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Adobe Camera Raw Tips, Tutorials & Techniques

The Adobe Camera Raw section includes posts and articles that cover tips, tutorials and best practices for various areas of opening, editing and exporting files and photographs inside and from Camera Raw. Discussion includes how to effectively utilize this photo and graphic plugin software in photographic post-processing to best enhance your images. Additional topics include how to work effectively inside of Camera Raw, whether it be on enhancing, correcting, creatively enriching or simply viewing photos.

How to Create a Custom Vignette in Adobe Camera Raw

February 20, 2017

In a previous post, I wrote about how you can create a vignette to enhance a photograph in Adobe Camera Raw. If you’d like to read that post, please click the link below.

How to Add & Adjust a Border Vignette in Adobe Camera Raw

In my previous post, I walked through the process of visiting the Effects panel and more specifically, the Post Crop Vignetting section. Inside of that section, there are a few sliders that control different aspects of the vignette. Size, shape and color, among other things. Overall, this is a great feature to use in Camera Raw to get things done. It’s fairly robust.

The thing is, there may be times when this Post Crop Vignette feature doesn’t do everything you want it to. For instance, let’s say you wanted to expand the vignette so it wasn’t visible on the top or the bottom of the photo, yet it was still visible on either side. I’m sure there’s a way you could probably finagle that by some other means, but there’s an easier way to go.

In today’s post, I’m going to walk you through the process of creating a custom vignette in Adobe Camera Raw while using the Radial Filter tool. Honestly, I think once you use the Radial Filter to create and customize vignettes, you won’t likely use the previous method too often. It’s really flexible.

By the way, I’ve already written a post that talks about the Radial Filter tool. To review it, visit the link below.

How to Use the Radial Filter in Adobe Camera Raw

The Demo Photo

I thought a nice portrait photo would be perfect for this post, so I located a really great one. You can’t beat this. Take a look.

Boy Holding Rose Flower in Mouth

Below, I’ll show you how to go about adding some edge effects to the photo. By the time you’re finished reading this post, you’ll know how you can lighten, darken, resize and color many different types of vignettes and edges with the Radial Filter tool in Camera Raw.

Making Adjustments Via the Basic Panel

Editing a photo just wouldn’t be the same without my usual Basic panel adjustments. So, with that in mind, I’ll go ahead and push a few sliders around. If you’d like to learn about my method, you can review the post below.

How To Make A Photo “Pop” With Adobe Camera Raw

Here are my adjustments:

Basic Panel Adjustments

And here is the adjusted photo:

Photograph Edited in Adobe Camera Raw

It isn’t a drastic difference. Just enough to make the photo look a bit better.

Setting Up the Radial Filter Tool

Next comes the meat of this post. To make the following as clear as possible, I’m going to show you a concept. It’s all rather simple and really only focuses on one important step. With this concept in hand, you’ll be able to apply it to a variety of different ideas.

To activate the Radial Filter tool, I’ll press J on my keyboard. After that, I’ll head to the small menu that’s located at the top right of the Radial Filter panel. I’ll click the menu and then select the Reset Local Correction Settings option.

Reset Local Correction Settings

Doing this will reset all the sliders. Now, at this point, I can’t just go ahead and begin to draw my radius with the tool. Because no sliders have been set, I’ll receive an error. I need to move at least one slider. So, knowing that I want to darken the edges of the photo, I’ll reduce the exposure by pushing the Exposure slider to the left. Then I’ll begin to draw.

Radial Filter Reduced Exposure in the Center

Hmmm, this looks a little weird. I thought I wanted to darken the edges of the photo, not the other way around. I’ll need to reverse the effects of the filter. To do so, I’ll head all the way down to the bottom of the Radial Filter panel to the Effect section. In this section, there are two options. One of them is Outside and the other is Inside.

Effect Outside and Inside

The current option has made any effect I create affect what’s inside of the radius. Since I want my changes to affect what’s outside the sphere, I’ll click the Outside option. This will reverse things.

Effect Outside Circle

Ahh, that’s better. I’m sure you see where this is going.

At this point, the world of vignettes is open to me. I’ve got a radial filter set up and anything I do to it will affect what’s around it. I also have many sliders at my disposal. To kick things off, I think I’ll first stretch the radial so it’s tall and skinny. That way, only the sides of the radius will show in the photo.

Tall and Narrow Radial

See? I already broke out of the traditional vignette shackles. Next, I’ll push some sliders to make the effect look somewhat good.

Radial Filter Settings

Okay, I think that looks pretty good. Let’s see the final photo.

Final Photo Edited with the Radial Filter Tool

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Not only is it a vignette, it’s a super special one. I really accentuated what’s around the boy in the photo, which is what I intended to do. I think the result looks great.

So, here’s the lesson for today. If you want to create a traditional vignette, feel free to use the Post Crop Vignetting area of the Effects panel. That will give you most of what you are looking for. If you’d like to step things up a notch and make a custom vignette, use the Radial Filter tool. The options are wide and you really can get very creative.

I hope you learned a little something with this post. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Using the Graduated Filter Brush Tool to Erase in Adobe Camera Raw

January 11, 2017

In Adobe Camera Raw, the Graduated Filter is a tool that’s widely used. I ‘d be hard pressed to find a professionally taken landscape photo on the internet today what wasn’t enhanced in some way with this tool. Making sunsets more vivid and beaches stand out more – the Graduated Filter is where it’s at.

Just as luck would have it, I’ve already written a few posts that talk about the different types of filter tools that are available in Camera Raw. To review those articles, take a look below.

