Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorials–Table of Contents
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes, Tutorials Tables of Contents
- Adobe Camera RAW Overview Video Tutorial
- General overview of the interface
Instructions on how to open JPEGs with Adobe Camera RAW - Introduction to Adobe Camera RAW – ACR Toolbar Video Tutorial
- Basic intro to the Toolbar in Adobe Camera RAW
- Introduction to Adobe Camera RAW – Adjustment Interface
- Quick overview of the Tabs in the Adjustment Interface
There is no video accompanying this Tutorial - Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Basic Adjustment Tab
- Extensive overview of the Basic Adjustment tab, which is the tab that shows first by default
- Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Tone Curve Tab
- Tone Curves are mostly used to add contrast and to pop colors in a photo—There are two Curves Tabs, this video covers both of them extensively
- Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Tutorial – Detail Tab
- Sharpening Photos and Reducing Noise in Adobe Camera Raw—comes with reccomendations on why, how, where and when to sharpen your work
- Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Tutorial – HSL (Hue-Saturation-Luminance) Tab
- If you only view ONE video in this series, this is the MUST SEE. The HSL tab carries with it amazing abilities to adjust color, saturate color and in general make colors just the way you want them on a color-by-color basis. This is one thing you simply can’t do in Photoshop, or at least not with tons of layers, masks and time investment. If you don’t know about this adjustment tab, it will transform the way you think about post processing, a true paradgm shift in how you treat and adust color..
- Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Video Tutorial – Split Toning
- Split toning is for reintroducing color into a black and white photo, you can pick two colors and split those tones along dark and light areas of the photo. Also can be used for creative color photography.
- Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Lens Correction Tab
- Correct Chromatic Abberation (usually purple fringing) and Vignetting.
- Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Video Tutorial – Camera Calibration and Presets
- Calibrate different cameras you own for a consistant look for each.
Save Preset adjustments you can apply to any new photo in Adobe Camera Raw
The presets can save you a lot of time if you shoot in consistant conditions.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Video Tutorial – Camera Calibration and Presets
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
Camera Calibration
This adjustment dialog’s primary use is to calibrate various cameras you own so the colors come into Adobe Camera Raw consistently.
This dialog gives you the ability to adjust Shadow tint (same tint slider as on the Basic Adjustment Tab but affects only the shadow portion of the photo) and shift the hue and saturation of the three primary colors.
To adjust for a particular camera, you want to work on a photo that has no adjustments made to it, and has not been adjusted before. The premise is to go each of the three primary colors, adjusting them to taste—it’s suggested that you work with the color first, before you adjust saturation.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Lens Correction Tab
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The Lens Corrections tab allows you to do two things, remove fringing and/or add or remove
Lens Vignetting.
The Chromatic Aberration part of the dialog box is what removes fringing. Although absent from film photography, digital sensors combined with certain lenses and lighting conditions can introduce fringing (most commonly as purple fringe) in photos, photos taken backlit with certain conditions in the subject matter, and especially with "cheaper" lenses, though some very specific very expensive lenses have the problem to under certain conditions.
The Chromatic Aberration tool is actually pretty simple to use. The Defringe dropdown offers 3 settings; Off, Highlight Edges and All Edges. For the typical shot, highlight edges will be the flavor of choice, because highlight edges is where fringing most commonly occurs. I suggest as you use this tool you zoom in to 100% pixel view of an area where fringing is prevalent—the keyboard shortcut to do that is Alt+Ctrl+0 (zero) [Command+Options+0 on the Mac]—this shortcut works in both Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. Playing with different settings from the dropdown and the sliders, you’ll soon find a setting that works with a particular photo. As you use the tool more, you’ll find yourself making mental notes of which lens you were using, as fringing tends to be pretty predictable for a given lens on a given camera, especially in backlit photos (where fringing tends to occur).
The Lens Vignetting sliders will become apparent on how they work with just a couple minutes of experimentation. Vignetting occurs mostly with wide angle lenses, especially on full frame sensors. and is characterized by dark corners. Moving the slider to the right will lighten the corners, in most cases effectively reducing and most of the time eliminating the vignetting. The Midpoint slider allows you to move the Vingetting correction closer to the center of the photograph as you move it to the right, so that you can correct more severe Vignetting.
Conversely this is a way to INTRODUCE vignetting into a photo that has none for artistic purposes.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Video Tutorial – Split Toning
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The Split Toning tab is likely going to be your least used adjustment in Adobe Camera RAW even if you’re an expert at it, which I am admittedly not. The Split Toning tab deals with your photo by essentially splitting the tone range in half, right down the middle of the histogram as it were, allowing you to tone and saturate each half separately. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Tutorial – HSL (Hue-Saturation-Luminance) Tab
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
This tab is the most amazing part of Adobe Camera RAW (and one of the strongest parts of Lightroom as well). This set of 3 sub tabs offer the ability to tweak color and saturation like never before. Especially because Adobe saw fit to add arbitrary colors in between the primary ones, this interface gives you an amazing amount of choices, control and options in tweaking your photo to brighten it up (as in the case of adding darkness and saturation to a blue sky) or tone it down (as the case may be for very strong tungsten lighting for example). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing
Adobe Camera RAW Adjustment Tutorial – Detail Tab
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
Personally, I don’t make too much use of this tab in Adobe Camera RAW. I tend to sharpen my work in Photoshop using Smart Filters coupled with Smart Sharpening—that way I can always go back and tweak the adustments I’ve made at a later date. That is the ONLY way you can sharpen your work without permenantly changing the nature of the pixels in your photo. I will do a tutorial on that specific topic in the future and link it back to this article when it’s done. The same goes for noise reduction. I tend to use Noise Ninja in Photoshop becuase it gives me a lot more control.
