Ultimate Antarctica January 5–February 1, 2008

Digital photography does not mean, nor does it necessarily require, long hours devoted to Photoshop. As our photography students have demonstrated time and again, a good initial capture may eliminate the need for further work in Photoshop, except for minor touch up and the work and time involved in converting RAW files to another format. As your proficiency and competency improve, the time required for RAW conversion will be reduced. Regardless, any time spent on RAW conversions is well worth it—you’ll understand why shortly.

While there are several ways to open Adobe Camera Raw, the easiest is to double-click an image in Adobe's Bridge.

There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the pros and cons of shooting JPEG versus RAW files. For us there really is no debate. A JPEG file is certainly convenient to create and, because the file is optimized in-camera, it initially looks better than a RAW file. However, a JPEG file is analogous to shooting a Polaroid print in that the resulting image is "final." Any further changes to a JPEG image will require work in Photoshop and that may be quite time consuming. Furthermore, because JPEG files are both 8-bit and about one-third the file size of RAW files, they have limitations with regard to enlargements and color manipulation that are not present with RAW files.

RAW files are extremely flexible. It is possible to adjust the white balance, color tint, exposure, shadow, brightness, contrast and saturation—even more adjustments are possible if you go beyond the first tab in the RAW converter window! I rarely do so, although I will occasionally venture "deeper" to tweak an image with a Curves dialog box or adjust chromatic aberrations since it takes only a minute or so.

One of the greatest advantages to working with RAW files is that anything you do to the file during conversion can be changed or readjusted later—provided you do not delete the original RAW file after you make the conversion! You should treat your RAW files like digital "negatives," never getting rid of them in case you want to use them later. Digital photographers who are just starting out sometimes mistakenly believe that a RAW file can, or should be, discarded after a conversion is made, but that’s not true! In fact, our workflow recommendation is to always keep RAW files, saving them in the same folder where their converted counterpart files (TIFF, JPG, PSD, etc.) are located. This practice makes it easy to find RAW images should you need or wish to convert them again.

With film, it has always been very important to get a properly-exposed, well-composed and sharply-focused shot in-camera, as opposed to trying to fix an image in a darkroom or digital lab. The same applies to digital shooters. It is important that the initial image capture be as "accurate" as possible. While a RAW file is flexible, it is not the cure-all. Even with Photoshop at our disposal, the adage, "Garbage in, garbage out," still applies. A poorly shot image may not be worth the time spent trying to salvage it, and no amount of Photoshop can sharpen a blurred or out-of-focus image.

Well, that’s enough about the justification for shooting RAW. Frankly, I hope this preamble was simply preaching to the choir. Now let’s spend our time learning about the main topic of this article: the RAW converter.

You can access the Adobe Photoshop CS2 RAW converter in a number of ways. To open a raw file in Bridge, select the current folder and do one of the following: 1) Double-click the file in the content area or Preview panel (see my past article Bridging the Gap to Image Management: Understanding Adobe CS2's "Bridge"), 2) Choose File > Open With > Photoshop or 3) Choose File > Open With Camera Raw. To open a raw file in Photoshop CS2, Choose File > Open. Locate the file you want to open. Click the file name, then click Open, or double-click the file name. The fastest method is the first, but sometimes a little bug in Bridge either prevents the RAW converter from opening or, after you make the changes I’ll describe in this article, the image won’t open in Photoshop! Knowing the other ways to get to the RAW converter will circumvent the Bridge bug, should that nasty cyber beast ever appear on your computer.

Use the Zoom tool, the + and – buttons, or right-click and hold to reveal all the zoom options. You’ll need 100% magnification to discern critical sharpness.

The first thing I do when I open a RAW file is check for sharpness at 100%, where each pixel on your monitor represents a pixel in the image. To view the image at 100%, do one of the following: 1) Double-click the Zoom tool in the upper-left corner of the RAW converter window, 2) Right-click the image and select 100% from the pop-up menu or, 3) Click the Select Zoom Level buttons in the lower-left corner of the image window and select 100% from the menu.

When checking for sharpness I look for the same qualities I used to when working with slides. If I am editing animal images, I particularly look for sharpness in the eyes or, if the eyes are difficult to see, in the head. Eye shine can be especially helpful—a sunspot should appear round, not elliptical or comet-like. If the eye shine isn’t round then there is likely some blur in the image, either from subject or camera movement. Such blur does not necessarily mean the image should be tossed in the garbage. The eyes are highly reflective and will reveal any movement, however small, which may not be evident in the fur or feathers.

