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See the end of this post for the actual RAW file used in this tutorial so you can edit it along with me in the post.

In the previous tutorial, we saw how the controls work in Adobe Camera RAW, or ACR. This time we’ll be dealing with something that only RAW can deal with-bad pictures. Adobe Photoshop is fine when the picture is good, or you want to take artistic license, but is useless when it comes to saving an image.

When would this happen? Well, it happens all the time, really. Every time I hand my camera to someone to take a picture with, the shot is inevitably bad. The problem is, I can’t sit there and teach them how to take pictures, compensate for lighting, etc., so I’m screwed, right? Wrong! I had a waiter at Giogio’s Table in Virgin Gorda, BVI take a picture of my wife & I on our 10th anniversary in April, and he took it with the ocean outside behind us. We came out as black sillouettes.
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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:

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A client approached me with a need to produce an animation in Line Drawing format. I didn’t understand what they meant. They meant that all shapes are simply oulined, and the shapes themselves have no materials assigned to them. In fact, the entire environment (background) was to be the same color as all the objects, giving the scene a floating kind of look as the camera circled the scene.

This seemed to be really hard! How could I disable shadows, shading, radiosity-everything-and still make the shapes discernable? The more I thought about it, the more possibilities arose. Unfortunately, 3ds Max gives the user more than one way to do somethnig-often many more. I wanted to find the easiest way to do it.

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I’ve been thinking about ways to render in such a way that wouldn’t
require starting and stopping max for each picture. I thought of techniques I use to do lots of camera shots overnight.

Idea #1: If one were so inclined, time could be saved by animating the
material(s). I would suggest a blend material, using auto key, and
swapping out each material with each keyframe. Make each keyframe a
single frame right after the last one. Then export your frames as
individual images, as all animations should be. Works with NR (Network Render), too.

FYI: You can’t change the material type if you are animating a material.

Idea #2: Create an AVI or MOV that has in each frame the material you
want. This is for simple, non-compound materials, of course. Then
simply apply the movie as a material, and continue as above.

Note: When animating stuff like materials and all things that are not
positional/rotational in the root, you should see a set of red
brackets, the same as with “open” groups in the viewers, around the
widgets/parameter thingies that are being animated.

Don’t ask why, but sometimes setting manual keys does not work, and you need to use “auto key”. Personally, I think auto key creates risk when animating, and this may not be a bug… it may just be a retarded way to do it.

Another caution is that animations of any kind can be adjusted to
loop, stop, yo-yo, etc. when done. Get familiar with the curve editor
and dope sheet, using them as often as you use layers and the light lister.

Bogus Exception