Ways to open photos in Adobe Camera Raw. Using the Radial Filter in Photoshop CC

Perhaps every photographer has encountered the problem of focusing errors. This is especially offensive when there is no sharpness on best photo series. It is clear that obvious autofocus errors are immediately visible and nothing can be done about them (except maybe re-shoot). But there are times when everything is fine on the “magic screen” of the camera, an extra take is usually not taken, and the problem of “blurring” of the image has to be solved already at the post-processing stage.

This article by Steve Lasmin will help readers figure out what to do with photos with “too soft” focus, how to deal with chronic front or back focus of the lens in post-processing, and what to do if the sharpness is lost on the subject’s eyes.

There are many ways to sharpen. The most commonly used filters are those based on the “unsharp masking” method. This technique comes from film photography, in digital age gaining widespread use and many uses. The most popular and simplest of them is the well-known filter Adobe Photoshop filter Filter → Unsharp Mask.

Simply put, sharpening using unsharp masking methods is based on increasing the contrast in areas at the boundaries of tonal areas. That is, with unsharp masking (using the Unsharp Mask filter and/or similar) sharpening does not occur from a formal point of view, however small parts become more contrasting and noticeable, which creates visual effect sharper image.

The unsharp masking method is the best way to return/give a “ringing” sharpness when preparing a photo for posting on the Internet. Indeed, when photographs are reduced in size, the pixels are “recalculated,” which results in a slight blurring of the image. This is especially noticeable at the edges of small thin objects (such as eyelashes). By properly setting the unsharp masking filters, you can easily get rid of this unwanted effect.

Adobe offers a non-standard solution for sharpening images in its plugin Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which also serves as the engine for the popular universal raw converter Adobe Lightroom. It can be used immediately, even during the raw conversion process, and recently it has become available as regular filter Adobe Photoshop for use at any stage of working with an image.

The complex and, at first glance, obscure procedure for setting up ACR quite often scares away novice photographers from using of this filter-plugin in the context of working with photo sharpening. Meanwhile, it is able to really sharpen image details: new clear boundaries of objects are formed, there are no visually noticeable halos, and the contrast and color of details do not change.

A small fly in the ointment is a general drop in detail when using ACR with aggressive settings, but this can be combated by localizing its use using regular masks.

Practice sharpening an out-of-focus photo

Let's look at the algorithm for working with an out-of-focus image from raw conversion to saving.

As an example, let's take a photo taken in raw format with a shallow depth of field. The problem with this photo is obvious - the model's eyes are out of focus and look slightly blurry. Let's open the raw file in Adobe Photoshop and with standard settings we will get the following:

As you can see, the image is quite blurry and requires our intervention.

Note . If you need to sharpen the entire image at once, following settings ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) is best applied immediately at the raw conversion stage. Let's create a copy of the layer (Ctrl+J, or drag the background image layer onto the new layer icon) and use the Filter → Camera Raw Filter (Ctrl+Shift+A) on it.

Let's go to the Detail tab:

There are four sliders here related to image detailing: Amount - the degree of impact, Radius - is responsible for the size of the details whose sharpness will be enhanced, Detail - the degree of impact on small details and noise, Masking - allows you to limit the impact only on the largest, most contrasting boundaries.

It's worth noting that the behavior of the sliders is not intuitive. For example, if you just pull the first slider, nothing good will happen.

This is what comes out with Amount = 150, Radius = 1, Detail = 25, Masking = 0:

Therefore, you will have to do a little trickier and start adjusting with the Radius slider. However, the direct impact on it is not clear.

In order to adjust the radius parameter, when you click on it and then drag, you must hold down the Alt key. Then the preview image will become gray with indistinguishable details (like texture during frequency decomposition or direct influence of the High Pass filter).

To obtain the highest quality result, you need to adjust the Radius parameter so that the details that need to be sharpened become most obvious, but the “microvolumes” of small objects and contrasting halos around them have not yet begun to appear.

