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We create expressive landscapes in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. How to open a RAW file in Adobe Photoshop CS6 or CC

Who among modern people does not like to take photographs? Digital photographs have become almost one of the important components of our lives: mobile convenient selfies, sophisticated photo shoots and simply amateur shots. People love high-quality, good photographs, with the help of which they capture important events, their family, and unique places. And increasingly, SLR cameras are used to create such images, and all resulting frames undergo graphic processing.

How to open RAW in Photoshop is asked by many photography enthusiasts and image edits. It would seem that it could be simpler, but in fact, this problem has several nuances.

To answer the question of how to open the Rav camera in Photoshop, you first need to figure out what kind of format it is and why is it needed? "RAW" is translated from English as raw, unprocessed, and in our case means a digital photography format that contains raw data. Files of this format are usually obtained when using SLR, mirrorless, semi-professional digital cameras with non-replaceable lenses. Processing a photo card in the Rav format makes it possible to modify the frame parameters: exposure, saturation, white balance, sharpness, brightness, contrast. All changes can be made before editing. This function makes it possible to obtain the final photograph without losing either too dark or light areas of the frame.

Rav format files are supported by a large number of graphics programs.

Why doesn't Photoshop open RAW? In fact, in Photoshop you can open RAW format photos, however, for this, three programs are used in conjunction - the Camera RAW converter, Adobe Bridge utilities, Adobe Photoshop. These utilities are interconnected and are a single mechanism for editing and processing raster images and snapshots.

How to open Camera RAW in Photoshop?

Go to the editor's main menu, select the "File" menu and the "Open" command. In the window that appears, select the required Rav file. Select it with the mouse and click the “Open” button. This way the file will open immediately in the converter. This method is also used to open several files at once.

Opening RAW via Adobe Bridge

How to upload one photo

To open one image in the converter, you need to select the photo in the Adobe Bridge mini-image window by clicking the left mouse button, then use Ctrl+R. Or right-click on the thumbnail of the image, and from the menu that appears, select the “Open in Camera RAW” command. In this case, the picture will appear in the converter window, without using Photoshop, ready for transformation.

Having opened a photo in Rav format, you can then edit and adjust it in a variety of ways, achieving the desired result.

How to upload multiple photos at once

To load multiple images into Camera RAW, you need to select them in the Adobe Bridge thumbnail window by simultaneously pressing the Ctrl/Shift keys and selecting them with the mouse, then press Ctrl+R. After you right-click, select the “Open in Camera RAW” command, you can also use the aperture icon, which is located under the main menu.

After completing the steps described above, all your selected images will appear in the converter. Their smaller copies will be available on the left side of the window, which allows you to conveniently switch between pictures. If the thumbnail strip interferes with your work, then you can move its border to the left side of the editor interface, in which case it will be minimized, and the selected picture will be stretched to fill the entire screen.

How to properly close a photo after editing?

To properly close the photo, saving all the changes and adjustments made, click on the “Done” button, which is located at the bottom of the program window. If you want to save the photo without saving the edit in RAV format, you just need to select “Cancel”. If you need to return to Photoshop and transfer the photo card there while saving all the settings you have made, you must use the “Open Image” command.

Working with Rav extension files is very convenient and easy using Photoshop. This editor in conjunction with a converter allows you to change, edit and process your photos and images to obtain the desired result, making them brighter, richer and more interesting.

Camera RAW is the most popular plugin for Photoshop. It comes bundled with many versions of Photoshop, but there is often a need to update it, since it is updated more often than Photoshop itself. Moreover, if you downloaded the Portable version of Photoshop, this plugin may not be there. Well, be that as it may, I’ll still tell you in detail now how to update to the latest version.

In this case, the installation will take place by copying just one file, you will not get any errors, and I am almost sure that this method will work for other, later versions of Camera RAW.

So, if you are trying to open a RAV file and you get this error:

then know that you do not have the plugin installed for Photoshop at all.