Another reason why you may want to shy away from sharpeing in ACR is if you intend to work your photo extensively in photoshop, it’s best by far to sharpen it there, and if you’re not going to use smart filters to contain the sharpening in a changeable way, it’s best to save sharpening for last. If all you plan to do is add adjustment layers and use other nondestructive editing techniques, it doesn’t matter as much when the sharpening is done, but it’s a best practice to sharpen as one of the final steps.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, sharpening, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Tone Curve Tab
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The tone curve tab is one of my most used. I tend to at least put a slight "S" curve on just about everything I do. There are times when a photo begs for contrast, and times when it needs just a little punch. Tone curves give you the most control on how contrast is added.
The "S" curve is pretty basic and can be done through the Parametric tab or the Point Curve tab. It’s basically what you’re more comfortable with. I’ve done curves for several years now using points, so that is what I go with most of the time. The Parametric curves tab is a great place for those less familiar with tone curves, because it sets the points for you, you simply adjust the 4 tone ranges separately to taste. It’s pretty easy to stay "out of trouble" with the Parametric tab because they give you a tried and true range through which you make your curve adjustments. The Point curves are great used with care, but you can also go way beyond the accepted norms to make a photo look pretty darned funky. The good news is, it’s not etched in stone—no setting on this interface is. you can always correct or clean the slate and start over.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, photoshop, video tutorial
Adobe Camera RAW Video Tutorial – Basic Adjustment Tab
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The Basic Adjustment tab is where most people do all the work to adjust RAW and JPEG files, but it is really limiting the power of ARC to use just this screen. If you are in that category I want to challenge you to spread your wings a little and explore the rest of the tabs.
One reason you JPEG shooters want to watch this video is you’ll see a demostration of why RAW files are superior to JPEGS in terms of dynamic range. Once you learn Adobe Camera RAW, you’ll know how to edit not just JPEGs but RAW files as well, as there is little difference between how you work them in ACR.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, video tutorial
Introduction to Adobe Camera RAW – Adjustment Interface
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The Adjustment Interface
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Histogram: Perhaps the most important measure tool for understanding light in your photo. I’ll to an extensive article on the histogram. The toggle "triangles" to the upper left and right are to toggle on and off the clipping view. Toggling both these on shows you where the shadows are the absolute maximum of 255,255,255 RGB and the highlights are pure white 0,0,0 RGB. This is a very useful tool that helps you know when you’re pushing an adjustment too far to the shadow or highlight portion of the histogram.
- shows the exact RGB value of the precise point your mouse is on over the photograph.
- Basic Adjustment Tab: gives you all the basic "slider" adjustments, always a good place to start, but I prefer using curves to add contrast to photos as you’ll see in subsequent videos
- Curves: Gives you two ways to adjust the photo’s curve.
- Sharpening: Something I don’t use in ARC, but you can explore it if you like.
- HSL: This tab holds much of the hidden power of ARC. HSL stands for Hue, Saturation and Luminosity. These three tabs alone make it worth working any file through either ARC or Lightroom (the adjustments are the exact same for both).
- Split Toning: Useful especially for black and white and special effects color work, not much use for normal color adjustments, although there may be occasions where subtle use of this dialog may help get the feel you’re looking for in a photo.
- Lens Correction: Very useful for minimizing Chromatic Aberration (purple fringing) and useful for correcting vignetting (dark corners)
- Camera Calibration: This can be very useful especially if you have two cameras that shoot consistently differently in terms of color tone and/or exposure. You can tweak default adjustments that have only to do with a specific camera and any other adjustments added on other tabs are added to these base adjustments. This is meant to be a "set it and forget it" area of ACR.
- Presets: Once you get very familiar with ACR, this can be very useful to you in that you can save adjustment settings that you seem to be using often.
Tags: adobe camera raw, nondestructive, post processing, tutorial
Introduction to Adobe Camera RAW – ACR Toolbar Video Tutorial
Posted by Wilk | Filed under Adobe Camera RAW tutes
The Basic Adjustment tab is where most people do all the work to adjust RAW and JPEG files, but it is really limiting the power of ARC to use just this screen. If you are in that category I want to challenge you to spread your wings a little and explore the rest of the tabs.
One reason you JPEG shooters want to watch this video is you’ll see a demostration of why RAW files are superior to JPEGS in terms of dynamic range. Once you learn Adobe Camera RAW, you’ll know how to edit not just JPEGs but RAW files as well, as there is little difference between how you work them in ACR.