Click the Hand tool to move the image in the Preview window.

At 100% zoom level, the area you need to check may not appear in the viewer. When this occurs, select the Hand tool located to the right of the Zoom tool in the upper-left corner of the RAW converter window, or press the Spacebar while clicking and holding down the mouse as you move across the screen. Either way, a little hand will appear and then close into a fist as you click, drag and move the image around.

An eyedropper appears when the White Balance tool is selected. On the far right the RGB channel numbers will change as you move the tool.

Next, adjust the white balance by selecting the White Balance tool from the tool bar and clicking a neutral tone in the image. As you move the White Balance tool over the preview image, the RGB values (representing the three color channels, Red, Green and Blue) of the point directly below the pointer are displayed in the upper-right corner of the dialog box. Select the White Balance tool and move the cursor over the image until you find a neutral area, where the numbers for RGB are essentially equal. This could be 128, 128, 128 or 30, 30, 30 or 200, 200, 200—or any spot where the three numbers closely match. When you click that spot with the White Balance tool selected, an hourglass appears and a moment later the color changes to reflect the new white balance. In the Adjust tab—the first of five tabs on the right side of the screen—you’ll see that the White Balance setting reads "Custom" and that there’s a color temperature displayed in the box above the Temperature slider.

In truth, I never use the White Balance tool. Instead, I manually select the color temperature by adjusting the Temperature slider until I like the result. We’ll get back to this in a moment.

The next tool is the Color Sampler tool, which puts up to nine markers on the image to indicate specific tonalities or colors you may wish to refer to later. Again, in my workflow, I ignore this tool.

Click and hold the mouse on the Crop tool to reveal several cropping options.

Bridge will display any cropping done in RAW. The thumbnail to the right of the one selected is similar to the image that was cropped in RAW, and you can revert to that image by going back to the Camera Default settings.

Now let's look at the Crop tool icon, the same icon used in the Photoshop Toolbox. To crop an image using unconstrained proportions, use the Normal default setting and drag the Crop tool over the images. If you want the crop area constrained to specific proportions, click the Crop tool icon and choose a proportion from the pop-up menu. You can also set your own cropping ratio by choosing Custom from the pop-up menu. Clear Crop will undo cropping you apply.

It’s important to note that any crop done with the RAW converter only affects that interpretation of the RAW file and is not permanent. When you crop an image, the area that will be cropped is grayed out and if you click Save > Done or Open in the lower-right corner of the RAW converter, that change will appear in Bridge image or in the opened Photoshop document. This can be unsettling when you see this in Bridge because, although you might think that the image is permanently cropped, it is not. If you want to change the crop, just reopen the image in Bridge, select the Crop tool, and click Clear Crop from the drop-down menu and the image reverts to its original state.

The Straighten tool levels horizons or, in this case, straightens trees. When applied, a new crop appears that will reflect the image’s new dimensions.

Next to the Crop tool is the Straighten tool—a nifty new feature to CS2 which can be used to straighten horizons. The tool is extremely easy to use, just click and drag the mouse over an area that needs to be straightened. When you unclick the mouse, the image rotates and the outside edges of the cropping shield are grayed out, just as they would be if you had used the Crop tool. The Crop tool is now highlighted, as the Straighten tool defaults to this tool after clicking. Don’t be disoriented because your image looks more slanted than it did before. The RAW converter has now established a new horizontal or vertical orientation for the preview image based on the crop. When you open the image in Photoshop, by clicking Open in the lower-right corner of the RAW converter, the image will appear straightened. By the way, if you are following along with the RAW converter open, don’t click Open. I want to cover a couple of neat options available in that corner first!

The last two tools are the two Rotate Image icons, which will rotate the image 90 degrees counterclockwise and 90 degrees clockwise. Clicking either one repeatedly will rotate the image in a complete circle.

In the upper-right corner of the RAW converter there are boxes for previewing and for viewing a Shadows and Highlight warning, which appear blue and red, respectively.

In the upper-right corner of the RAW window, you’ll recall we discussed the RGB channels. Just to the left of these letters you’ll note there are three boxes, for Preview, Shadows and Highlights. If all three boxes are checked, clipped black areas will appear in neon blue and clipped whites will appear in blaze red. If you uncheck these boxes the image reverts to the RAW capture as it was imported, or as it was left the last time you worked with the image in the RAW converter. For our purposes, I’m assuming this is your first visit, so the image will appear as a RAW capture.