If you just have an old version of the RAV Camera, then you can simply go to the Help—>Updates menu. But there may also be a problem here. If you are using an unlicensed version (and who uses it now, if not in the West?), then you may receive the following error:

But there is definitely an effective way that will help you.

you can go to the official Adobe website and try to download the plugin there. Select our OS version.

So, this installation package contains the Camera RAW plugin. Although you won't find a file with that name. Let's go inside the AdobeCameraRaw-6.6-mul-AdobeUpdate.zip archive. Next to the payloads folder and

  • if you have 32-bit Photoshop version , then in the folder AdobeCameraRaw6.0All-011211024650 there is an archive Assets2_1.zip, which contains file 1003. That’s right, without an extension. Copy it to your Photoshop plugins folder. For CS5, this could be the path \App\PhotoshopCS5\Plug-ins\ (which is in the folder where you installed Photoshop). Rename it Total Commander in Camera Raw 6.6.8bi. That's right, with expansion. You can also download .
  • if you have 64-bit Photoshop version , then the folder for you is AdobeCameraRaw6.0All-x64-011211031019, it contains the archive Assets2_1.zip with a file without the 1002 extension, which also needs to be renamed to Camera Raw 6.6.8bi.

That's it, restart Photoshop and use the latest version of the plugin.

IMPORTANT! This way you can update absolutely any version of Camera RAW . . Just remember that some recent versions of Camera RAW will not be compatible with older versions of Photoshop.

ATTENTION! If you still had at least some version of the camera installed, then simply placing the new version in the plugins folder may not achieve anything. This can happen if you are using a Photoshop assembly other than the cracked licensed one. This is the so-called “Repack”. Repacks work the same way as the main programs, but either something has been added to them, or something has been cut back. In this case, you should look in the folder with plugins in the folder File Formats. If you don’t see a file there that says Camera RAW in its name, then here’s what you need to do: you have to launch Photoshop and try to open the raw file in it. Then in the folder File Formats start moving plugins one by one to a folder in a different location. The file that could not be moved is the RAV Camera, only under a different name. Close Photoshop, delete this file (this can be done because it will no longer be used by Photoshop), and return the plugins that you moved to another folder.

That's all. If you have questions, you can ask them in the comments.

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Before I get straight to the point and talk about working with the converter Adobe Camera Raw, I would like to make a short introduction and explain exactly what purpose I am pursuing in creating this article and who it is aimed at.

First of all, I want to note that I have no goal of telling absolutely everything I know about working with this converter (hereinafter referred to as ACR). This would require too much time and effort. Besides, although I know a lot, I obviously don’t know everything. And there are enough sources to get detailed and guaranteed correct information about working with this program, even without me. For example, a very good textbook “Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers” who wrote Martin Evening.

My goal is to give the most necessary basics and reveal how to work with the most popular (from my point of view) ACR tools, so that any beginner who has not yet decided to shoot in RAW and work with it, after reading this article, understands that this is the case, in fact, quite simple, and most importantly – extremely convenient and useful.

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RAW— (from English - “raw”) data format containing raw information and allowing to avoid its loss. Such files contain complete information about the stored signal. In digital photography, the RAW format refers to data obtained directly from the camera sensor without processing. .

Almost any modern digital camera has the ability to shoot (or rather, record the received information) in JPG and RAW format. The main difference between these two formats is that JPG is the result of processing the received data by the camera itself and, as a result, a compressed image with a lot of lost information, while RAW is all the information that was received on the camera matrix during the shooting process. Usually, smart Modern cameras cope with information processing quite well and produce quite acceptable results in JPG form, but still, with rare exceptions, they cannot do it better than us, much smarter people. So, to paraphrase Michurin’s famous phrase: “Let’s not wait for mercy from digital technology, our goal is to take it ourselves!”

So let's get started...