How To Use Multiple Graduated Filters in Adobe Camera Raw

Enhancing Photos with Graduated Filters in Adobe Camera Raw

How to Save Tool Presets in Adobe Camera Raw

Enhancing Photos with the Adjustment Brush in Adobe Camera Raw

How to Use the Radial Filter in Adobe Camera Raw

In today’s post, I’d like to take things one step further. I’d like to go over how to apply a gradient with the Graduated Filter tool in Camera Raw and then how to remove, or brush away, some of that gradient. As you can imagine, not every case of creating a gradient will be perfect (for example, on a flat beach sunset). In some cases, objects will be in the way that you don’t want to be effected. In these type of situations, it’s important to have an understanding of another tool at your disposal – the Brush tool. Now, this Brush tool isn’t the Adjustment Brush that we’re all so familiar with. It’s the one hiding away in the Graduated Filter panel. I’ll go over all of this below.

Today’s Goal

My goal today is to mess with the sky in this image a bit. Right now, while it looks sort of okay, it’s still dull. I want to make it come alive. To accomplish this, I’ll need to reduce its temperature, increase the contrast, clarity and saturation. Again, I only want to do this to the sky area, not the rest of the photo.

Tree in Field Photograph

Using the Graduated Filter Tool

To start things off, I’ll launch the photo into Camera Raw. Then, I’ll click on the Graduated Filter tool button up in the top toolbar.

Graduated Filter Tool Button in Adobe Camera Raw

Next, I’ll create the gradient by initially clicking right above the top edge of the grass and then pulling down to right below the top edge of the grass. This will create a gradient that has a concentrated transition, as opposed to one that’s long and drawn out (more smooth).

Creating a Gradient on a Photo with the Graduated Filter Tool in Adobe Camera Raw

After that, I’ll zero out all the slider settings by clicking on the Reset Local Correction Settings menu item in the Graduated Filter panel.

Reset Local Correction Settings Menu Item in the Graduated Filter Panel

Finally, I’ll make my adjustments. As I’m doing this, I’m not going to concern myself with what anything in the photo looks like besides the sky. I’ll deal with any lingering unwanted effects in the next section, which is actually the point of this post.

Altered Sky in Photo with the Graduated Filter Tool in Adobe Camera Raw

Here are the changes I made to the sliders. Nothing crazy, but the sky does look more fierce now.

Moved Gradient Sliders in the Graduated Filter Panel

Brushing Away the Extra

As you may have guessed, since I only wanted to apply the changes to the sky, I’ve got some residual effects that are covering the tree at the center of the photo as well as the trees in the background – and even in the field. You may not be able to notice this right now, but when I click in the Mask checkbox that’s located at the bottom of the Graduated Filter panel, things become much more clear.

Mask Checkbox at Bottom of the Graduated Filter Panel in Adobe Camera Raw

In the screenshot above, I tried to sneak both part of the photo and the checkbox in. As you can see, instead of the actual enhancements of the gradient showing, now a foggy overlay shows. This isn’t permanent. It’s merely an option to more clearly define where the gradient has been created.

Okay, now I need to get rid of the extra gradient I don’t want. To accomplish this, I’m going to go back to the top of the Graduated Filter panel and click on Brush. This is a really great tool that allows you to either add to or subtract adjustment from a gradient.

Brush Tool That Is Located in the Graduated Filter Panel in Camera Raw

If you look at the screenshot above, I want you to focus on a few things. We’ve been over most of them in the past. The first is brush Size. This one’s easy. Press the [ key on your keyboard to shrink the size and the ] key on your keyboard to grow it.

Next is the brush Feather. This is simply how soft the edges of the brush are going to be. A higher number is softer and a lower number is harder. After that is brush Flow. Think of Flow as sort of opacity, but repeatable. If I add or erase something once at 50% flow and then do it again, my changes are cumulative.

Now, we’ve been through all those before. What I really want to pay attention to today are two things. First, the two small buttons that are situated right above the Size slider. One says to Add more adjustment and the other says to Remove whatever adjustment has already been made, according to how the following sliders are set.

The second thing I think is important here is the small checkbox below the sliders that says Auto Mask. This Auto Mask is critical to using the brush in situations like the one I have here. Basically, it confines the brush strokes to areas of similar color. So, if I have a blue sky and green trees that meet that sky and I use the brush to remove some adjustment, Camera Raw will automatically attempt to stay inside the lines, as opposed to just erasing everything I touch. It takes some getting used to, but once you familiarize yourself with this small feature, I think you’ll be using it all the time.

Next up is setting my sliders. I’ll do that and then go ahead and start erasing the foggy overlay that’s covering the areas it shouldn’t be.

In this next screenshot, I’m going to give you a small example of how the Auto Mask feature works. When I began brushing away the adjustment a few seconds ago, I tried to stay as close to the top of the tree line as I could. I’ll admit, I went over a tad. Because I had the Auto Mask feature enabled though, my brush didn’t remove any adjustment above the tips of the trees. Camera Raw saw the contrast between the trees and the sky and compensated for it. This is what I was talking about when I said this tool would help in situations like mine today. The edge is fine and I would never be able to erase all those crevices by hand.

Graduated Filter Brush Auto Mask Example on Photograph

Now, I’ll go ahead and erase the rest.

Erasing Gradient Overlay with Brush Tool

I’ll tell you, it’s remarkable how accurate that Auto Mask is. It hugs those lines like it’s nobody’s business.

To continue on, I’ll uncheck the Mask box that’s down at the bottom of the same panel to remove the foggy overlay and see what the image looks like with my final adjustments.

Removing the Mask and Overlay for Graduated Filter in Adobe Camera Raw

I’d say that looks pretty good. The best part is, I can now create another gradient by using the Graduated Filter tool again. This time though, I’d cover the bottom half of the photo to liven up the field and the trees. Since this is only a tutorial, I’ll skip that part.

That’s really all I have for this post. I wanted to introduce you to the Brush tool that’s hidden away in the Graduated Filter panel as well as demonstrate the importance of the Auto Mask feature. Hopefully, I did that. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. As always, thanks for reading!