Having decided on the radius value, you can move on to setting the overall degree of influence, the Amount slider. While dragging it, you can also hold down Alt, then the preview will become black and white, which in some cases makes it easier to work with.

Unlike the first attempt to influence the Amount slider (before adjusting the Radius), now not only noise is amplified, but also the necessary details.

Now, so that the noise does not increase, we will adjust the parameter for the degree of influence on the overall detail using the Detail slider. If you Alt-click or drag on it, a preview will appear showing what details will be affected by our sharpening efforts, but usually a simple final preview is more visual.

At values of Detail = 100, noise is maximally manifested; at small values of Detail, the effect occurs only on large, “useful” details.

It is worth noting that the Detail value should not always be reduced to zero: in this case, the picture may begin to appear more blurry than it was initially, since against the background of new sharp details the eye begins to perceive the absence of natural “comfortable” noise as a lack of focus. Typically, the Detail value is chosen in the region of 3-15 (most often 3-7).

The last Masking slider is used quite rarely. Unlike Detail, which smoothly affects general degree detail, Masking allows you to strictly delimit the zones where sharpening occurs (where the three previous sliders are affected) and where it does not.

As the value of the Masking parameter increases, the impact on the image area decreases and remains at an extreme value only at high-contrast edges. If you hold down the Alt key while clicking or dragging the slider, you can see where the sharpening will occur and which areas will be excluded from the effect.

With Masking = 80. The corresponding contour mask would look like this:

And the result with parameters Masking = 80, Detail = 100 (to make the example clearer) would be like this:

It is precisely because of this “ragged” result that instead of Masking, reduced Detail values are usually used, and Masking is left equal to zero. However, in those rare cases when it is necessary to completely eliminate the impact on areas with low detail, and you don’t want to set the Detail parameter to zero, Masking successfully helps achieve the desired result.

Having considered the principles of operation and settings for the sliders, let’s configure the parameters for our image and, as a result, by clicking on OK, we get:

Now, if we need to sharpen not the entire image, but only some of its parts, create a black mask for the layer (Alt + Click on the mask icon) and use a soft white brush to paint over it in those places where it is necessary.

How to achieve even better quality

When sharpening the filter plug-in Filter → Camera Raw Filter or in the process of converting a raw file to ACR/Lightroom, visually visible halos are not created around contrasting objects and there is no change in contrast, brightness or color of details, and with proper settings it is actually possible to literally “stretch out” » details from the blur zone. At the same time, the pixel detail of the entire image drops somewhat - in the process of sharpening, this filter essentially combines several neighboring pixels that are close to each other in color and brightness into one clearly defined speck, which is somewhat reminiscent of the effect of the Filter → Median filter.

To obtain an even better result, you should perform one more block of actions. After sharpening in the described way, the image must be reduced by a number of times equal to the Radius parameter (or greater). After that, increase the sharpness using classic unsharp masking (Filter → Unsharp Mask with parameters Amount = 60-150, Radius = 0.3 or similar) to compensate for the drop in sharpness when the resolution is reduced.

It's scary to do this with a photograph, isn't it? :) Don't be afraid of loss of quality - practice shows that with appropriate pre-press preparation, 6-megapixel images (3000 pixels on the larger side) look great on A3 size prints.

The result, as you can see, completely justifies itself. On the right is the result after sharpening in the described way after reducing by 2.1 times and appropriately sharpening by applying Unsharp Mask twice with different parameters. On the left is the original, after reduction and the same sharpening by applying Unsharp Mask twice.

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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 beautiful photo and the author says that he did not process 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 that you need to have good picture for work. 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- This 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 right 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. Latest updates They made the ACR editor in Photoshop almost a separate tool for post-processing, it’s so powerful. When it opens you will see a set of tools with right side panels are basically sliders such as: White Balance, Hue, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Burn, Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation.

