Camera RAW Plugin

Camera RAW Plugin?

•The Camera RAW Plugin included in Photoshop / and shares code with Lightroom allows you to edit / modify / fix photos while still in their raw data form.••You have greater control on details, White Balance, exposure etc than a standard jpeg image.••You can still modify Jpegs in Camera RAW with slight value adjustments (e.g. WB values -100 to 100 rather than Kelvin temp)

Why RAW

•Jpegs have lossy compression, the camera does the processing of WB, Sharpness, Noise reduction etc.••RAW uses no or lossless compression.

•Less likely to lose details to artifacts.

•Gives you more control over the above settings in post.•Plenty more colour information.••But it does take up more room, takes time to edit, loses any in-camera colour modifications (colour profiles).

Some RAW file types

•Nikon = .NEF•Canon = .CR2•Adobe = .DNG•Sony = .ARW•Pentax = .PEF

Opening RAW files

•Provided Photoshop is set as the default software, double click from File Explorer window.•Otherwise, Open With•Mac users may have to drag into PS icon due to Preview opening it.

The Camera RAW Window – Open / Cancel / Done

•Save your changes to the RAW file, press Done. This makes an .xmp file that contains your modifications. Keep with the RAW file is you want to keep your changes. Deleting the .xmp does not delete the image.••Cancel, it does what it says. Ignores all modifications you have made and closes the Camera RAW Plugin.••Open Image will open the current selected image in Photoshop for further editing with current modifications. It will take the technical details mentioned with the size (i.e. resolution, colour space, depth).

The Camera RAW Window - Histogram

Guide to your exposure. Left side of centre are your shadows / blacks. Right side is your highlights / whites.

You can modify Basic Controls directly from the histogram using your mouse.

There are two buttons at the top corners of the histogram. These will show over exposed or under exposed areas.

The Camera RAW Window - Tools

•Zoom•Pan•White Balance•Colour Sampler•Targeted Adjustment•Crop•Straighten•Spot Removal•Red Eye•Adjustment Brush•Gradient Filter•Radial Filter•Preferences•Rotate Left•Rotate Right

The Camera RAW Window – Basic Controls

White Balance in Presets, Auto or Custom via Tool

Colour Temperature in Kelvin

Green to Magenta Tint

Exposure

Contrast

Highlights

Shadows

Whites

Blacks

Clarity

Vibrance

Saturation

The Camera RAW Window – Tone Curve

Under Parametric, you can get better control of contrast of image.

Under Point, you can control the curve of the red, green and blue channels.

Modifying the black point and white point of the curve will add colour casts to the image, similar to Split Toning (a few tabs along)/

The Camera RAW Window – Detail

Control of sharpening (that the camera normally does with the jpeg)

Noise reduction control for high ISOs or noise generated from long exposures (camera taking a 5 minute photo)

The Camera RAW Window – HSL/Grayscale

Control over individual colour ranges.

Hue will let you shift colours to a hue nearby on the colour wheel.

(Be careful with reds / oranges, people can turn funny colours which they might not like)

Saturation controls the intensity of the each colour. 

(e.g. you can tone down the blues to desaturate the sky, but everything else that wasn’t 

blue will still be colourful)

Luminance changes the brightness of the colour.

(never a good idea to turn down reds / oranges while your model is watching)

Convert to Grayscale – makes it black and white. But you have great control than just setting 

saturation at -100 on basic control tab.

The Camera RAW Window – Split Toning

Similar to adjusting RGB curves but easier.

Hue changes the colour you want to add.

Saturation for the intensity of the colour.

Balance modifies the bias of the highlight colour or shadow colour