I’ve exaggerated the exposure settings to show the red and blue warning colors of over- and under-exposed areas.

Depending on the image, you might try leaving Shadows and Highlights checked. However, if your image has dark blues or bright reds, the clipping warning may be distracting. To remove the clipping warning, simply uncheck the boxes. Repeatedly checking and unchecking Preview allows you to compare the amount of change made relative to the original capture. As a default, however, keep it checked.

The Camera Raw histogram shows the three color channels (red, green and blue) in the upper-right corner. Directly below that is a Settings box with a choice of several options, including Camera Raw Default and Previous Conversion. Camera Raw Default is a very handy way to return an image to its initial capture appearance. Previous Conversion can be helpful if you open a second image in RAW and wish to apply the same settings. That was an important feature in CS, but CS2 has a new feature that minimizes the value of this setting. The new, better way to apply the same settings is to open several images at once in Bridge, by double-clicking one of the image icons when several are selected. All of the images will appear in the RAW converter, but the first image, as it appears in Bridge, will be displayed in the large preview window. The other selected images appear as thumbnails in a column along the left side, with a different set of prompts—Select All and Synchronize...—appearing at the top of the column.

When you select several images in Bridge, all will appear in the RAW converter as thumbnails with the topmost thumbnail also showing in the larger viewing area. The top-most screen capture above shows only one thumbnail selected. If you want to select all of the images, click Select All, and all of the thumbnails in the preview column will be highlighted, as shown in the screen capture directly above.

Usually, I’ll work only on the image that appears in the large viewing window, keeping the other images (which appear as thumbnails in the preview column) grayed out. Once I’m content with the settings, I’ll click Select All, to highlight all the other image thumbnails. Next, I click Synchronize..., which applies the adjustments I made to the image in the large viewing area to the all the other images I selected in the preview column. If you decide not to apply settings to one or more images, Ctrl-Click those images to deselect them. Make sure you use Ctrl-Click rather than simply clicking the image. The latter will select the image and it will be framed in white while all other images are grayed out.

Click Synchronize... to apply your settings to all the highlighted images. To deselect images, press Ctrl while you click or, if they are grayed out, Ctrl-Click the image.

When you click Synchronize... a new dialog box appears listing all the settings you’ve made. Since the objective of this procedure is to apply the same adjustments, simply click OK when the box appears. You’ll note a little yellow triangle appears on the other images, signifying that the settings are being applied. The triangle disappears once the new settings are applied.

Click the triangle to the right of the Settings to access a flyout menu. To save the settings, some options include: Use Auto Adjustments, Save New Camera Raw Defaults, Reset Camera Raw Defaults and Preferences.

Use Auto Adjustments is the default setting, and this applies adjustments to all of the sliders. Although you may appreciate the guidance RAW provides by using Auto Adjustments, I find them distracting. If you want to turn off Use Auto Adjustments, click the triangle for the flyout menu, click Use Auto Adjustments and then click Save New Camera Raw Defaults. When you select the next image in Bridge, the Auto Adjustments should be turned off and the image you see should be the Camera Raw defaults.

Click on the tiny triangle to reveal a flyout menu for several important options.

If you wish to disable Use Auto Adjustments, click on it in the flyout menu as shown in the screen capture above. Be sure to save those settings so that subsequent images are opened with the camera settings applied.

In this same flyout menu, click Preferences and a new dialog box appears. In Save image settings in, choose Camera Raw Database. The other choice, Sidecar "xmp" files, creates another file that may be confusing if you need to open an image in Photoshop rather than in Bridge, or if you are moving files via Windows Explorer. In Apply sharpening to:, select Preview images only to apply sharpening to the preview image but not to the image file. Sharpening is best applied in Photoshop for the image size you need, as one of the last steps in your image processing workflow. Keep the default settings for the Camera Raw Cache, the last set of options in the Camera Raw Preferences dialog box.

You can also set your RAW preferences in the Settings flyout menu.

Directly below the Settings box are five tabs, but I’m only going to address one here—Adjust—which will do practically everything you’ll need to do with a RAW image. The other tabs address color noise, chromatic aberration, curves and camera calibration, and you may wish to explore these further. For now, however, let’s just deal with the Adjust tab.

You can adjust the white balance in the first dialog box of the Adjust tab.

To adjust the white balance manually, move the Temperature slider. Note that Custom appears in the White Balance dialog box when you do so.