  • Workflow Options— First, you need to decide on Workflow Options (by clicking on the line marked in red under the photo). You must select in which color space ( Space) we will work (if the photo will be printed, then select Adobe RGB 1998, if you need the file exclusively for web applications, then sRGB is quite enough), and also select the depth ( Depth), size ( Size) and resolution ( Resolution) of our future file. I would like to note that converting in a wider space, with greater depth, maximum sizes and resolution, of course, is best for the quality of the final result, but we should not forget that all this will ultimately give us a file of quite impressive size ( 50-70 MB on average), and the space on the hard drive is not rubber. So let's be reasonable and try to match our needs with necessity.
  • Conversion data management— On the right side of the control panel in the line next to the inscription Basic There is a rather inconspicuous button, and yet very convenient and necessary functions are hidden behind it. With their help, we can save the data of any conversion and then apply it to any other equalizer with one click. By default, all conversion data is saved in a small file format .xmp, which is automatically saved to the folder where the converted equalizer is located. If this does not happen (you could, for example, cancel this function), then the data can be saved by clicking on Save Settings...In the future, if you want to apply the saved data to any other equalizer, just download the corresponding .xmp file via function Load Setting…
    ACR also makes it possible to convert and make changes to a large number of ravs simultaneously, but I will talk about this a little later.
  • White Balance Tool— Before we move on to the next part, I would like to draw your attention to one more point - the tool for changing the white balance. This is an eyedropper that works on the same principle as the gray eyedropper in Curves in Photoshop (more on this topic in “Simple Miracles of Color Correction”).
    The tool is very useful in case of some controversial issues with white balance or, for example, when converting infrared images.

Though White Balance Tool and convenient, but still the main tool for changing the white balance, as well as many other extremely useful ones, is located elsewhere. To do this, let's go again to the right, main part of the toolbars Basic:

  • White Balance— In this pop-up window you can select several standard automatic white balance settings, which are also available on any camera. It should be borne in mind that, despite the “standard”, they can vary quite significantly from camera to camera and from program to program and, most importantly, do not always correspond to the true state of things, that is, these settings are highly averaged and approximate.
    You can always try clicking on the option Auto, it is not so rare that it produces quite acceptable results. Well, if none of the proposed options suits you, then you have at your disposal tools for manually setting white balance - Temperature And Tint. Well, again, don’t forget about the White Balance Tool dropper!
  • Exposure— One of the most important converter tools. With its help, you can make significant exposure correction to the existing frame. For example, my portrait of an owl is quite noticeably underexposed (dark), which is easily corrected by moving the plus lever. If the frame is overexposed (overexposed), this can be corrected by moving the lever to minus. Track changes in the photo preview - overexposed fragments will be filled in red, which is very convenient and visual.
  • Recovery— My owl has white plumage, and the white color fades very easily into overexposure. So, having adjusted the exposure to plus, I got obvious overexposure in some places on the feathers. To fix this, let's use a truly wonderful tool. Recovery. It allows you to expand the dynamic range of a photograph even in the process of elementary conversion, removing overexposure in the necessary places, (almost) without affecting the rest of the frame.
  • Fill light— A second tool that helps expand the dynamic range. With its help, if necessary, you can lighten excessively dark areas in the shadows, (almost) without affecting the rest of the photo. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that with the tools Fill light And Recovery You should handle them carefully and not lose a sense of proportion, since overdoing them can easily result in ugly, flat and noisy photographs. When used correctly and in moderation, these tools have no price!
  • Clarity— Another wonderful tool with which you can increase the tonal contrast of an image (increase micro-contrast and get more detail) or, conversely, reduce it, getting something like a “soft focus” effect. But be careful! Excessive use can have a detrimental effect on the image - noise and artifacts will appear, especially noticeable in out-of-focus areas, or details will easily disappear in the least contrasting areas of the image.
  • Vibrance— A very nice instrument, in my opinion, which has completely replaced the instrument for me personally Saturation. Its beauty lies in the fact that it increases color saturation only selectively and only in those areas that are already the most prominent and bright, (almost) without affecting the calmer (background) tones.

Now let's move on to the next page - Tone Curve.