EditorCamera RawVPhotoshop CC

The camera raw editor contains some very powerful tools. The following steps will be done mainly in RAW editor, the image will then 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 everything else 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 will see a new dialog box with very similar functions, the same as the basic one Camera module Raw. 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 key settings The tool that needs to be mentioned 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 the left side Photoshop panels. 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, do necessary settings foreground 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. It gives me control color range, which needs to be made more saturated, and perhaps desaturate the rest, which 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

At the time of writing this article I am using Adobe plugin Camera Raw versions 7, which comes with Adobe Photoshop CS6. This is the first version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) to feature fully automatic chromatic aberration correction, which is very important to me. I find earlier versions of ACR unacceptable, and until the release of Adobe Camera Raw 7, I used DxO Optics Pro as my main RAW converter. DxO is not too different user-friendly interface, but provides excellent quality conversion of RAW files, which Adobe was able to approach only in 2012. Since the ACR interface is more convenient for me, I, having appreciated the advantages of the seventh version, changed the converter.

If you are using any other RAW converter, try to follow the same steps as described in this article. The general operating principle of all converters is the same, and they differ in by and large, in detail. Among the popular converters, in addition to Adobe Camera Raw, I can recommend DxO Optics Pro and Phase One Capture One PRO. converters from photographic equipment manufacturers - Canon Digital Photo Professional and Nikon Capture NX do an excellent job of converting images taken using Canon cameras and Nikon, respectively, but have an extremely inconvenient interface. The widely used Adobe Lightroom runs on the Adobe Camera Raw engine, and therefore does not differ from the latter in conversion quality.

When choosing a RAW converter, make sure that the images converted with it are no worse in quality than the JPEG obtained using the camera. Intracameral conversion to last years provides (with proper configuration) such good results that often shooting in JPEG is preferable to inept processing of a RAW file in a not-so-new converter (see “RAW or JPEG?”).

Let's look at the basics of processing RAW files using the example of a photograph of a picturesque valley in the Skole Beskids. Let's open the file in Adobe Photoshop, and the Adobe Camera Raw window will open in front of us. The raw landscape, as always happens with RAW files, looks quite washed out, but we'll fix that soon.

At the top left is a panel of the most frequently used tools from the point of view of program developers. I usually have magnifying glass selected ( Zoom Tool– Z key) or hand ( Hand Tool– H key or holding down the space bar). On the right top corner you can see a color histogram, and below it there are tabs for groups of tools for image editing.

If you open several RAW files at once in ACR, you will see them on the left as a row of icons. Camera Raw supports batch processing files, i.e. by selecting multiple images, you can change various parameters simultaneously for the entire package. Can also be applied to all open files uniform parameters based on an already edited sample using the Synchronize function.

Before you start working with Adobe Camera Raw for the first time, you should configure some of the plugin's settings so that you won't be distracted by them in the future.

Setting up Adobe Camera Raw

First of all, open the ACR settings dialog. It can be found in top panel tools (third button from the right) or call by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+K.

In chapter General, in the Save image settings in item, select where the processing parameters for each edited image should be saved - in separate .xmp files (Sidecar “.xmp” files) or in a special database (Camera Raw database). I prefer the first option, i.e. after saving the results of the work, the program creates next to each RAW file additional file settings with the extension .xmp, in which all changes made are recorded. In the case of a database, all information is stored centrally, which is inconvenient for me. In both cases, the RAW file itself does not undergo any changes, and therefore you can always go back in the editing process or even reset all settings and start editing again. Also, settings are reset when deleting an .xmp file or ACR database.

In chapter Default Image Settings Uncheck all the boxes to prevent the program from arbitrarily adjusting images.

In chapter Camera Raw Cache indicate the maximum volume acceptable for you temporary files(at least 1 Gb) and the folder where they should be stored (preferably not on the system drive).

Chapter DNG File Handling you can not touch it, but in the section JPEG and TIFF Handling disable support JPEG formats and TIFF (Disable JPEG support and Disable TIFF support), since these formats are best processed directly through Photoshop.

Save the settings by clicking "OK".

