There are so many ways that I like to work on editing photographs and I am so glad that the Adobe applications I use have twenty different ways to do everything. Sometimes I prefer to start off in Camera Raw to do most of my photo editing. Once finished in that program, I’ll move into Photoshop to perform a few more tweaks. When I’m completely done, I’ll export the final image and use it however I wish. Other times, I’ll open the photos right into Photoshop and do some cropping and image size work and after that, I’ll jump into Camera Raw for things more related to “post-processing.” You know, exposure, contrast and that sort of stuff. Any way I look at it, I’ve got a whole bunch of workflows at my fingertips. All I need to do is decide which direction to take.
In today’s post, I’d like to work through a quick project using the aforementioned editing programs. I’ll begin with a photograph in Adobe Photoshop and then I’ll move into Camera Raw. Once inside Camera Raw, I’ll use the Dehaze tool to remove some softness and haziness that’s covering part of the demo image. After I complete that, I’ll jump back into Photoshop, just as if I had never left.
This type of workflow is extraordinarily helpful if you ever find yourself in Photoshop at the wrong time and you need to do some editing that only Camera Raw can do. I’ll show you can easy way to transition between both applications.
Demo Photo
For this post, I’ll be using a great, but hazy, photo of some grass and the sky. While this picture is nice in its own right, I’d rather have the lower portion of it clear as opposed to sort of foggy.
Using Camera Raw as a Filter
Okay, I’ve already gone ahead and opened up the image is Photoshop. I haven’t done any editing to it, so it’s still fresh. What I’d like to do right now is move the image over to Adobe Camera Raw so I can get some of the haze out of there. To accomplish this, I’ll right-click on the photo layer in the Layers panel and then choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu that appears. From there, I’ll head up to the top of the application and choose the Filter > Camera Raw Filter menu option.
Once I do that, I’ll be inside of Camera Raw with the image.
Using the Graduated Filter
Since I only want the grass dehazed and not the entire image, I feel the best route to take is to use the Graduated Filter tool in Camera Raw. So, I’ll head up to the top toolbar and click on that option.
From here, I’ll draw my filter from the bottom of the picture to about a quarter of the way up the image, so the dashed red line is on top and the dashed green one is beneath that. I’ll then make sure all the sliders are set to zero and finally, I’ll push the Dehaze slider all the way to the right to +100 and the new Texture slider to the right to +50. Heck, I’ll even push the Sharpness slider to the right to +47.
When I like the way the grass appears, I’ll click on the OK button to return to Photoshop.
This is the final photo. Not bad, right? It only took about 30 seconds to complete.
Now, the point is that this file was edited non-destructively. Any time I want to return to Camera Raw to tweak what I just did, I can. All I need to do is double-click on the Camera Raw Filter mini-layer under the Smart Object in the Layers panel. That will bring me back to Camera Raw, where my edits will still be live and totally editable.
And that’s it! If you have any questions, please ask down below. Thanks for reading! By the way, I’ve got some great stuff going on in the forum. There are tons of really great articles in the photography section, if you’re into that. Check out these recent titles:
Photos of Carrabassett River & Flagstaff Lake in Maine
(these are my most recent shots – let me know what you think)
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