PS – Okay fine. I dabbled a little and adjusted the grass. Enjoy!

Final Edited Photograph with the Graduated Filter Tool

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Applying & Deleting Presets in Adobe Camera Raw

January 3, 2017

I’ve written a few posts that talk about Presets in Adobe Camera Raw. Those posts discuss how to create one, how to install third-party presets and how to apply them to a photo you’re editing. There are tons of great tips in these posts, so if you’re interested in this type of thing, please be sure to read through them. They’ll give you a good background for what I’m going to write about below.

In today’s post, I’d like to continue on in the Preset world. I know there isn’t too much left to cover when it comes to the basics, but if you ever decided that you wanted to create your own Presets and sell them, things get huge fast. I’m going to avoid all that for now and simply stick to what can help that majority of photo editors who use Camera Raw.

The first area I want to talk about I can get done really quickly. I merely want to show you one more method for applying Presets via Adobe Bridge. After that, I’d like to show you how you can use an existing or imported Preset, modify it and then save it as a version of the original. This is as straightforward as you can get, so there’s no sweat at all. After that, I’d like to explain how you can rename a Preset if you ever wanted to and finally, I’m going to go ahead and demonstrate two different methods for deleting those Presets you no longer need or want.

While this sounds like a lot, it really isn’t. And to help you out, I’ll give you a quick tip below that will certainly speed things up if you ever become a Preset master.

Applying a Camera Raw Preset From Adobe Bridge

In this post, I explained how you can easily apply a Camera Raw preset straight from Bridge, without ever opening Camera Raw at all. I have to admit, this method is pretty slick. I love it when I can make wide ranging alterations with minimal work.

In this section, I just want to go over one more very simple method for doing the exact same thing. This time, it has to do with right-clicking on a thumbnail as opposed to using the Edit menu.

If I open Bridge and navigate to the folder where my thumbnails live, I can select a thumbnail, right-click on it and find the Develop Settings menu item that appears. If I roll over that item, all of my installed or created Presets will appear, along with some other options at the way top of the sub-menu.

Right-Click Develop Settings Menu Item

This menu has many of the same options as the one from the Edit menu item up at the top of the application. It even has the Clear Settings option I mentioned in my earlier post.

So this is just another way to access presets via Adobe Bridge. I told you it was easy.

Modifying a Preset & Saving the Modification

Trust me, this is going to happen all the time. You’ll find a sweet Preset that has almost everything you want. The problem is, you find that no matter how many times you use the Preset, you always need to go to one area of Camera Raw to make a simple tweak. Perhaps even a few tweaks. When this happens, it’s worthwhile to use the existing Preset, modify it like you always do and then save everything as a new Preset. Let me show you how this works.

Let’s say I open a photo into Camera Raw.

Sample Image Opened in Adobe Camera Raw

Now, I’ll head to the Presets panel and apply the Vintage Look preset. Actually, the full name of this preset is B_W 06 Sat-75 Vintage Look.

Vintage Look Preset

Now, just by looking at this, I already know that I want some more contrast. I already took a look through the various panels to see what changes were made to create the preset and discovered that everything resides in the HSL / Grayscale panel. It seems as though all of the color sliders were reduced to the value of -75 in the Saturation tab and the Red, Orange and Yellow sliders were increased to +20, +30 and +30, respectively, in the Luminance tab. While these edits aren’t difficult at all to make, I sure wouldn’t want to make them over and over again if I had many photos to apply them to.

Reduced Saturation

Increased Luminance

I mentioned above that what I’m seeing after I apply this preset isn’t good enough. I want more contrast and I probably will for the duration. So, to help out, I’m going to head towards the Basic panel and increase the Contrast to a value of +50.

Increased Contrast

And since I want this to happen automatically from now on, I’ll create a new preset that’s based on the original values from the previous preset and the new value I added. To do this, I’ll go back to the Presets panel and click on the New Preset button down at the bottom (see instructions for creating new presets). Then, after the New Preset dialog box opens, I’ll type in the name of the original preset, which was “B_W 06 Sat-75 Vintage Look” and add to it whatever change I made. So, the new name will be “B_W 06 Sat-75 Vintage Look Contrast+50.”

Naming New Preset

When I’m done, I’ll click on the OK button and look at the presets in the panel. Low and behold, the preset I just created is there. The best part is, since presets are listed alphabetically, it’s directly under the original, which keeps things simple and easy to find.

Original and New Presets

Being listed alphabetically is important here because, oftentimes, folks change existing presets a lot. Having an entire list that’s organized really saves a lot of time.

How to Rename a Preset

Here’s a quick and helpful tip for you. If you plan on working with Presets often, make a shortcut of the folder they’re located in and add that shortcut to your desktop. To create a shortcut in Windows, just navigate to the folder just above the folder you’d like to create the shortcut for, right-click on it and select Create Shortcut.

Create Shortcut

After it’s created and is sitting there in the folder in front of you, drag it to your desktop or where ever it will be easy to access. I know that it’s a real pain in the butt to navigate to the folder where these Presets are stored. That’s why I’m suggesting this. Also, if you don’t know which folders I’m referring to, please read this post.

Okay, now on to renaming a preset.

Doing this is simple. Again, navigate to the folder where the presets are stored, find the one you’d like to rename, right-click on it and choose Rename.

Rename File

You can either right-click on the file or slow-click on it twice. That means that you click once, wait a second and then click again. Either way, the file name will become editable.

Renaming a File

From there, type in the new name you want and hit Enter on your keyboard. You’ll see the name update in the folder and when you head back into the Camera Raw Presets panel, it’ll be updated there as well.

How to Delete a Preset

Sometimes, we get carried away and install far too many presets than we’ll ever use. I know this from experience. It’s jut something you have to go through when you enter this field. Don’t worry, the lesson will be learned soon enough. More isn’t always better.