At the very bottom of the Adobe Camera Raw window, in the form of a blue link with an underline, there is a description of the workspace that will be assigned to the image after you finish working in ACR and open it in Photoshop. Click on the "link". In the window that opens, check the following points:

Try to avoid clipping in highlights by constantly monitoring your histogram. By pressing the O key you can turn on the highlight clipping warning. Clipping shadows is much more common, but also requires caution.

Contrast– contrast. Controls the overall contrast of an image using an S-curve, changing the difference in brightness between the darkest and lightest areas. I rarely use Contrast values above +25, and now I won't touch it at all.

The following two tools work in tandem to selectively control the brightness of highlights and shadows:

Highlights- Sveta. Helps bring out details in overly bright light. I'll give it -50.

Shadows– shadows. Brightens shadows like a fill flash. +25 will be enough.

The next pair of tools operate even more narrowly, affecting only the extreme points of the histogram, which is sometimes necessary to combat clipping, or, conversely, lack of contrast:

Whites– white dot. I'll move the edge of the histogram to the right by +30, although I use negative values much more often.

Blacks– black dot. I’ll leave it unchanged – the black color is still in its place.

Experiment with Highlights/Shadows and Whites/Blacks to see how they differ from each other.

Clarity– clarity or local contrast. Clarity is the most useful tool because in many scenes you have to deal with the lack of local contrast, while the overall contrast is ok, or even excessive. But be careful: in pursuit of detail, it’s easy to go too far and end up with unnatural halos around objects. I usually don't go above Clarity +50, but today I'll make an exception and set it to +75.

Vibrance And Saturation control color saturation. The difference between them is selectivity. If Saturation increases the saturation of all colors indiscriminately, then Vibrance works more delicately, increasing the intensity of only the least rich colors. I'll set the Vibrance to +50 and Saturation to +15, which is quite high. More often you have to use lower values in order to then selectively increase the saturation of only individual color channels.

Often, after I've adjusted all the Basic tab tools, I'll go back to the white balance sliders to adjust them to account for any changes in brightness, contrast, or color saturation that might have affected the color balance.

This is what we got at this stage. You can compare the processing results with the original image by hovering your cursor over the image.

I am unhappy with the sky - it is too light, has an unnatural gradient of brightness from left to right, and its color is not intense enough. In addition, I would like the mountains closest to us (to the left and to the right) to look a little more contrasting and more prominent. I'll deal with the mountains later in Photoshop, and a gradient filter will help me improve the sky ( Graduated Filter– G key). It is an imitation of a real gradient filter, but has a wide variety of customizable parameters.

First of all, to shade the top left corner, I will apply a diagonally oriented gradient filter to it with the parameters: Temperature -10; Exposure -0.50. Then, across the entire sky, from the top edge of the photo to the horizon, I will draw another gradient with the parameters: Temperature -20; Exposure -0.50; Contrast -25; Highlights -25; Clarity -50; Saturation +15.

Note that the gradient filter allows you to selectively change the color balance in certain areas of the image, which can be useful if, for example, you want to warm up a landscape while keeping the sky cool and blue.

Since I'm already working on gradients, I'll probably add one more at the very bottom of the photo with the goal of making the water in the river bluer and the grass on the near bank greener. The only parameter: Temperature -20.

Compare the image with and without gradient filters.

To influence areas of the image that have complex boundaries, it is advisable to use not a gradient filter, but its analogue in the form of an adjustment brush ( Adjustment Brush– key K).

Tone Curve Tab

Here you can finely adjust the brightness and contrast of the image using curves. I rarely use curves in Camera Raw because... I usually have enough options in the Basic tab.

Detail tab

This tab is responsible for sharpening ( Sharpening) and noise reduction ( Noise Reduction). I prefer to increase sharpness in Photoshop, and therefore in ACR I turn off sharpening by setting Amount to 0. With suppression moderate ACR copes quite well with noise, especially chromatic noise. Typically, I use the following parameters: Luminance 25; Luminance Detail 100; Luminance Contrast 100; Color 50; Color Detail 100. The first three parameters are responsible for achromatic (brightness) noise, the rest are for chromatic (color). When suppressing luminance noise, special care must be taken to avoid creating a washed-out picture. When working in the Detail tab, always view the image at 100% zoom, otherwise you won't be able to see what's going on with the fine details.

