A STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH TO GETTING THE MOST
FROM A RAW IMAGE FILE
Text & Photography By Rob Sheppard
RAW
files are gaining interest among all photographers
for good reason. In part, they hold a mystique as
the “pro’s format,” which isn’t
completely true, as many pros also shoot JPEG. RAW
files are notable for their processing potential
to help you get the most from your shot.
RAW isn’t for everyone or every sort of photography.
In the past, I often hesitated recommending the
RAW format for general use because the increased
file size caused problems in storage, camera speed
and processing effectiveness. That cost wasn’t
necessarily worth it because of the great results
that are possible with JPEG.
RAW bestows you control over the image that isn’t
possible with JPEG, however. It’s a valuable
format worth considering by any photographer. Nowadays,
cameras have become much faster, computers no longer
choke on big files, and you can purchase cards with
enough memory to allow you to shoot RAW+JPEG for
a reasonable price. RAW+JPEG is a great solution,
as it lets you gain the most from both formats.
Raw
Done Smart
When you begin working on a RAW file in a RAW converter,
you’re dealing with the best data possible
from your camera. For that reason, you should make
as many of the major adjustments (brightness, contrast
and color) to your image as possible in that converter.
To get the most from your file, you need to do those
adjustments smartly. It’s important to remember
what your photograph is about and why you took it,
as this will influence your choices. Arbitrarily
adjusting an image based on some sort of “objective”
criteria will sooner or later get the photographer
into trouble with an image or, at the very least,
lead to less than pleasing results. You need to
know the purpose of the photograph and make adjustments
that support its cause.
There’s no need to overanalyze every photograph
you take before opening your image in the RAW converter,
as that would be counterproductive. You do need
to respect your photograph, however. Using your
computer should be about getting the most from your
image, not getting the most from the software. The
photograph and the photographer should come first.
Auto Settings
When Camera Raw is first opened in Adobe Photoshop
CS2, all of the auto settings are turned on by default.
The auto settings work, but with varied amounts
of success on different photos. You always can adjust
any individual auto setting to see if it helps (and
sometimes it will).
It seems odd to me, though, to use auto settings
for Camera Raw, since this is the epitome of control.
Auto settings relinquish your control and allow
mathematical formulas to decide what your photo
should look like. I highly recommend you unclick
all of them, then choose Save New Camera Raw Defaults
in the drop-down menu at the right side of the Settings
box.
Workflow
Options
Once the image is opened, I start at the bottom
left of the Camera Raw interface and begin my adjustments
from there. Make sure Show Workflow Options is checked.
1. Space.
In the drop-down menu of color spaces, I recommend
using Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB (you’re always
safe with Adobe RGB). Adobe RGB gives the wider
color gamut, which can be effective with many photos.
You can click back and forth between these two color
spaces for comparison.
2.
Depth. You have a choice of 8 or 16 bits
per channel. This output choice won’t affect
what you’re doing in Camera Raw as the processing
is done at the 16-bit level. For most images, outputting
at 8-bit is plenty (16-bit largely increases file
size).
3. Size.
Start with the native file size that your camera
produces by selecting the numbers without a plus
or minus sign (plus means the file will be increased;
minus will decrease the original). If you know you
need a large file from your photo, this is a good
place to upsize your image.
4.
Resolution. This has no effect on image quality,
but is here purely for workflow reasons. Output
resolution only changes how close or far apart the
computer places pixels and doesn’t affect their
quality. This can be changed later without any harm
to the photo.
Tonal Adjustments
The brightness or darkness of a photo and its contrast
have a great impact on how it’s perceived by
a viewer. Color obviously also has a big effect,
but I find it better to start with tonal adjustments
unless there are color problems. Here’s how
to work the tonalities in an image:
1.
Highlights. Under the Adjust tab, hold down
the Alt or Option key and click on the slider for
Exposure. As you move the slider, the bright or
colored areas represent highlights. The white is
pure white with no detail. Move the Exposure slider
to the right to increase bright areas, left to decrease.
Click on and off or toggle the Alt/Option key on
and off to see how these areas relate to the whole
image. This is subjective, but generally you want
at least part of your subject bright in most photos.
2. Shadows.
Hold down the Alt or Option key and click on the
slider for Shadows. Move the Shadows slider to the
right to increase dark areas, left to decrease.
The black or colored areas represent shadows—the
black is pure black with no detail. Again, try clicking
on and off or toggling the Alt/Option key on and
off to see how these areas relate to the whole image.
3. Midtones.
Making the highlight and shadow adjustments usually
will make the image too bright or dark overall,
even though the shadows and highlights are right.
To correct this, move the Brightness slider right
or left. This adjustment is even more subjective
than the others and is totally a matter of taste.
Use a calibrated monitor for best results. A brighter
image will let you see more details, but it can
lose some of the drama of a darker photo. Don’t
hold down any keys for this adjustment, however.
It also can be useful to try the auto setting here.
4. Midtones
2. If you have Camera Raw from Photoshop
CS2, you’ll notice a new tab, Curve. This is
an excellent tool to deal with midtones, with much
more control than Brightness. Under Curve, Tone
Curve works the same as Curves in Photoshop (“tone
curve” is probably a better name for the latter,
but two names for the same thing is confusing),
but it comes with some premade adjustments (click
on the drop-down menu). You can use the premade
adjustments, tweak them or do everything yourself
by clicking and dragging points on the curve.
