Monday, 26 August 2013

Review Digital Camera World 08-27-2013

Digital Camera World
 
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The perfect photo editor? Why Adobe Camera Raw is the only tool you need
Aug 26th 2013, 23:01, by jmeyer

Adobe Camera Raw is now so good that we find we barely need to open images into Photoshop any more. Such is the depth of tools and commands on offer that you can perform almost every task you need to in Camera Raw.

The perfect photo editor? Why Adobe Camera Raw is the only tool you need

The tools for tonal control arguably surpass those found in Photoshop. Not only can you fine-tune the tones in your image universally, but you can also target and adjust different areas to enhance detail, dodge and burn, or make a huge variety of other effects.

What's more, because Camera Raw (and Lightroom) employs parametric editing, your changes aren't permanent. Instead, the changes are saved as extra data alongside your original file (whether it's a raw file, TIFF or JPEG). Each and every setting, brush stroke, heal point and colour shift can be adjusted or deleted.

In this tutorial we'll show you how to boost colours and details in different areas of your images. There are four tools in particular that are invaluable for this. Alongside the Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter is the new Radial Filter tool, which enables you to define an area and then make changes to it.

The Targeted Adjustment Tool is also useful for selective adjustments. But rather than defining an area, the tool lets you zero in on different colour ranges. We'll show you how to master these tools for a variety of tonal effects, from boosting colours to softening skin and adding a film-like border.

How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 1-3

How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: step 1

01 Open in Camera Raw
Download our free start image to follow along! Open Bridge, then navigate to the tones_before.dng file. Right-click it and choose Open in Camera Raw. (You needn't even have Photoshop open to do this.). If you're using your own file, you can also open JPEGs and TIFFs into Camera Raw in this way.

 

How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: step 2

02 Correct white balance
Grab the White Balance tool from the Toolbar and click on the black shoulders to set this as neutral. Keep clicking until you find the right look, and tweak the Temperature and Tint sliders in the Basic Panel manually. Set Temperature to 6700 and Tint to +10.

 

How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: step 3

03 Make basic tweaks
Use the other sliders to improve the tones. Set Exposure +0.85 to lighten the image, Highlights to -66, Shadows to +33, and Whites to -48 to tease out detail in the tonal extremes. To boost colour intensity, set Vibrance to +31 and Saturation to +13.

PAGE 1 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 1-3
PAGE 2 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 4-6
PAGE 3 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 7-9
PAGE 4 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 10-12
PAGE 5 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 13-15
PAGE 6 – How to use Adobe Camera Raw for all your photo editing needs: steps 16-18

READ MORE

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34 Photoshop effects every photographer must try once
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3 selective adjustment tools your raw files can’t live without
Adobe Lightroom: what every photographer needs to know about the ‘alternative Photoshop’

Custom functions: a jargon-free guide to unlocking the power of your DSLR
Aug 26th 2013, 10:00, by jmeyer

What are custom functions? In this no-nonsense guide we cut out the jargon and explain your DSLR’s array of options to tweak settings, as well as which of these are safe and sensible to alter.

Custom functions: a jargon-free guide to unlocking the power of your DSLR

What's so special about custom functions?

Custom functions are DSLR options and settings that you access through on-screen menus. They enable you to customise the operation of the camera – to fine-tune it to the way that you prefer to take your pictures, or to suit a particular type of photographic subject.

I don't remember having these on my old 35mm film SLR…

This amount of flexibility simply wasn't possible on film cameras. Technological development means that even a modestly priced DSLR can be customised by the photographer.

What's more, the fact that the image is recorded digitally means that there's a whole range of on-board processing options that weren't available to the film-using generation.

How many custom functions do cameras provide?

The number of customisation options you have will depend on your model of DSLR. The more you pay for your camera body, and the more professional its target market, the more functions it will have.

An entry-level DSLR might provide 12 custom options, with 32 possible settings. Meanwhile a professional-level camera can provide over five times more permutations, with 62 custom functions and a whopping 177 settings.

What makes custom functions different from other settings?

Not much. The Custom menus simply provide a place in which to put all those overrides that don't have a more logical place to go.

They might simply be better known as 'miscellaneous' on the menu functions. In fact, features that are custom functions with one brand may be filed under a more mainstream menu path on another.

Turning off the beeping noise on a Nikon, for instance, is as a custom function, but on a Canon the same function is found within one of the higher menu paths.

Do I really need to set up any of these custom settings?

Possibly not. The camera comes with each of the custom functions in a default position that the manufacturer chose to suit the majority of users.

What's more, in some shooting modes (those designed for point-and-shoot operation) the custom overrides won't be accessible anyway.

However, some of these settings are definitely worth getting to know. Some custom options are best suited to experienced photographers and to those shooting specialist subjects, but there are plenty of others that are more generally useful.

Such as?

Some of the most useful custom functions enable you to change the function of a particular button on the camera. In order to simplify design, manufacturers limit the number of knobs and dials on their DSLRs – and the buttons you do get may offer a function you never use.

The depth-of-field preview button is helpful to some, but an irrelevant waste of space to others. The ability to reassign this button to offer quick access to a different feature can make a camera much easier to use.

Similarly, most shutter releases not only fire the shutter, but also engage the autofocus and lock the exposure. For some types of photography, it may be useful that this trigger doesn't lock focus and exposure simultaneously – a custom function is likely to offer this.

Custom functions: a jargon-free guide to unlocking the power of your DSLR

What processing options do custom functions offer?

They can provide preferences that define how and when the camera reduces noise in your picture. They can also enable you to control whether the camera adjusts the contrast of an image for you automatically (this feature is called Auto Lighting Optimiser on Canons and Active D-Lighting on Nikons).

How do you decide which functions to use?

Ideally, you should try them out for yourself and see which setups and effects you prefer based on the results you get. Some custom functions help you make a new camera work more like the one you had before, or help you adjust the controls to suit a particular type of subject.

Should you adjust custom functions once to your liking and then leave them – or adjust them on a shot-by-shot basis?

A bit of both. The option you choose for some will do for every shot you take – others are best used only for particular shooting situations (say, for night photography, or when using studio flash). Some cameras enable you to set up custom modes or workspaces so you can switch a whole set of presets at once.

What are the most complex custom functions?

The Canon EOS-1D Mark IV has 16 custom functions set aside for autofocus alone. However, this isn't really surprising. This camera is used by professional sports photographers who need to be able to adjust responsiveness and target areas depending on which sport they are shooting. If you're struggling to make sense of which to use, it's worth looking on forums and talking to photographers that shoot similar subjects to discover exactly which custom functions they find useful.

READ MORE

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Balanced Pictures: using color, shape, light and shade for perfect compositions

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