Everything related to contrast (and indirectly color) can be refined here, working directly with the histogram graph and individual zones of light, shadows and midtones. The operating principle is the same as in Curves Photoshop itself, but also a more simplified one.

If you work with the second bookmark Point, then we get the same graph in which we can work on any arbitrary points, as in Photoshop.

And here it is in the bookmark Paramtric The data is changed by changing the values ​​at four points (lights in two values ​​and shadows also in two values). For people who are not very comfortable with Photoshop Curves, bookmark Parametric should be much more obvious and intuitive.

In earlier versions of the ACR function Point, unfortunately, it was quite buggy and it was almost impossible to use it (maybe it was just me, I don’t know). So, after getting a little angry and spitting, I got used to using the functions Parametric.

In the latest version I have, the points finally work, but I’m already so used to working with the parameters that I automatically go to this tab first, make changes... and then scroll to the second one and finalize the points on the graph. To be honest, I don’t know how much sense this makes, but I’m already used to working this way.

Let's move on to the next page - Detail. Here we will work on image sharpness and fight noise.

NB! As the text under the tools rightly states, before you start making any changes in this window, increase the preview size to 100% or higher, only this way you can reliably track the changes being made.

Tool Noise Reduction consists of two parts - Luminance And Color. In the first, you work with suppression of brightness noise, and in the second, color noise. If this is necessary, in the column Color The slider can be safely moved almost to the maximum value, there will be no harm from this. WITH Luminance You need to be careful - the higher the value, the more the overall sharpness of the image will drop. However, this can be somewhat corrected.

Sharpening— using this tool you can significantly increase the sharpness of the image. It operates on approximately the same principle as the most popular tool of this series in Photoshop - Unsharp Mask.
Personally, I can say that I use this tool in the converter very sparingly and most often only in cases where I first had to work with noise reduction.

Now let's go to HSL/Grayscale— the most important part of color correction in the converter.

Here you can quite flexibly and quickly convert the image to black and white; to do this, just check the box next to the inscription Convert to Grayscale.

We are now working with color, so we leave this area untouched and move on to the tabs of the HSL tool - an interesting and, in my opinion, quite successful mixture of Photoshop Hue/Saturation, Selective Color And Channel Mixer.

Hue— Working with different color channels, here you can select shades of any of the colors presented. For example, I didn’t want the red in the photo to look pink, and I wanted to make the yellow a little warmer - so I moved the corresponding levers.

Saturation— By the same principle as in the previous part, here you can work with the saturation of various colors without affecting any others.

Luminance— The same tool allows you to change the brightness of colors by channel from darker to lighter, or vice versa.

All these tools are very visual and intuitive. But, as with most other converter tools, the main thing here is not to lose a sense of proportion.

So, our image is almost ready, the final touches remain - correcting the shortcomings of the picks, which can be done in the section Lens Corrections.

It is these unpleasant phenomena that can be combated with the help of a tool Chromatic Aberration. Enlarge the image to 100% or higher and, moving the sliders back and forth, track changes in problem areas of the image until you arrive at the optimal result.

Professional photographers are obsessed with the RAW format, and for good reason. Doesn’t it seem attractive to be able to put aside technical details “for later” and shoot for fun? If you decide to join the ranks of such photographers, but don’t know where and how to process the RAW format, this article is for you. Below you will learn about all the benefits of raw shooting and get valuable tips for working with RAW photographs.

Why shoot and process in RAW?

The RAW format stores all possible information about the photograph taken. Each pixel contains maximum data about the color of the captured object. There is no need to constantly adjust the white balance and exposure to a new location - all defects can and should be corrected later, during post-processing.

This is interesting to know!

As soon as you click the shutter, the camera lens captures the light pulses reflected from the subject. Afterwards, they will instantly appear in the photomatrix. It will analyze the captured pulses and record data on the color of each pixel. This data makes up the RAW file (translated from English as “raw”, “unprocessed”). This is the captured image in its purest form. If you shoot in JPEG, the adventures of the “raw” files will continue in the built-in processor – the device will “adjust” the received information to the camera settings – and the photo will be ready.