Anyway, after you install hundreds of presets you’ll never use, you can easily get rid of them. To do this, simply navigate to the same folder I just mentioned again – the one where the presets are stored. From there, you can click on any preset you don’t want and hit Delete on your keyboard. That will get rid of it for good. If you want to remove many at once, you can click on the first one in a series, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and then click on the last one in the series. Then, press Delete and they will all disappear in both the folder and Camera Raw. If you’d like to delete many randomly placed presets from this folder, click on the first preset you want to remove, then hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and choose the rest. When they’ve all been selected, press the Delete key and you’ll get the same result as above.

If you’re working inside Camera Raw and would like to remove a small number of presets, you can do it from there as well. All you’ll need to do is select a preset and then click on the small trash can icon in the lower right corner.

Delete Preset

That will remove the preset from Camera Raw and the folder. Just remember, once you click that preset, whatever it is will be applied to the photo, even after it’s gone, so be sure to get rid of these things and then click the Cancel button in the lower right corner to close out of Camera Raw without applying any changes.

Wow, that was pretty long. I hope I showed you how to work with presets in Camera Raw a bit more than I did in my previous posts. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Where to Find & How to Install Presets For Adobe Camera Raw

January 1, 2017

I touched on the topic of using outside tools to assist you in your photo editing in a previous post. That one had to do with Color Efex Pro for Photoshop. In that post, I explained some of the many advantages for using tools and presets such as the ones in that package. If you haven’t read that post, basically, tools like this save a heck of a lot of time. If you already have a vision in your mind for what you want your final product to look like, you can simply install a package such as Color Efex Pro on your Mac or PC, choose the sample image that looks like your desired outcome and select that image. From there, you can tweak the look of your own photo.

Besides saving time, many users who don’t necessarily know how to do a lot of fancy editing can use these types of presets and still get professional looking results. That’s really the whole purpose behind creating them. Not everyone can sit behind a computer for hours on end editing images. Sometimes, it’s simply too time consuming. For instance, if you’re a wedding photographer who has two weddings per weekend and do all the editing yourself, you’re going to need to take advantage of a preset tool. You just won’t have enough hours in the day to do all the images justice, much less have a life outside of photography. The good part is, if you have a few “looks” that you apply to most of your shoots, these tools help even more. When you get used to using presets and tools like Color Efex, you’ll be whipping through photos before you know it.

In today’s post, I’m going to attempt to accomplish two things; first, I’d like to offer you a list to resources for finding presets for Adobe Camera Raw. In the list of resources, there will be some “sampler” presets that are offered for free and there will be some more higher-end professional ones that cost some money. If you get anything from this post, I’d like it to be the recognition that presets for Camera Raw exist, learning about where you can find them and finally, how to install them on your computer. Actually, that last one was the second thing I’d like to accomplish in this post. How to install presets.

Websites That Offer Presets For Camera Raw

In this section, I’m going to list some resources for where you can find presets for Camera Raw. I’ll try to keep this list up-to-date as time goes on because I know how websites come and go. Hopefully, I won’t need to do that much because many of what I’ll lead you to below has been around for a while and is quite reputable. Still, if you notice something “off” about one of these below, please let me know about it in the comment section at the bottom of this page.

Free Presets for Adobe Camera Raw – ON1, Inc.

Camera Raw Presets Products by Creative Market

Free Camera Raw Presets – PSKISS

Camera Raw Presets v6 – SLR Lounge

The Quantum Collection: Free Presets for Adobe Camera Raw

VSCO Film Camera Raw & Lightroom Presets

Presets for Lightroom and Camera Raw – Adobe Blog

Mind you, some of the presets from the sites I listed above are very simple and some are very complex. I can remember back in the early 2000s when I would download and install “Actions” into Photoshop. There were times I was annoyed at how stupid some of them were. Sort of like, “Yeah, I could have done that in about 20 seconds.” Others were really detailed and so far out of my reach that I was glad I found them. So, the point here is to read up about what it is you’re downloading and installing so there aren’t any surprises, especially when it comes to paying for these things.

One last word of warning when it comes to “free” actions and presets for Adobe products. Beware. If you start bumping into website that have the words “FREE” and “DOWNLOAD” written all over them, walk the other way. There is a ton of malware and other nasty objects included in packages the uninitiated download to their computers. Only, only, only use reputable resources for this kind of stuff.

How To Install Presets For Camera Raw On Your Computer

In this section, I’m going to walk you through the process for installing a preset for Camera Raw on your computer. It’s really easy, so this shouldn’t take long at all.

I haven’t downloaded this type of thing in a while. The last presets I downloaded were straight files. Today, the creators of presets are including them into a self-installing .EXE file. This is what ON1 does. I just downloaded their free presets and it consists of an installer file that’s 418MB. That’s shocking, considering there are only 10 free presets that would normally take up only a few kilobytes.

Anyway, to install their package, all you need to do is download their installer file, find it on your computer, double-click it and follow the directions.

ON1 Effects Free Presets Installer

That’s really all there is to it. The installer will find the location on your computer and place the appropriate files into it. From there, you’ll be able to use the new presets. I’ll talk more about this in my next post.

If you do happen to download presets from a more straightforward outfit, they’ll come packaged in a .ZIP file. I just went ahead and downloaded some presets from the Adobe Blog and this is how I got them (after I double-clicked on the zip file).

ACR Presets Folder

And when I clicked into the PS ACR Presets folder, I found the actual preset files.

PS ACR Presets Folder

It’s this view you’ll most likely see.

To install the files, all you need to do is copy the files from the zip folder to the target folder. These target folders differ between Windows and Mac, so I’ve listed each type of computer below.

Mac: (user)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Camera Raw/Settings

Windows: C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings

Since I’m on Windows 10, I’ll show you a screenshot of the target folder here.