5. Contrast.
Back under the first tab of adjustments, you’ll
see this slider. It affects the overall contrast
of the image, but is a bit too heavy-handed for
my taste. You gain better control of the contrast
by separately adjusting the highlights, shadows
and midtones. Most of the time, you can leave it
at its default.
6.
Compare. It helps to see how the image has
changed from how it came into the program. Go to
Settings and click Camera Raw Defaults in the drop-down
menu to see how the image originally looked, then
back to Image Settings to see it now. If you find
you’ve lost something in comparing the two,
readjust the image. You can reset the whole thing
by holding down the Alt/Option key and clicking
on the button that now says Reset at the lower right.
Keep in mind that small adjustments can make a big
difference. I often wish this interface had two
sliders for each control—one that had the overall
adjustment and another for finer tuning. Since it
doesn’t, realize that small changes can be
sufficient. If you have trouble making a small enough
adjustment, you can type in new numbers in the box
above the adjustment.
Color
Adjustments
The color of an image is a tricky thing. A sunset
image has a natural color cast, for example. On
the other hand, some photos demand a neutral tonality
with no color cast at all. Camera Raw lets you do
both. You even can tweak whatever color you do have
in five ways:
1.
White Balance. The White Balance box acts
a little like your camera’s white-balance settings.
You can choose from a number of white-balance presets
to jump from one overall color to another.
2. White Balance
Tool. This tool will change your cursor to
an adjustment tool. Click on something in the photo
and it will make it neutral gray. If you try this
tool, you always can go back to your earlier “as
shot” colors by double-clicking on the tool
in the toolbar or using the As Shot choice in the
White Balance box.
3.
Temperature. The Temperature slider allows
you to tweak the image by adding warmth (moving
the slider to the right) or adding coolness (moving
the slider to the left). For the technical-minded,
what you’re doing is changing the color temperature
setting relative to the original color temperature
of the scene as captured. The result is a warming
or cooling of the photo.
4.
Tint. This is a magenta/green scale that
adds green to the photo as the slider is moved to
the left and magenta as it’s moved to the right.
Unless you’re after some special effects, it’s
rare to use large amounts for this adjustment.
5. Saturation.
Skip down the interface to find Saturation at the
bottom. This is another highly subjective control,
and you have to be careful with it. A little addition
of saturation (the intensity of a color) goes a
long way. A common mistake of many photographers
is to increase saturation too much so that the image
either looks garish or doesn’t reproduce properly
outside of Photoshop. That said, many subjects,
especially nature, sky, architecture and travel,
look better with a slight addition of saturation
of 5 to 10 points. With people pictures, it’s
best to use caution, as the saturation control can
make skin tones look unnatural at best and blotchy
at worst.
6.
Recheck the file for possible readjustment.
At this point, I usually reevaluate the overall
brightness of the image and either do further tone
curve adjustments or Brightness slider adjustments.
Since nothing actually has been changed at the image’s
pixel level, you can adjust and readjust the controls
in Camera Raw to your heart’s content without
hurting your image as it has yet to be converted.
Detail Adjustments
I always check noise issues in an image. In the
Detail tab next to the Adjust tab, you’ll see
three adjustments (CS2 version): Sharpness, Luminance
Smoothing, and Color Noise Reduction.
1.
Sharpness. Sharpness should be set to zero
(it’s best not to sharpen the photo at this
point in the process).
2.
Luminance Smoothing. This affects the general
noise that comes from a sensor and may be seen in
skies and other smooth tones.
3. Color Noise Reduction. This affects color
noise that often comes in dark parts of an image,
especially when that image is underexposed.
To use CS2’s noise-reduction settings, greatly
enlarge your image so you can see any noise. These
noise-reduction settings aren’t used to get
rid of problematic noise, but to reduce normal levels
of noise so that the image goes into Photoshop with
the highest quality possible. If you use higher
settings, check your fine detail to make sure you
haven’t caused problems with them. With really
high levels of noise, you’re better off using
software programs specially designed to deal with
noise problems, such as Noise Ninja, Kodak Digital
GEM or nik Multimedia Dfine.
Save
Your Work
The default for Photoshop CS2 is to automatically
update your adjusted RAW file’s thumbnail in
Bridge, which is CS2’s image browser. This
isn’t a permanent change—actually, nothing
at all is altered to the image file itself, only
the instructions about processing this file have
been changed so that it will reopen in Camera Raw
with these settings.
To keep this photo with its adjustments, you have
several choices at the bottom right of the Camera
Raw interface: Save, Open, Cancel and Done.
1. Save lets
you save your adjusted image as one of four file
types: DNG, JPEG, TIFF and Photoshop (PSD). Plus,
it gives you some choices as to how to save these
files, such as the location and a new name.
2. Open simply
applies the settings on your photo as it converts
it to the Photoshop working space. This is the most
common use of Camera Raw.
3.
Cancel simply cancels everything and returns
you to Photoshop.
4.
Done merely updates the metadata of the file
and returns you to Photoshop without actually opening
or saving the image.
Finishing
You’ll usually do your finishing work in Photoshop.
Raw converters don’t let you work selectively
on an image, so you must use Photoshop for that.
You’ll do final tweaking of tones and color,
and sharpen the image.
Editor
Rob Sheppard’s
latest book is Adobe Camera Raw for Digital
Photographers Only. You’ll find his new
Website at www.robsheppardphoto.com,
which features photo tips and more.