HSL/Grayscale Tab

An indispensable color correction tool. The HSL/Grayscale tab is designed for working with individual colors and includes three subtabs:

Hue- shade or tone. Here I'll move the Oranges to the left by -10 to make the clay on the shore redder, and the Aquas to the right by +10 to make the lower sky area look fresher.

In general, I find that Adobe Camera Raw tends to make the image a little more yellow-green than I would like, and therefore I have to adjust individual shades one way or another. If you're personally happy with ACR's color rendering, you can leave the Hue subtab alone.

Saturation– saturation. To improve the appearance of the clay I will set the Oranges slider to +25. Often I increase the saturation of blue color(Blues), but in in this case I solved the issue with the color of the sky and water mainly using gradient filters.

Luminance– lightness or brightness. I'll make the sky a little darker by moving the Blues slider to -15.

The Split Toning tab is designed for toning black and white photos and we will skip it now.

Lens Corrections Tab

Here you can correct lens aberrations, as well as perspective distortions. There are two sub-tabs – for automatic and manual correction:

Profile– automatic correction of lens aberrations based on a special profile. Profiles for most popular lenses are included standard delivery Adobe Camera Raw. To turn on automatic correction For lens distortion and vignetting, check the box next to Enable Lens Profile Corrections. I recommend doing this only in cases where distortion or vignetting is visible naked eye, since eliminating distortion leads to a slight deterioration in sharpness, and vignetting is not even always a disadvantage. In the case of our example, everything suits me anyway, and therefore I will only check the box next to Remove Chromatic Aberrations. Elimination of chromatic aberrations works perfectly in ACR 7 (which cannot be said about more earlier versions), and I always use it, especially since it helps improve sharpness at the edges of the frame.

Manual– manual correction. Here you can correct a littered horizon and distortions introduced by perspective. In my photo, both the horizon and perspective are fine, so I'll leave everything unchanged. If you'll be working in manual correction mode, I recommend turning on the grid by pressing the V key to better see both the distortions themselves and your edits.

At this stage, I usually use the Crop Tool (C key) if the standard 3:2 aspect ratio does not suit me or if the edge of the photo has captured some foreign objects. No cropping is required now.

Effects Tab

There are only two effects: grain ( Grain) and vignetting ( Post Crop Vignetting). I will leave grain for lovers of pseudo-vintage photographs, but moderate vignetting can decorate many photographs. I'll shade the edges of the image slightly by setting the Amount to -15.

So, we went through all the functional tabs. You are already familiar with the Camera Calibration tab, but there are still two additional tabs:

Presets Tab

You can save all the changes you make to an image as presets, which can later be applied to any other images.

Snapshots tab

Snapshot means snapshot. This is the same as preset, but only within one RAW file. In other words, you can create several processing options for the same photo (for example, color and black and white versions), and then work with each option individually.

This completes the process of editing our landscape in Adobe Camera Raw. I will do the final finishing using Adobe Photoshop.

By clicking “Open”, you will open the image for further processing in Photoshop, and by clicking “Done”, simply save the results of your work in an .xmp file.

I suggest you compare the photo processed in Adobe Camera Raw with the original version.

Thank you for your attention!

Vasily A.

Post scriptum

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Hello to all blog visitors! In today's article I will talk about photo color correction in jpg format with help Adobe Camera filterRaw. There are some similarities in using the filter with the plugin of the same name, about some of the working techniques in which I talked about in a blog thread.

First of all, I’ll warn you right away - you shouldn’t try to process absolutely everything in the Camera Raw filter. JPG pictures, the result will not always please you. With pale, low-contrast, low-detailed images, it’s unlikely that you’ll get anything decent.

