still has the XMP file but we changed the settings back to zero, that's why it still shows the icon.0262

We're back again, and everything--see once again it did not change that file actually.0293

We're going to reset...OK.0300

If I clicked Done it would go back to zero--so what we have here is a basic image, and I'm going to just run down the Toolbar.0303

My philosophy is: I do not use any of the tools here with the exception of the rotate button, the zoom tool and the hand tool which moves the image around.0313

All of these tools--and I'll give you a quick review of them--we have more precise and more powerful tools to do exactly the same thing in Photoshop, for example, cropping or straightening a horizon...you would remove pixels from the image, why should we do that?0324

We're going to take the whole image into Photoshop, we'll do it in there so that if we decide to make a change, we have all of those pixels right with us in Photoshop, so these two, I don't even consider useful.0340

White balance...our color balance, color correction is right here--these two sliders: the color temperature and the tint, so we don't need this one--it's less precise.0355

The color sampler tool...don't need to make color sample points...targeted adjustment allows you to work on either...you just click in an area--if I clicked here and made adjustments, it would work on medium to high exposure portions or if I clicked in here it would work more on the dark tones.0367

We're going to do most of our work in Photoshop--don't need this particular tool.0389

Again, crop, straighten, don't need that...retouching and removing spots--we'll do that in Photoshop--much more precise and a wider variety of tools.0393

Red eye...we can do that in Photoshop.0403

This tool here, makes masking to isolate areas but it does it in a very broad, general area or general methodology.0406

We have several tools to do this and various functions that are quite a bit more precise and can be corrected a lot better inside of Photoshop, this gives you a graded mask, we can do the same thing in Photoshop and if you put the mask in here, in a gradation, and then open it in Photoshop, you've now put the effect into the pixels permanently and you can no longer remove it non-destructively, so it's better to do it in Photoshop.0416

So we'll use rotate if you need to, or we'll use the zoom tool and the hand tool.0446

That takes care of all the tools, so now we're down to the panels (let me go back out for a moment, and just keep track of where we are...) we have gone over the Toolbar and the tools and we're not really going to even use them, so let's just cross them out of here, and like I said I do not use any other correction or adjustment tools in Camera Raw because we have a wider variety, and more precise adjustments inside of Photoshop.0452

So let's go back and take a look at this image again, open it back up, and we'll use that one for a base and once again I'll have to reset the defaults, so let's quickly go over the primary--it defaults at the basic panel.0488

What you have here is your color correction sliders: color temperature (make it warmer or cooler) if you mis-shoot, for example, if you were shooting strobe and you had your camera set on white balance for strobes and then you went outdoors like this and shot the picture, it would look like this and I'll bet you somewhere in your life you've had one where you've done and you go "oh my God".0504

That's only because the color temperature was off, and the information is in the raw file so all we have to do is take the color temperature slider (excuse me, let me get that thing right there) and you just move the slider where you want it.0528

Now this was shot at 55 hundred...I believe that was the--let's just set it back...it was shot at 54 50, and it doesn't look bad but it's just a taste on the cold side, a little blue tone, so I'm just going to warm up to about maybe 58 hundred, maybe 6000...notice we added just a little yellow and warmth into the grass, it just adds a little richness to the image, very simple, just a little bit of slider.0546

You could also use a color tint...it defaulted at 14, let's go back to zero on the magenta...notice we got a little more green (go in) and there we've got a little bit of correction right there--that just balanced it out, color corrected it to zero.0577

Wonderful stuff.0594

Exposure is all or nothing--if you come up, notice the highlights blew out and the shadows opened up, or if we go the other way and bring the highlights down the shadows block up, it's all or nothing, so I only use this just a tiny bit...you don't want to block up your shadows and lose detail, you don't want to blow out your highlights because if you lose the detail here, you can't get it back in Photoshop--that's a key factor.0595

Highlights...this is a wonderful slider--you can open up your highlights or you can pull them down dramatically--look at the sky change, here's the zero where we were...pull it down and look, we've got the sky, we've got a lot of detail now on the rock and we can pull down--we've seen lots of detail in the shadow here, I can pull down the exposure just slightly, and open up the shadows a little bit.0624