Target Folder for Presets

Now, it’s very important to follow a few instructions here because it can be a bit confusing. To find the target folder, you’ll need to browse the C: directory from your File Explorer. From there, you’ll need to click the View tab up top. Then, click the box for Hidden Items. Without doing this, you won’t have the ability to see a few of these folders. They’re hidden.

In the above screenshot, you can see the preset I created when I was writing this post. If I want to add the new presets, I’ll click Ctrl+A on my keyboard in the source (zip) folder to select all the files and the Ctrl+V to paste them in the target folder.

Installed ACR Presets on Windows 10

And that’s it! Once the files are in their proper folder, I can head into Camera Raw and use them, which I’ll talk about in a later post.

I hope I explained this concept clearly. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Creating Presets in Adobe Camera Raw & Applying Them via Bridge

December 26, 2016

I have no idea how popular Adobe Bridge is. Actually, I don’t think it’s very popular at all. I know a lot of people enjoy using their operating system’s file explorer tools and are fine with that. I was for years. That is, until I discovered how cool Bridge really is and until I explored much of what it can do. Today, I’m a huge proponent of Bridge and I hope you’ll read what I have to say below. You may just end up loving Bridge as much as I do.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you something really cool. Since I’m the type of person who has somewhat settled on my editing style (99% of photos get the same treatment) in Camera Raw, I could certainly benefit from having my process automated. I used to set up automated processes in Photoshop. Those were called Actions. In Camera Raw, they’re called Presets. Basically, both Actions and Presets record any edits made to an image and save them as an instruction. The next time an editor would like to make the same exact edits to a photo as they did when they created an instruction, instead of pushing sliders around, they could simply hit the Action or Preset button and the edits would be applied automatically.

Now, that’s all fine and good and you may already know about these small pieces of magic. What you may not know is that once a Preset is created in Camera Raw, you no longer have to launch a photo into that application to apply it. You can do it straight from Bridge and be done with it. You can even apply the Preset to multiple images via Adobe Bridge, saving even more time.

I swear, I’m getting sucked more and more into Bridge every time I use it. There are so many hidden tricks that it’s definitely worth diving into and making it a part of the workflow.

Launching From Adobe Bridge

To kick things off, I’ll open up Adobe Bridge. From there, I’ll navigate to the folder I’m interested in. Then, I’ll select a thumbnail and launch it into Camera Raw. If you aren’t familiar with how to open files into Camera Raw, you can check out this post:

How To Open Files & Photos Into Adobe Camera Raw

This is the folder I’m going to be working from in Bridge.

Adobe Bridge Interface

Creating a Preset in Camera Raw

The next thing I want to do is to edit the photo in Camera Raw the way I normally do. I need to be careful to keep things on the straight and narrow. In this step, I’ll be creating the template that my Preset will be modeled from, so I don’t want to get too particular with specifics that this image may need. What I’m trying to do here is to reduce the amount of work I’ll be doing in the future.

I’ll start by pushing some of the sliders that are in the Basic panel.

Camera Raw Basic Panel

Next, I’ll head into the Detail panel and make my usual changes there.

Camera Raw Detail Panel

Finally, I’ll head into the Presets panel by clicking on the appropriate tab.

Preset Panel Tab

To create a Preset, I’ll need to click the New Preset button that’s located at the bottom of the Presets panel.

New Preset Button

After I do that, the New Preset dialog box will appear.

New Preset Dialog Box

Since I’d like to apply all the changes I made to the image to my new Preset, I’ll leave all the boxes in this panel checked off. If I only wanted a few of them applied, such as the settings I made in the Detail panel, I would only keep those checked (or choose Details from the Subset drop-down box). The same goes for the edits I made in the Basic panel. You can really pick and choose here if you wanted to. If you did it this way, you could create multiple Presets that slice and dice what you have the ability to apply to images in the future.

I’ll go ahead and name this new Preset Normal Edits and click the OK button to create the Preset.

Created Preset

At this point, the Preset has been created. Any time I launch an image into Camera Raw and want to apply the same exact edits that I applied to the image I created the Preset from, all I would need to do is visit the Presets panel and click on the Normal Edits Preset. That would automatically apply the previous edits to the new photo. It’s that simple.

Applying a Camera Raw Preset From Adobe Bridge

I have to admit, Presets are really cool and they make life a lot easier. Especially when it comes to blogging. Before I began shooting in RAW and before I learned about Camera Raw, I would apply an Action I created in Photoshop to edit photos en masse. The reason I did this was because I found myself editing the same exact way, image after image. It was tiring and I needed a better method. I’m just happy that Camera Raw offers the ability to make Presets that do almost the same thing.

Let’s say that I have 100 photos from a photo shoot I shot on a nice afternoon. All the images are very similar and they would all need to be edited the same way. Sort of like I just did above in the “Creating a Preset” example. While creating a Preset would certainly help and while it would cut down on my editing time dramatically, I’d still need to launch each and every one of those 100 photos into Camera Raw to apply the Preset. As you can imagine, any time you have to do something 100 times in a row, you’ll end up wishing you were doing something else. That’s just the way it is.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could apply the Preset right from Adobe Bridge? You know, without even opening Camera Raw? Well, I have some good news for you. You can. Let me show you how.

Since my Preset has already been created in Camera Raw, I can close that down. I’ll be working directly from Bridge now.

The first thing I’ll need to do is to find and select the thumbnail of the image, or images, I’d like to apply the Preset to via Bridge. Once the image is selected, I’ll head up to the Edit > Develop Settings menu item. Inside the Develop Settings sub-menu will be any Preset that has been created in Camera Raw. In this case, the Normal Edits Preset is sitting down at the bottom of the sub-menu.

Edit - Develop Settings Menu Item

If I click on Normal Edits, that Preset will be instantly applied to the image. I’ll immediately see the thumbnail update with the new edits applied.