Another thing is images with normal exposure containing a large number of details - in this case, color correction in the Camera Raw filter will give excellent results. The experimental image is in front of you - you can download it from here.

And so, let's get to work.

Applying a Camera Raw filter

There are two approaches to using filters in Photoshop, with and without the ability to edit the result. In the first case, you need to convert a copy of the background layer into a smart object Filter – Convert for Smart Filter; in the second, it is enough to make do with a copy of the layer.

Now I go to the Filter menu - Camera Raw. By selecting this item, the ACR module window will open on the main tab; you can get acquainted with the window structure in the article. To begin with, I’ll lighten the shadows a little by moving the corresponding Shadows slider to the right and darken the lights by dragging the Highlights slider to the left. Read about working with colors and shadows in Camera Raw.

Setting the white and black point

Next, I’ll set the white and black points to bring the image to full contrast. I am using the cutoff method, the cutoff markers above must be turned on. The work happens as follows: I hold down the Alt key and drag the white point slider to the right.

The picture in the viewing window is initially filled with black, but as the slider moves, the lightest parts begin to appear. As soon as their manifestation begins, I release Alt and the slider. White point will be installed.

Setting the black point occurs in the same way - I hold down Alt, move the Blacks slider to the left, on the white background with which the picture will be filled, the darkest parts of the picture will begin to appear, as soon as this process begins, release the key and the slider. Black dot installed, the picture became full-contrast.

The work with contrast is basically finished at this stage; you can adjust the Contrast slider to your taste.

Color correction

I will work with color in three stages: In the first stage I will process the sky and the castle, in the second its reflection in the water, and finally I will add a few light spots imitating sunlight and its reflections in the water.

I select “Graduated Gradient”, G key, and the Main panel will change to Graduated Filter. I’ll set the color temperature value “Temperature” -26 to “Tint” +29. I draw a gradient from a point just above the picture to the base of the castle on it. In this case, the area of influence of the correction will be shown by two horizontal bounding lines.

As soon as the gradient is created, the Edit checkbox above the temperature slider will become active, which makes it possible to change any parameters located on the tab in the gradient area. The size and position of the adjustment gradient itself can also be changed using green (start) and red (end) markers. Parameters for color correction for the sky and the result of their influence are in front of you

Now let's create new gradient For color correction of reflection and water, I’ll switch to the New checkbox. I'll drag it from the area just below the picture to the middle of the tower, this way I'll be able to avoid a sharp border between the two gradients. The correction in the new gradient will be applied with the same parameters as for the sky, I will change them a little.

All that's left is to add some light spots. For this I use the “Local Correction Brush” key K. First, I’ll configure the tool’s parameters, they are available in the lower block of the tabs, which again changed the name to “Adjustments Brush”. Size, Feather, Flow, Density.

Then I’ll configure the correction parameters

I’ll put a few spots with a brush with these parameters to the right of the tower, simulating the sun breaking through the clouds, and a “pin” will appear in the picture showing the place of correction; the checkbox will again switch to “Edit”, allowing you to change the necessary parameters. I will also do this operation with reflection.

If you wish, you can create as many adjustment brushes as you like using the New checkbox, change their parameters and add them to the image. After processing is complete, I will return to the main tab and raise the values for +26, +20.

I press OK and return to Photoshop, the processing result is in front of you, the source of “inspiration” for the article is located.

That's all for today, I hope the article was useful to you. You don’t have to write comments; no one reads them; if you want to ask a question or chat, the “ ” page is at your service.

Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud) comes with a host of exciting new features, including an updated Camera Raw filter that allows us to apply some or all of Camera Raw's powerful editing properties to any layer in our Photoshop document! Also, Camera Raw (and the Camera Raw filter) in Photoshop CC includes its own new properties, like the awesome Radial Filter. In this tutorial, we'll learn how to use it to add an easily customizable, creative vignette effect to your images!