Notice, now we have the shadow detail back--if I take the shadows all the way we can really open then up...in fact, we'll just do that, bring the exposure down just a little bit more.0650

Now we've added a lot of richness let's pop a little bit of contrast in, don't want to do too much, still have detail in the shadows, and notice how much richer--the sky's looking pretty good, the rocks in here have all sorts of detail now.0661

The white and black points...we've got bright whites and we've got dark blacks so we don't want to change that.0674

Clarity changes mid-tone contrast on mid-tone pixels only--and I'll show you how this works real quickly, let's go up to the top of this...this is a good spot to show it right here.0681

Notice we're a little (I'll pull it out right there) everything's a little flat, if I take the clarity--I'm going to do it significantly--look what it did...now we lost a little shadow detail but notice how it popped out so we pull it back just a little, we have some detail in here but the difference between zero and about halfway--notice how much it popped...we'll come out a little bit, go back to zero, watch all this just bland greenery right there just snap just a little--didn't overkill it...you don't want to overkill it, we can add more sharpness and contrast in Photoshop.0696

So we got that.0733

Vibrance...saturation saturates everything, which isn't too bad, but vibrance saturates non-dominant colors, in this case, see how that blue just really popped and it didn't kill the greens too much.0734

If we go all the way in saturation to get that blue, the greens are just overboard and you really don't have as much blue, so we'll go back and leave the saturation alone.0750

Pull up the vibrance, look at that sky, and in there...and actually we've done a pretty good job!0760

Actually, a little bit too much on the vibrance...there we go but don't overkill it here, you can always pull more in Photoshop.0766

So there we've done almost everything we want to, to this image with the exception of a couple of other things.0774

In this image actually, that's all we need (let's take a look here) noise reduction we don't have to worry with, we have low noise, so this image itself, I would consider is done--we'll click Done, and that takes care of the basic panel.0781

You see that that's the primary panel and for this image we just did...that's it, we don't need any more, so we got the basic panel.0797

Now, let's go back and open up another image...and I'm going to do a little bit of correction on this one as well.0805

Here's another image...and it was shot--it's a little way over blue so we're going to warm that up just a little bit...notice that the shadow detail is a little dark so we'll pull the shadows open a little bit, and just a tiny bit of exposure increase (that's about all) highlights down slightly...that's an improvement there, but the biggest problem with this image is two things: notice it was shot with an 18mm on an 18-200 zoom lens, very wide angle, and we got barrel distortion, the horizon is bode, so we can correct that.0814

We're going to go all the way over to the lens correction tab...this is absolutely remarkable and this tab is better than Photoshop.0851

Photoshop can do the same thing but believe me, this one works even better than Photoshop.0863

You're going to be amazed.0868

Don't blink, don't turn away from your screen--watch the horizon line when I click the enable lens profile corrections.0869

Inside of Camera Raw are built in, all the details from almost every manufacturers camera and lens that exist, they keep updating it, and you should go to your Adobe website to make sure that you have the most current updates for the lens profiles, but watch what happens when I click it--keep an eye on that horizon.0879

I'll just highlight the box...and look at that!0900

It snapped it, corrected the horizon, absolutely amazing--I'm going to uncheck it...look at that!0903

Bode, complete correction, that thing is absolutely the way we want it, and didn't even have to do anything but check that box.0911

Notice it knew that the camera was an icon, it also knew that the lens was an 18-200 lens, it had the profile in there for that very lens and went away.0919

You can do more if you wanted to, but believe me, that's all you need to do--now we're going to go over to the color tab.0930

I'm going to zoom this up a little bit further...since this was a wide angle and way out at the zoom lens at the wide angle lens, you're going to get chromatic aberration, and that is red-green fringing, and if you notice you can see it (I'll zoom up even more) see the edges around the greenery, we have kind of a cyan on the left and red on the right, that's red-green fringing.0937

You can see it here in the chimney, a lot of it, and as we come over here you'll see it on this pole, on the edges is where you see that red-green fringing, but watch what happens when I click the remove chromatic aberration button.0965