Preset Applied in Bridge

If I wanted to apply the preset to multiple images, all I would need to do is select multiple thumbnails and follow the same instructions above. How awesome is that? Now, after applying the Preset, I could launch the individual images into Camera Raw to tweak any of the settings. Nothing is etched into stone here. It’s just that the base edits have been made automatically.

Undoing the Preset From Bridge

By now, I’m sure you have been thinking of all sorts of Presets that you’d like to create in Camera Raw. The thing is, by creating many Presets, you’ll be adding to the list in the Develop Settings sub-menu in Bridge. As you can imagine, when you have a lot to choose from, mistakes can be made. What do you do if you choose the wrong Preset? Whoops.

To undo any Presets you have applied from Adobe Bridge, go to the Edit > Develop Settings > Clear Settings menu item and click. The Presets will be cleared out and you’ll start over from the beginning. It’s that simple.

Edit - Develop Settings - Clear Settings Menu Item

Opening Photos Straight Into Photoshop

When I first began using this method of editing, I was left a bit stumped. I thought it was really neat that I could quickly make tons of edits straight from Bridge, bypassing Camera Raw completely. The thing is, I wondered what to do with all the edited images. How could I get them into Photoshop for my final editing? Would I still need to pass them through Camera Raw and if so, what was the benefit of doing what I just did from Bridge?

Luckily, I already wrote a few posts that discuss how we can open photos straight from Bridge into Photoshop. If you’d like to read them, click the links below.

How to Open a File in Photoshop Directly From Adobe Bridge

How to Open RAW Files Straight From Adobe Bridge to Photoshop

Those posts should help.

Well, there it is. I hope I thoroughly and clearly explained how to create Presets inside of Adobe Camera Raw. I also hope I helped with applying those Presets via Adobe Bridge. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


How to Sharpen Photos Using Adobe Camera Raw

December 23, 2016

In my last post, I talked about how to best remove noise from photos using Adobe Camera Raw. In today’s post, I’m going to follow up with a discussion that covers how to best sharpen photos in the same application. Both of these tasks are quite similar to one another, so if you haven’t read my previous post, you may want to do that to get a handle on what’s going on. In reality though, both of these features somewhat stand on their own, so it’s not critical that you know about both. I just figured that I wrote it, so you may as well get some benefit from it.

Original Photo

For today’s post, I’ll be using a photo of my cat. I just took this picture last week, so it’s very current. I actually should have used this photo for my last post because it’s got tons of noise in it, so I may just have to save it for later use in another post on the topic.

Orange Cat

I think this image will be perfect for this post because there are open areas as well as very detailed ones. I think the sharpening aspects I demonstrate will show clearly.

Sharpening the Photo

I’ve already gone ahead and edited the photo in the Basic panel for the reasons I outlined in this post. Since that’s finished, I can head directly into the Detail panel. I’ll do that by clicking on the Detail tab inside of Camera Raw.

Detail Panel Tab

Now that I’m in the right panel, I’ll focus only on the top section that’s titled Sharpening.

Sharpening Sliders in Detail Panel

I’m going to go about this post the same way I went about the noise reduction one. I’ll explain what each of the four sliders does and then offer an extreme example of what the photo looks like up close when I sharpen way too much. First, let’s tackle some definitions.

If you look inside the Sharpening area of the Detail panel, you’ll see four slides. They are Amount, Radius, Detail and Masking. I’ll go over what each means next.

Before I do that though, I’ll make sure to zoom into 100% so I can see any changes I make more clearly. If you look at the bottom of the Detail panel, there’s even a reminder for that. It says, “For a more accurate preview, zoom the preview size to 100% or larger when adjusting the controls in this panel.”

Now, let’s get to those definitions.

Amount: This is the primary slider and the one I generally use when I’m sharpening my photos. In the most basic sense, it adjusts the definition of edges in a photo. To increase the amount of sharpening, push the slider to the right. To decrease it, push the slider to the left. If you push the slider all the way to the left, you’ll turn this feature off in its entirety. As with noise reduction, there are risks associated with this slider. If you increase the value too much, you may increase the definition and noticeability of the noise itself. If you prefer cleaner images, you may want to keep this feature set to a lower value.

The Amount slider locates pixels that surround the specific pixel that’s being sharpened and contrasts them. This contrast depends on the threshold you set.

Radius: This slider controls the size of the details that are sharpened in your photo. If your photos are very finely detailed, you would generally keep this slider pushed to the left. If you have a less detailed photo, you can push this slider to the right. If you go too far to the right, you may end up with weird looking results, like the cartoony ones I showed you in the noise reduction post.

Detail: This slider controls how the high-frequency information in a photo is adjusted. It also controls how the sharpening engine in Camera Raw deals with edges in an image. To keep areas of a photo a bit more tame and smoother looking, keep this slider to the left. To make background and more detailed areas look much more accentuated, push this slider to the right.

Masking: This slider controls what is actually sharpened in the photo. If you have the slider turned off in the leftmost position, the entire image will be sharpened evenly across the board. The more you push this slider to the right, the more the sharpening will be limited to areas near edges. Again, if you have noise in your photo, the grains in the image may be considered edges, so be careful.

Quick Tip: If you hold down the Option (Mac) or the Alt (Windows) key while clicking and pushing any of these four sliders, you’ll see the photo in a different view. For example, if you do this and then click on the Amount slider, the image will turn grayscale. If you do this with the Masking slider, the photo will turn all white when the slider is all the way to the left and get more black around the edges in the photo as the slider is pushed to the right. This will need experimentation as well, so grab a photo and start playing around with this section.

Masking Slider

An Extreme Example

Since all photos are different and there are a wide variety of conditions in which photographs were taken, I’m going to show you just one screenshot. In this screenshot, the photo is zoomed into 100%. The top half has no sharpening done at all. All the Sharpening sliders are pushed to the left. In the bottom half, the Amount, Radius and Detail sliders are pushed all the way to the right. The Masking slider is kept to the left because it actually reduced the sharpening when I pushed it to the same position as the ones above.