Photos processed in RAW format look brighter and better quality


RAW images are most often dull, not particularly attractive, and at first glance they are significantly inferior to their JPEG versions. However, everything changes after the first setup. For clarity, let's compare using a specific example. On the right you see a photo processed in RAW, and on the left is a photo to which the same settings were applied, only after conversion to JPEG.

The difference is obvious - working with RAW gave a noticeably better result. Colors appear natural and rich, and overall the photo looks more vibrant and professional. How successfully you will be able to develop a RAW photo depends on the selected processing program.

Which editor is more convenient to work with RAW?

RAW does not have a standard extension - each camera developer implements its own type. U Canon– these are.CR2 and.CRW, y Nikon– .NEF, y Samsung- .SRW, etc. Not every program recognizes these formats, and a fair question arises: where do professionals process RAW images?

The well-known old-timer of photo editors, Photoshop, is not the undisputed leader in this area. It weighs a lot, it has a lot of “unnecessary” functions, and an additional module is required to work with RAW. Many people advise turning to Lightroom, but this Adobe friend is not particularly pleased with the accessibility and brevity of the settings.

The editor is a completely different matter. PhotoMASTER. Outwardly, it resembles its Western competitors, however, it is much easier to work with. It doesn’t matter at all what camera you shoot with - the software supports all modern models and “knows” all RAW extensions. Let's see its capabilities in action.

Instant improvement

The first thing you will see when you upload a RAW photo is a window with auto enhancement settings. The software will offer several profiles for instant processing - a general improvement in color balance, more contrasting and saturated colors for landscapes, natural shades for portraits.



PhotoMASTER offers several built-in profiles for quick RAW processing


By selecting one of the profiles, you will be taken to the main window where you can continue processing. In the Enhancements menu you will see a list of basic settings. Pay attention to the line "Auto-correction"– with the help of the “Color” and “Lighting” commands you can significantly.



Automatically improve color balance and lighting in photos

Detailed color customization

Now let's figure out how to process RAW photos manually. PhotoMASTER allows you to adjust the tone of the image in the smallest detail. If there is flare, you can easily eliminate them by moving the slider on the scale of the same name. Feel free to level up saturation, the photo will only benefit from this - the dynamic range of the RAW format will allow you to avoid unnatural posterization.



The RAW format allows you to maximize color saturation without losing quality


To lighten or, conversely, darken a photo without losing detail, use "Dark" And "Light". These parameters adjust individual areas of the image (light and dark, respectively), leaving the rest untouched. This selectivity guarantees a better result.



For more comprehensive lighting correction, adjust light and dark areas separately


PhotoMASTER gives you a unique opportunity to correct individual colors in a photo. To do this, go to the tab "Color", select the desired shade and adjust to your liking. You can turn red into pink or yellow, and blue into green or purple, just by moving the slider.



You can change the color in the photo by simply moving the slider on the scale


In the same tab you will find tools for manually adjusting the color balance of the image - the software allows you to separately adjust the light and dark shades of the primary colors of the spectrum - red, blue and green. Additionally, you can make specific colors more/less saturated, as well as lighten or darken them, which is ideal for editing portraits. This will allow you to add a bright color accent to the photo, without the skin taking on an unnatural orange tint.



Increase the saturation of individual colors to create an accent

Everything for a perfect result

These are only those tools that are designed to “manifest” RAW. PhotoMASTER amazes with the range of possibilities and number of tools for full photo editing. Go to section "Composition" and use the “Crop” option to . If necessary, correct a blocked horizon and distortion in a couple of mouse clicks.



PhotoMASTER offers several presets for instantly cropping photos


In chapter "Retouch" You will find convenient tools for high-quality removal of defects in portraits, removing unnecessary objects from the frame, as well as options for detailed correction of individual areas of the image.



In the editor you can easily bring portrait shots to perfection


PhotoMASTER provides complete freedom for artistic transformation of a photo - tint the photo, add an accent using a radial filter, create a film grain effect, or apply a filter from the collection.