Now again, it has the lens profile so it's already going to correct it--watch...gone, look at that.0982

There is no more red-green fringing, just a tiny, tiny bit--I'll take that away, notice all of the red around the edging where my cursor is, put it back in, and you can actually de-fringe a little bit further if you want to.0989

If we want to take a green amount, we can pull that down even more--notice it took a little bit away right there, and the purples a little bit more, we've pulled it down just even further, if there was anything left--look at the edge...in fact we took most of it away anyway but the removal is completely clean and with just those two tabs and check boxes, we cleaned this image up absolutely great, and with a primary tab, the basic tab, we're all ready to go into Photoshop.1008

We're going to cancel--we'll click Done on that one as well, and we're back here so the lens correction tab deserves a double axe, it's a fabulous tool--always use that, so you're going to use your basic panel, then you're going to go check your lens correction, and grain in vignetting...I do not recommend doing this, I said you don't want to make either of these before working on any image.1040

If you apply in vignette, it's permanent when you open it in Photoshop.1068

You can do that in Photoshop later--wait until you're done, put another layer on so you can make it go away if you want.1073

Grain...you certainly don't want to add it until the end anyway so that's an absolute not.1078

Camera calibration...you already got your camera there--presets and snapshots, you don't need that.1084

Split toning allows you to adjust hue saturation separately, for highlights and shadows.1091

If you happen to have a photo that has some real color hues deep in the shadows or only in the highlights, you could try this.1098

It has possibilities.1108

HSO grayscale...you can make overall adjustments--I'll show you that here on another one--let's go back and take a look at one more image...I'm going to open up...let's go back to Union Station...let me find Union Station here very quickly...I'm not sure where I put it...(Union Station...Union Station jpeg...) no, we don't have it, so we'll deal with it on this other image, sorry about that.1110

Let's go back and pull it from right here...OK...here's another image I took on the Queen Mary, and let's zoom this image up...and you can see, as we get it zoomed up, a whole lot of noise.1156

See the noise, very grainy look.1176

This was because the ISO was very dark in there and handheld...ISO 32 hundred got a lot of electronic noise in the image and we'd like to remove that, but we don't want to destroy the edge sharpness.1179

So you don't want to pull it all the way out or you'll lose detail, it's very simple--you go to the third panel, which is the detail panel, sharpening doesn't work very well inside of Camera Raw.1194

I have a personal method of sharpening that I'm going to teach you that'll blow your mind, you can sharpen an image without adding significant noise at all.1208

Most of the tools in Photoshop don't do that...I'll show you that in the future.1218

We're not going to use sharpening, but noise reduction--watch.1222

Leave the color alone, luminance noise is your grayscale noise, that's the predominant noise...add about 30 or 40%, and look what happened...you lost most of it but I want to show you that the detail still remains.1227

Let's go over here and look at the name, and the detail in there--we're down at zero, look at all of the noise, go to about 30, take a look at the letters and the detail of what's in the shop window.1242

Notice, we removed most of the noise and preserved most of the detail and when I sharpen this in Photoshop, look at that, it's just nice and smooth--a really, really nice tool.1257

So, the sharpening and noise reduction...we're going to pass on the sharpening...but definitely the noise reduction feature is better than Photoshop, love it, so as far as the noise reduction, absolutely we're going to use that.1271

The tone curve, I'll give you one quick look at the tone curve (let's go back and open up any old image here--we'll pick this one, why not, we'll do a different one) the tone curve is an exposure color adjustment, and what it does is it...this is white down on the left, black on the right and it allows you to isolate brights, light colored areas, dark colored areas and deep shadows.1294

But we can do the same exact thing in Photoshop with even more precision, so I don't recommend this particular slider either--we'll check off the tone curve.1324

HSL we can do in Photoshop equally as well and split toning as well, so primarily you'll use your basic panel, you're going to use noise reduction, and lens correction, and then off you go into Photoshop.1335

So that takes care of what we've used in Camera Raw and how to get your images started.1350

That'll wrap up Camera Raw.1356

In the next lesson, we'll start in Photoshop.1357