Sharpening Slider Comparison

If you look at the photo closely (right click and open in new tab for a larger view), you’ll notice that the more the photo was sharpened, the worse the noise in the background got. At the same time, the fur on my cat’s face looks better. This is why I say there’s a trade off when using these tools. You can easily make things look worse.

In general, when I’m working on a photo, I’ll push the Amount slider in the Sharpening section to the 100% position and the Luminance slider in the Noise Reduction section to 25%. I’ve found a good balance there for many of my photos.

I hope I gave you a good background for how to go about sharpening a photo while using Adobe Camera Raw. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Removing Noise in Photos Using Adobe Camera Raw

December 21, 2016

I just finished writing a post for my other blog. For this post, I had to edit a few photos using Adobe Camera Raw. This isn’t a big deal, but it did get me thinking. Since I do so much editing in Camera Raw and part of that editing usually involves reducing noise and sharpening the images, why not talk about those two aspects of my editing over here?

Since removing noise is one of the most popular areas to work on when it comes to post-processing, I’ll cover it first. Then, in my next post, I’ll discuss how to go about sharpening photos using Camera Raw. Both of these modification control sliders are contained in the same panel, so they’re closely related and will be very intuitive to understand when dealing with one another.

In today’s post, I’ll launch a demo photo into Camera Raw. I’ll do my usual editing in the Basic panel and then I’ll move onto the Detail panel. Inside the Detail panel are two sections. The first is called Sharpening and the second is called Noise Reduction. It’s the second one we’ll be working in today.

The Demo Photo

I’ll use a photo of a train below to exemplify how to use the Noise Reduction settings in the Detail panel. While it may not look like there is much amiss in the photo directly below, you’ll surely see what I’m referring to after I zoom into specific parts at 100%. The noise will appear as clear as day.

Smokey Train on Tracks

Editing in the Basic Panel

Whenever editing in Camera Raw, you generally want to begin with the Basic panel. The reason for this is simple – big changes need to be made before smaller changes.

Let’s pretend for a moment that I did things backwards and I went ahead and edited a photo by pushing some Noise Reduction sliders before pushing the sliders contained in the Basic panel. If I moved the Noise Reduction sliders to the point of maximum noise reduction and then went back into the Basic panel and moved some sliders such as Contrast or Clarity, I may undo what I had done in the other panel. In Camera Raw, certain edits are dependent on other edits. In this case, in order for the noise reduction to remain the way we think it’s going to remain, I need to work in the Basic panel first. I certainly wouldn’t want to get rid of all sorts of noise and come to realize that my increase in contrast brought it all back.

With this in mind, I’ll make some general edits in the Basic panel. Nothing huge. Just some things to get the ball rolling.

Basic Panel

After I’m done here and the photo is looking pretty good, I’ll move into the Detail panel where I can continue on with some more minor changes.

Editing in the Detail Panel

To get into the Detail panel, I’ll click on the tab that looks like two triangles are stacked on top of each other.

Detail Panel Tab

And once there, I’ll look towards the bottom at the sliders underneath the title Noise Reduction.

Noise Reduction Section

Finally, before doing anything else, I’ll increase the view to 100% so I can see what kind of noise I’m dealing with. When using the Noise Reduction sliders in any editing application, it’s common to view what you’re working on at 100%. If you didn’t enlarge the photo, you simply couldn’t see the necessary detail.

Noisy Photograph

I hope you can see the noise.

Now, I want you to be aware of one thing – when I edit and reduce the size of photos for use online, I really don’t need to go nuts with the noise reduction. The reduction of the photo size removes a lot of the noise by itself. Also, you can’t really see that much detail in smaller photos anyway. It’s when the image remains very large or when you print it that noise becomes very apparent. Even though I keep most of my images for online use, I still like to stay in the habit of covering all my bases. It develops muscle memory (or something like that).

If you look at the six available sliders available in the Noise Reduction section, you should see Luminance, Luminance Detail, Luminance Contrast, Color, Color Detail and Color Smoothness. While this may seem like a lot, once you grasp an understanding of what each slider does, you’ll see that it’s not. I’ll cover what each of these sliders does now.

Luminance: Push this slider to the right to reduce luminance noise. The slider default is all the way to the left.

Luminance Detail: This slider is dependent on the previous one. If the Luminance slider hasn’t moved, you won’t be able to move this one. This slider controls the luminance noise threshold. If you push it all the way to the right, you’ll preserve much of your photo’s detail, but you’ll likely produce lots of noise. To remove noise, you’ll need to push this slider to the left. Beware though, noise reduction also removes detail, so there’s a balance here.

Luminance Contrast: This slider acts much like the previous one. It also depends on the movement of the Luminance slider to work. In this case though, the slider controls the contrast of the luminance. Again, if you push it all the way to the right, you may end up with worse results. You’ll likely see noisy blotches or mottling. And like the previous slider, pushing this one to the left will offer smooth, less noisy results, but there will be less contrast in the image.

Color: This slider is the first in the second section of sliders. This first slider is much like the first in the previous section. It can move, but the two next sliders depend on it to move as well. If you push this slider to the right, you’ll reduce color noise and if you keep it to the left, it will have no effect on the image.

Color Detail: If you push this slider to the right, you’ll end up with thin, detailed color edges, but you may increase color speckling. If you push the slider to the left, there will be less speckling, but the colors may bleed into one another.

Color Smoothness: This is a fairly new slider in the Color section. When you push this slider to the right, you’re instructing Camera Raw to look to the top, bottom, left and right of each color in the photo and to reduce the “abruptness” of each difference. Think about it this way – if you have tons and tons of colors as noise in an image and push this slider to its maximum setting, you’ll actually slightly desaturate the photo. That’s the “smoothing” the slider refers to. If you push it all the way to the left, you’ll end up with more saturated and accurate colors, but they may be very noisy.