As we'll see later, the Radical Filter has the ability to add multiple vignettes at once, allowing us to darken some areas of the image and brighten others. Also, we will create the effect using Smart Objects and Smart Filters, and our original image will remain completely untouched.

The Radial Filter is only available as part of Camera Raw in Photoshop CC, so you'll need Photoshop CC to complete this tutorial.

Here's the image I'll be working with.

And this is what our result will look like. Of course, it's worth noting that this is just one of many possible options using this particular image. More importantly, by following our step-by-step instructions, you will learn how to create similar vintage filters for your own images:

Step 1: Convert the Background Layer to a Smart Object

We'll start by converting the layer our photo is on into a Smart Object. In this case, the Camera Raw filter will be applied as a Smart Filter, allowing you to edit the vignette effect while the original image remains completely untouched. We open our image in Photoshop CC, and see it as the Background layer in the Layers panel:

To transform a layer in a Smart Object, click on the small menu icon in the upper right corner of the layers panel:

From the menu that appears, select Convert to Smart Object:

At first glance, nothing has changed, but now the layer thumbnail has an icon in the lower right corner indicating that the layer has been converted to a Smart Object:

Step 2: Select a Camera Raw filter

Open the Filter menu in the top panel and select Camera Raw Filter:

The image will appear inside a large Camera Raw dialog box. Technically, this is a dialog box Camera filter Raw, but with only a few exceptions, all the tools and options that are available in the main Camera Raw dialog are available here:

Step 3: Select Radial Filter

In the upper left corner of the dialog box you can find various tools. Click on the Radial Filter to select it (far right icon):

Step 4: Reduce Exposure

When the Radial Filter is selected, the right pane of the Camera Raw dialog box displays many options for that filter. Start editing by clicking the minus (-) icon to the left of the Exposure option. This will set the exposure slider to -50, but we do this because it immediately sets the other sliders to 0, allowing us to focus entirely on the exposure settings:

Then, click on the Exposure slider itself, and drag it to the left to the -2.00 mark. This will give us an initial dark that we will work with next. At this point the image won't look any darker since we haven't applied a filter yet, but we'll do so in the next step:

Step 5: Change the Radial Filter on the Image

Once we've lowered the exposure, click in the center of the area of the image where you want to apply the vignette effect. Next, without releasing the mouse button, start dragging. You'll see an elliptical outline of the Radial Filter appear as you continue dragging (if you want a perfect circle, hold Shift while you drag). You can also move this elliptical area by holding down the spacebar while stretching. Position the area as you wish, release the space bar, and continue dragging. Then, when you're done stretching, release the mouse button:

Outside/Inside Effect

By the way, it’s worth noting that in the case of my image, the inner area of the selected figure was darkened, while the outside of the image remained bright, as before. And this, in fact, is completely opposite to what I wanted to get as a result of creating a vignette. If the same thing happens to you, look at the Radial Filter options panel on the right (you may have to scroll down). There you will see the Effect function, which controls whether the effect appears on the outside or inside. I have on this moment The Inside area is selected, and I switch to Outside by clicking on the corresponding checkbox:

And now we can see the darkening effect outside our selected area, as it should be:

Resizing the area, rotating and moving it

Once you have created the initial elliptical area by stretching, you can change its size, width or length by clicking on one of the anchor points (small squares) and stretching. These points are located on the left, right, top and bottom of the figure. You can also move the area within the image if necessary by placing the cursor inside the area. When it turns into a four-way pointer, click left button mouse and move the cursor. In addition, the area can be expanded by rotating - place the cursor to the edge of the shape, and when it turns into a curved arrow, hold down the left mouse button and rotate. In my case, I'll simply make the shape bigger by stretching it:

Step 6: Change the image using sliders

Now that we've added a filter to an image, we can use the various sliders in the panel on the right to adjust the parameters of our filter. For example, you can start by adjusting the Exposure - darken or lighten our vignette by moving the corresponding slider to the left or right. But in fact, we have much more possibilities - we can adjust contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, and so on. You can do whatever you want, while the original image will remain untouched, and you can immediately see the changes in the filter.

As for my image, I think I'll lower the Exposure further to -2.20. I'll raise the edge contrast to +40. I won’t touch the light and shadow for now, but I will raise the Image Clarity completely to 100 by moving the slider all the way to the right. Finally, I'll lower the Saturation to -100 to completely remove the color from the edges of the image. Let me remind you again that I change the settings according to the image I choose and my personal preferences, so in your case the result may be different:

Adjusting Feather

We can also adjust the Feather ) , or, in other words, reduce or increase the area of the transition zone of the main light part of the image into the dark one. This option is right above the Effect option, which we used to apply our effect to the outside of the area we selected, and you can change its value by dragging the slider left or right:

Show/Hide Overlay

To get a better idea of the effect you're working on, you can temporarily hide the radial filter's elliptical area outline by clicking the Show Overlay checkbox at the bottom right of the Camera Raw dialog box. Or, you can also disable or enable the overlay by pressing the V key. Here I click on the checkbox, disabling the overlay:

And this is what my image looks like at this stage with overlay disabled:

Enabling or disabling Control View

The reason we can preview the changes we make to our filter is because of the Preview checkbox at the top of the Camera Raw dialog box. We can enable or disable Reference View for Comparison at any time by clicking on the checkbox or simply pressing the P key:

Step 7: Add a Second Radial Filter

One of the most powerful properties of Camera Raw's Radial Filter is that we can add additional Radial filters to the same image, each with their own unique settings! To create a new filter, click the New checkbox at the top of the radial filter settings panel:

Then, use the knowledge you learned earlier about editing this filter to adjust the shape, size, and position of the area if necessary:

Switch between Radial filters

Notice that there are now two round dots on the screen. Each represents one of the filters. You can switch between them at any time by clicking on their dots. The active filter dot is red, the inactive filter dot is white. Here I've selected the original filter by clicking on its dot and making it active again:

I'll switch back to the new filter. There are a few things worth noting: firstly, all the settings I selected for the first filter were automatically transferred to the second. We'll change that in a minute, but first let's notice the second thing: the filter is applied to the outside of the shape again. I need my second radial filter to be applied to internal part of the image, so I click on the Inside checkbox, or I can simply change this option by pressing the X key:

Now the effect has appeared inside our filter. Notice that the dot that serves as an indicator of the selected filter has become green, not red, since green indicates an internal filter, and red indicates an external one:

Now I resize the area and rotate it using the steps described earlier in the tutorial:

Next, I want to reset the settings in the right panel, and the easiest way to do this is by double-clicking on the corresponding sliders. Here I clicked on the Exposure, Contrast, Clarity and Saturation settings, which changed their values to 0 (the rest of the parameters were already at 0):

When the internal filter settings are reset, you can cool down a little color temperature inside the figure, slightly move the Temperature slider to the left. A value of -20 will add a slight blue shadow. Next, I raise the Contrast to +50. Let me remind you that these settings are good for this particular image, you can experiment.
I move the Light slider to about -25, the Shadow slider to +25, bringing out more detail. I raise the Clarity to +50, and reduce the Saturation to -30:

Lastly, I'll increase the area of the transition area by moving the Feather slider to the right to a value of about 50:

This is what my image looks like with both Radial filters:

Step 8: Close the Camera Raw Dialog Box

I'm happy with the result, so I click OK to accept the changes and close the Camera Raw dialog box.

If we take another look at the Layers panel in Photoshop, we can see the Camera Raw filter as a Smart Filter at the bottom of the image. I click on the Smart Filter visibility icon to temporarily hide the effect from the document window:

This will hide all changes and show us the original image. Please note that our actions did not affect it in any way, and it remained completely untouched:

I'll click on the visibility icon again to enable our effect. And here you can see the final vignette effect with the Radial filter:

Congratulations, we're done! So you can easily add a custom, creative vignette effect using the Radial Filter within a Camera Raw filter in Photoshop CC!