The first choice is White Balance. If you used the White Balance tool discussed earlier, Custom already appears in the window. Click the arrow to access the drop-down menu, and select preset white balance settings such as Shot, Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Florescent, Flash and Custom. Check these settings to acquaint yourself with the approximate color temperatures for particular lighting conditions. This is extremely useful if you choose to adjust the Temperature slider yourself. Move the slider to the right to increase the color temperature—the overall image will appear warmer or more yellow. Move the slider to the left to lower the color temperature and impart a blue color. Tint, the next slider, adjusts color. Unless there is an obvious color cast, I generally leave this alone.

The White Balance drop-down menu provides several preset white balance options, although you can also use the Temperature slider to manually adjust the white balance.

The next five sliders adjust the exposure and overall look of the image. The first three function similarly to Levels in Photoshop. The Exposure slider adjusts the white point, Shadows increases the black point and Brightness adjusts the overall brightness or darkness of the image. Exposure and Shadows are so similar to Levels that if you press Alt while moving either slider, the window either completely blackens for Exposure or turns completely white for Shadows, just as Levels does in Photoshop.

Press Alt while moving either the Exposure or Shadows slider to reveal where clipping begins. In this illustration, the white sky was already clipped, and I purposely clipped the blacks to exaggerate the effect for visibility.

Here's a handy tip. To set the exact white point, move the Exposure slider until the first pixels of color appear on the blackened screen. When you see the first color pixels, back off the slider a smidge so that you’ll still have some room for adjustments in Photoshop later. The same applies to the black point, found by pressing Alt and moving the Shadows slider. When the first colors appear on the white screen, you’re there. Remember, some images may have some of the color channels clipped, so don’t be surprised if yellow appears as soon as you Alt+Click and move the Shadow slider, or if red appears when you do the same with the Exposure slider.

There’s no visual clue for Brightness, so you’ll have to move that slider to taste. Generally I only move this slider a few points from its default value of 50. I’ve found that most images benefit from a little boost in Contrast and Saturation. I’ll often raise the Contrast setting by 2 or 3 points above the +25 default setting, and move the Saturation setting to +3 from the default of 0.

You’ll have to adjust Brightness, Contrast and Saturation to taste. Brightness may require some movement, but have a light touch for Contrast and Saturation on most images.

Under Show Workflow Options you can select your color space, image resolution, bit depth and image size.

We’re almost done! In the lower-left corner of the RAW window you’ll see a small check box, Show Workflow Options, that enables you to set your color space, bit depth, image size and resolution.

I set my color space at Adobe RGB (1998) unless I know I’m going to the web or digital projection, where I’ll select sRGB IEC61966-1. The Size option box is interesting because, besides the default pixel dimensions unique for your camera, there are also three minus (-) settings and three plus (+) settings to decrease or increase the file size making a RAW conversion. After I make my workflow selections, I uncheck this box, to collapse it which results in more screen space for my image. When I need to change these settings I can check the Show Workflow Options box again.

Last, in the lower-right corner you have the option to choose Save..., Cancel, Open or Done. I never use the Save... option as this creates a file automatically, based on the settings I’ve made in the RAW converter. This just eats up hard drive space that could be better used. Click Cancel to close the RAW converter and nix any changes you’ve made—as the image reverts to either its default camera settings or to any settings applied during a previous visit to the RAW converter.

Click Open to open the image directly into Photoshop, where you’ll have the option to continue image workflow procedures such as removing dust spots, resizing for output or applying final sharpening. After doing these you’ll need to click Save or Save As in Photoshop and choose a new file extension—standard Photoshop stuff.

I frequently do my workflow without actually opening the image in Photoshop. Click Done to save your RAW settings in Bridge without having to save the file in Photoshop.

The remaining option, Done, is really neat. This applies the settings and corrections you’ve made to the RAW file without opening Photoshop. You’ve had a hint of what happens if you had selected multiple images in Bridge, and clicked on Select All and Synchronize... earlier. Had you done this, however, those changes would not appear in Bridge unless you clicked Done. It is important to remember that, although the file now may look different, and hopefully better, all we’ve done is juggled the RAW data. If you’d like to change these settings later, or revert to the original camera RAW capture, it is as simple as reopening the image file in the RAW converter and clicking the appropriate choices.

Well there you have it. Hopefully with this tutorial you’ll be able to maximize your workflow in one program—CS2—with the powerful Bridge and the fairly versatile Adobe RAW converter. But remember, the key to a speedy, efficient workflow is to start with great images!

All images Copyright © Joe and Mary Ann McDonald