PhotoMASTER includes dozens of ready-made filters that you can apply in one click


Instead of racking your brains over how best to process the RAW file format, PhotoMASTER and start improving your pictures now!

Many people, having taken a landscape photo of a beautiful place, wonder why it doesn’t look very good in the photo. How to get the kind of result that you see from professionals on different sites on the social network VK, Instagram, etc.? The answer is obvious, any photograph of any professional undergoes one or another processing. If you see a beautiful photo and the author says that he didn’t edit it, don’t believe it! In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll look at a landscape photography technique that many professionals use.

But first, a few words about the editor. Think of Photoshop as your personal darkroom. During the era of film photography, some photographers had black and white darkrooms at home. This way they could control the entire process of creating the image. A very select few had color darkrooms, as this was much more complex and expensive. Nowadays, we have at our disposal a complete color darkroom installed on a computer (or even an iPad) called Photoshop or Lightroom (it's not called that by mistake, it's the opposite of darkroom). If you have Photoshop or Lightroom, then you have a very powerful tool with which you can edit your images.

After

Let's make your photos expressive!

What does it mean to make photographs expressive? This can mean a number of characteristics, but generally it is more color, contrast and drama. As always, this means having a good image to work with. This is not about improving an average quality image. Make sure you choose a good reference image to work with and then proceed with the next steps.

Shoot only inRAW

Shooting in RAW format is a good start. I know you don't want to shoot in RAW because the file size is very large or you don't see the benefits, but RAW really is different. First, you are working with a complete, uncompressed data file. A JPEG image already has camera settings that compress it to the desired size. Some information is completely lost, meaning you are working with less information about the image, which in turn means less flexibility in the editing process. Of course, RAW is only useful if you're going to spend time processing your images in Photoshop or Lightroom.

Let's say you're going to edit and you took photos in RAW format. Open the file in Photoshop and you'll see the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) editor. This is truly a very powerful tool. Recent updates have made the ACR editor in Photoshop almost a separate post-processing tool, it's so powerful. When it opens, you will see a set of tools on the right side of the panel, mainly sliders such as: White Balance, Hue, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Burns, Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation.

EditorCamera RawVPhotoshop CC

The camera raw editor contains some very powerful tools. The following steps will be done primarily in the RAW editor, then the image will be opened in Photoshop and edited further. Many of these adjustments are similar to those you can make in the Adjustments module in Lightroom, so you can make the same adjustments there as well.

EditorCamera RawVAdobe Photoshop CC

Basic editor slidersRAWclose-up

Settings VRAWeditor

Temperature– First of all, pay attention to the color in the scene. You can adjust the temperature to make the scene warmer (move the slider towards yellow) or cooler (move the slider towards blue). This way you can adjust the color tone or add some drama to the image. In this scene I decided to go towards warm colors.

Exposition– look at the exposure, the image may be very dark or too light. Use the sliders to adjust this.

Contrast– adjust the contrast so that the dark areas of the image are dark enough without losing detail.

Sveta– in this image the red indicator in the highlights shows me where there is very little detail. To compensate for this, move the slider to the left. If your highlights are underexposed, then move the slider to the right, but be careful not to overexpose them.

Shadows– The shadow slider can help you bring back detail in the shadows or darken them. Be careful with this and don't overdo it, as the shadows may look noisy (or the image will look like HDR).

White– This slider adjusts each white or partially white pixel in the image.

Blackout– This slider adjusts each black pixel.

Definition– The clarity slider controls contrast in midtones. This can add some structure to the image, but don't overdo it.

colorfulness– this slider affects any unsaturated pixel. This is a good start to add some expression to the scene.

Saturation– this slider adjusts all pixels, making them saturated or desaturated.

Basic settings inCamera RAW

Panel SettingsHSL

This tab contains three tools: Hue, Saturation, and Lightness (HSL). These settings will make changes to the image based on color channels. For example, if you click on the saturation tab, you can make the reds more or less saturated, the same goes for the oranges and all the other color channels. You can also make a specific color brighter using the Brightness tab. In this image I wanted to deepen the reds, yellows and oranges, as well as some blues.

Panel SettingsHSL

Gradient filter inCamera Raw

As well as using a filter on your lens while shooting, you can also add a gradient filter in Camera Raw. The beauty of using it in Photoshop is that you can make very subtle adjustments to your image depending on where you place the Gradient Filter Tool.

Click on the Gradient Filter icon at the top of the screen and you'll see a new dialog box with very similar functionality to the basic Camera Raw module. The difference here is that you will be clicking and dragging the filter down to highlight the sky. You can also click and drag from bottom to top to select the foreground. I'll do both (The gradient filter is applied to the image from the edge inwards).

Starting at the top, I click and drag the filter up to just over halfway through my image. This limits the effect to the top half. It's a gradient filter, so the effect will blend correctly and you won't see a hard line where it ends (the further you drag it, the wider the blending area, you can adjust that later too). I make some adjustments and you can see the difference in the sky area. Once you're done with one filter, click New (at the top of the dialog box) and repeat the process, but this time drag up from the bottom to edit the foreground. Once you've made all the adjustments, you can click Open Image at the bottom of the Camera Raw window to open it in Photoshop.

The Gradient Filter icon is highlighted

One of the key settings worth mentioning here is the Remove Haze tool. It does exactly what it says - removes haze and creates better contrast. Use it with caution, it can easily be overdone and your image will suffer as a result. This tool is really very useful for landscapes and sea views, as they often have haze, as was the case in my case. With its help, the haze was easily removed and the image became better.

You'll notice that you can also remove haze in the Gradient Filter window. Choose when to apply it at your discretion, but keep in mind that using it without a selection will apply the effect to the entire image. Using it here in the Gradient Filter means you'll have finer control over how it affects the image.

Click and drag the Gradient Filter from top to bottom to highlight the sky. Then select settingsthat you want to apply.

Selecting the foreground by dragging from bottom to top.

Open your image inPhotoshop

Once you've made all the adjustments in Camera Raw, the finishing touches can be done in Adobe Photoshop. Once again, the sky and foreground of this image will look different, so they need different settings.

To make a softer selection of the sky, click on the Quick Mask tool at the bottom of Photoshop's left sidebar. You can then use a soft brush to paint on the selected sky as a mask. Once you're happy with the selection (you'll see a red mask), click on the Quick Mask tool again to activate that selection. There is one trick regarding the Quick Mask that is worth mentioning. A mask means you select everything that is NOT red. So when you click on Quick Mask, you'll see a blinking highlight around the bottom of the image rather than around the red area. This is good because you can switch between these two areas very easily and apply the settings to each selection.

First of all, make the necessary foreground adjustments using Levels. In this image I wanted to make the foreground a little brighter, so I turned up the highlights. Next, I selected the opposite side (i.e. the sky). You can do this by holding down CTRL>SHIFT>I at the same time. This will switch the selection from foreground to background.

Red indicates the area that will be under the mask

Flashing dots show where the current selection is.

Setting Foreground Levels

CTRL>SHIFT> I will switch the selection, here the sky was selected and a Levels adjustment layer was applied to adjust the sky

Use Hue/Saturation to make final color adjustments

You can use the toggle function (CTRL>SHIFT>I) to select the sky and foreground alternately. Once you've made a selection, select the adjustment tool and the changes will be applied only to the selected area. In this example, I used the Hue/Saturation function to further enhance the image. I re-correct each channel. This gives me control over the range of colors that need to be saturated, and perhaps desaturate the rest that are slightly oversaturated. Go through each channel and make the necessary adjustments.

Hue/Saturation for final color adjustments

When you're done, you can sharpen the image as much as you like and save it for printing. The steps above will help you make any image better. If done correctly, your image will become more expressive and dramatic, just like you wanted.

Try it out and learn the process, these settings are done really quickly.

Final image

Translation: Tatyana Saprykina