Sometimes processing raw files is a compromise. For example when adjusting the exposure to make the sky look its best results in the foreground being too dark. There are things that can be done during capture to mitigate the problem. Use of a Graduated Neutral Density filter will darken a sky relative to the foreground exposure. Or taking an exposure bracket sequence and process as an Exposure Blend or as a HDR. But what if we didn’t do these things and the dynamic range is just to too great to have detail in both the highlights and the shadows from a single file? One solution is to take advantage of the “hidden” dynamic range of a raw file and to process that raw capture twice, once for the highlights and again for the shadows, and to then blend the resulting files in Photoshop.
As with most things in Photoshop there are a number of ways to accomplish this. Here is one way that is efficient, relatively quick, and straight froward. Smart Objects are at the heart of this technique. Yesterday I did a post on Smart Objects. So if you haven’t read it, now might be a good time to take a look at it.
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I started to do a How-to post that shows a technique to Double Process a Single Raw File inside a Photoshop document. Since the technique relies heavily on the use of Smart Objects I thought it would be helpful to explain a little about Smart Objects first.
In Photoshop a Smart Object is a layer that contains a copy of the original referenced Photoshop or Illustrator file. (And yes it does make you file size a little larger but IMHO that a small price for the huge benefits.) From a practical point of view this means that you can edit the version of the file in the Smart Object nondestructively by opening the file in it’s application. For example, if you bring a raw file into Photoshop as a Smart Object, you can re-open the file in ACR and make edits to it. When you do this the original version of the file is not modified. Only the version within your Photoshop document, the Smart Object, is edited. That means that the preview for the raw file in either Bridge or Lightroom will remain unchanged because the edits are not applied to this version of the file. The Smart Object version of the file is independent of the original file. Read the rest of this entry »
This tip falls into the category of pretty slick but from a practical standpoint it’s not something that you will do very often. It has to do with outputting custom sized versions of images directly from Bridge/ACR without have to go into Photoshop. This is; it’s a procedure to mimic, in ACR, what can be done in Lightroom’s Export Dialog.
When CS4 was introduced the hot new feature in ACR was the ability to perform localized edits. With this added capability, for many images, there was no compelling reason to bring the image into Photoshop for additional editing. All edits could be completed in ACR.
Until recently I thought that the only way to specify the size of the output was with the Workflow Options link at the bottom middle of the ACR dialog. It looks like a hyperlink and when you click it the Workflow Options dialog opens. This is where you specify how you want your image sent to Photoshop or output directly as a tif or jpg file. In addition to specifying the size the Color Space, Bit Depth, Resolution, and Level of Sharpening can be changed. Read the rest of this entry »
TAT is the Target Adjustment Tool. It is used to make edits by clicking and dragging in the image. This allows one to pick an area to edit based on it’s visual characteristics (tone, color, etc.). The TAT is available in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw (and Lightroom’s Develop Module). In ACR and LR Develop it is available with:
- Parametric Curves
- All three of the HSL tabs as well as the Grayscale tab
In Photoshop its available on 3 Adjustment Layers:
- Hue/Saturation
- Black and White
- Curves
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In previous posts in this series I’ve talked about what white balance is and how it can be used creatively, both in the field and in post production. In Part 1 we noted that if the camera’s WB setting matches the color temperature of the light hitting the subject; white, and all other colors, will be rendered correctly. And that we could change the mood or fell of an image if we intentionally used an “incorrect” WB to render the image warmer or cooler. But if colors can be accurate or intentionally changed which is correct? I addressed this question in Part 2 and gave two different approaches or strategies that can be used to determine which WB setting to use: Accurate and Creative. And in Part 3 we discussed how shooting in the raw format allowed for greater flexibility in setting any WB after the shoot. And that when shooting in jpg the photographer needed to pay more attention their camera’s WB setting during capture.
In this post I’m gong to discuss ways to determine what your WB should be set at. Read the rest of this entry »
In Part 1 of this series on White Balance we defined WB and in Part 2 talked about using WB to control the colors in our images. If the WB setting matches the color temperature of the light hitting our scene we would get accurate rendering of the colors in the scene. And if the camera WB setting did not match the color temperature of our light source the image would be rendered with a color cast. And that as creative we photographers sometimes want to purposely shift the colors in the image to control the emotional content of the image.
You may have noticed that in Part 1 the example images had the WB set at the time of capture and that the example images in Part 2 had the WB adjusted during post processing (during the raw conversion step). This leads to the question, “What is the best time to set WB and are there any advantages to doing it during capture or in post production?” The answer is that it depends on the file format you are capturing your images in, jpg or raw. But before we answer the question lets take a look at the differences between jpg files and raw files. Read the rest of this entry »
In the first part of this series on White Balance we learned that the look, feel, and/or mood on an image can be changed by using different WB settings. Here are three different versions of the same image:
The original is a raw file shot with the camera’s WB set to Auto. The center version was converted from the raw file using a setting of “As Shot”. And this pretty much matches the gray color of the overcast day when this image was made. The other two are from the same raw file but the one on the left had a much cooler WB set and the one on the right had a much warmer WB set during conversion. These images all have a different mood to them. So you may ask, which one is correct?
When it comes to selecting a WB there are two very different strategies or approaches that can be followed: Read the rest of this entry »
The color of light is measured by it’s color temperature. Outdoors, ambient light changes color temperature throughout the day. It is warmer (yellower) before sunset and just after sunrise. In the open shade of mid-day it is cooler (bluish).
Our eyes compensate pretty quickly for different color temperatures. A piece of white paper will appear white to us when viewed in either warm or cool lighting conditions. However, the sensor in our cameras, left on its own, is not so lucky. A picture of a piece of white paper taken in open shade will render quite bluish; while another picture of the same piece of white paper, taken near sunset, will be rendered yellowish. Read the rest of this entry »