As with any of these sliders, you’ll definitely need to experiment with your own photos. The image I’m working with doesn’t exactly have a lot of color in it. It does, however, have a lot of difference in luminance. Because of this, I’ll go ahead and push only the top three luminance sliders. I want you to realize that I’m going extreme here only for your benefit. I would like to demonstrate how strong these sliders can be. I wouldn’t do this in the real world unless I was going for the cartoon look.

I’m going to push the Luminance slider all the way to the right, so the value is 100%. Then, I’ll push the next two sliders (Luminance Detail and Luminance Contrast) all the way to the left, so their values are 0. Let’s see what happens.

Smooth Photo with No Noise

Isn’t that crazy? It looks like an Atlas Shrugged book cover. Since these controls are so dependent on the photo they’re altering and since the sliders in this panel are oftentimes difficult to see, I’m going to leave it here. What I would suggest is that you find some noisy photos to experiment with or take some photographs with your camera set to a high ISO value. That should give you some good noise to work with. Take neutral photos and some colorful ones so you can get a handle on both sections of the Noise Reduction section of the Detail panel.

I hope I gave you a clear introduction of how to remove noise in a photograph using Adobe Camera Raw. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: It has been requested that I use the photo from the next post that talks about sharpening photos in Camera Raw in this post as well. That photo has some really noticeable noise in it. Since it’s practically perfect for this post, I’d like to show you what kind of noise reduction Camera Raw is truly capable of.

Again, I’ll open the photo into Camera Raw and enlarge it to 100%. Take a look at all this juicy noise we’ve got going on here.

Very Noisy Photograph

This image is full of classic Fixed Pattern Noise. There’s a heavy does of both luminance noise as well as color noise.

Right now, I’ve got each of the six sliders in the Noise Reduction section of the Detail panel pushed to the left.

For this next screenshot, I’ll push the Luminance slider all the way to the right.

Luminance Slider

As you can see, much of the luminance noise has cleared up, but the color noise remains. That’s because we haven’t gotten to the good part yet. For the next screenshot, I’ll push the Luminance slider all the way back to the left and I’ll push the Color slider all the way to the right.

Color Slider

It appears that by pushing the Luminance slider too far to the right, we lost a lot of detail that used to exist in the photo. Conversely, by pushing the Color slider all the way to the right, we didn’t lose any quality and practically all the color noise in the photo has disappeared. I’d say this is the safer of the two sliders to move a great distance.

For a closer look at the color noise I’m referring to, take a look at the next screenshot. I zoomed into 300%.

Color Noise in Photograph

All those random red and green pixels shouldn’t be colored that way.

For this final screenshot, I’ll push the Color slider all the way to the right (because it’s safe to do so) and I’ll do my usual and push the Luminance slider so it has a value of 25. Let’s see what happens.

Fixing Noise in Photo

Okay, that’s much better. I did a bit of playing around with the other sliders and I ended up with these settings:

Luminance: 25
Luminance Detail: 0
Luminance Contrast: 0

Color: 100
Color Detail: 0
Color Smoothness: 100

The reason I kept both the Luminnace Detail and Luminance Contrast at 0 is because by raising their values, I only increased the grain in the photo. Also, the same was true for Color Detail. I found that when I lowered the Color Smoothness slider to 0 there were “waves” of color noise in the photo that were plainly visible. Pushing this slider to the right “smoothed” that out and got rid of the waves.

Now, I’ve got a photo that’s even better than the one I previously corrected! Getting rid of that color noise helped make this image much more crisp.

Noise Correction For Image Using Adobe Camera Raw

I hope this second section helped. If you have any further questions or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


How To Use Multiple Graduated Filters in Adobe Camera Raw

November 24, 2016

A few days ago, I found a photo that looked like it had some great content in it, but also looked like it was rather dull. Whenever I see things like this, I wonder if I could make them appear better by working on them in Adobe Camera Raw. Since I’m fairly confident in my skills, I set it aside for a future project. Well, as it turns out, I’ve got some time today, so I sat down to see what I could do. What I came up with is pretty decent, considering it only took me about five minutes to complete. Take a look.

How To Use the Graduated Filter in Adobe Camera Raw

Don’t worry, I’ll show you the original photo below.

To make my changes, all I took advantage of was two graduated filters. By doing this, I was able to isolate the top of the photo from the bottom. I needed to make different sets of changes to each, so the graduated filter was the perfect choice.

In case you’re wondering what a graduate filter is, I already write a few posts that discuss the tool. You can find the posts here:

Enhancing Photos with Graduated Filters in Adobe Camera Raw

Enhancing Photos with the Adjustment Brush in Adobe Camera Raw

How to Use the Radial Filter in Adobe Camera Raw

While only the top post discusses the actual Graduate Filter tool in Camera Raw, the other two do a good job of explaining how similar tools work. Each of them is in the same family, so if you can come to understand one, you’ll virtually understand them all.

In today’s post, I’ll use two instances of the Graduated Filter tool in Adobe Camera Raw. I’ll limit myself to the edits I make with this tool and I’ll avoid doing anything else. I’ll explain exactly what’s happening as I progress.

Original Photo

Take a look at this photo below. I think you’ll agree that it looks less than stellar.

Original Photo

As I stated above, it’s got issues. First, it’s as dull as all get out. Second, the sky area is full of grain. Finally, I’d like to differentiate the beach area from the sky. In order to do that, I’ll need to alter many different slider characteristics. More on that below.

Making the Beach “Pop”

To kick things off, I’m going to work on the bottom part of the photo. I’ll first select the Graduate Filter tool from the top toolbar.

Graduated Filter Tool Button

Now, I know I’ve got two photos open, as indicated by their thumbnails in the left Filmstrip column. