Camera RAW is a free extension for Adobe Photoshop CS3. I’m using v4.3.1, and I’m shooting with a Canon 40D.

Loading is easy, just double-click on the .CR2 file, and ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) will load:

The defaults will be loaded, and unless you have changed ACR’s default behavior-or loaded your own-the file at the end of this post will look like the above.

By default, the white balance is set to As Shot, but I find that about 1/2 the time this is correct, or at least what I want it to be (on the creative side). Try Auto:

The result is:

Under the next section, click Auto, which will apply color and contrast style assumptions for you, which only work out about 20% of the time:

In this case, we have a good place to start. Most of the time, especially with creative photos, this will not be close enough to what you want. Whether you use the auto or not as a starting point, you can alter the image with all the controls below. Save the last section at the bottom for after you are done with the rest.

If you look at the histogram at the top, you can see that there are not enough blacks for an even distribution of light and dark in the image. To fix this, adjust Blacks:

I also noted that there were too many dark areas in the histogram, and not enough light. If you increase Contrast, you basically spread out the histogram to be more even. Addressing this problem created:

But as you can see, now there are too many light areas to be realistic for the indoor shot, so we need to take the Exposure down a little:

When the image is fine with respect to color temperature/balance, and the color and contrast are satisfactory, you then move on to detail and (if necessary) more granular tuning. I almost always bump Clarity up a little, and more if the image was out of focus:

Next up is Vibrance, which affects yellows and greens. Bumping this has the greatest effect on outdoor shots:

For Saturation, I personally like a slightly enhanced color (saturation) level in most all of my shots:

This is usually fine for almost all pictures you’ll take. But if you are unhappy with the picture still, there are a ton of menus (using the tabs) behind this overall/rough/high level menu that take each adjustment to a much more granular level.

For this image, I’m unhappy with the amount of red. The girl’s skin is way too washed out by the spotlight, making her look unrealistically pale. In the 4th tab (HSL / Grayscale) I selected the 2nd sub-tab (Saturation) and was able to adjust just a single color:

Now we’re done. If we wanted to take this image (as changed) into Adobe Photoshop, we’d click on Open Image. Since we’re ready to save, though, we’ll click on Save Image…, which gives us this form:

I usually save to the same folder, but choose options that allow the new file to closely resemble the original (for sorting and locating). You also set your JPEG compression settings. Our work today on this image resulted in:

Now this image had not that much wrong with it. A more advanced tutorial would deal with problems such as an underexposed subject due to a bright background. While all of my pictures are taken with lighting in mind, some critical pictures that required another person to take them (with my camera) proved that I am in a minority. Folks will grab your camera and press the button. Period. :)

Reference

–Original RAW file used (16.8MB)

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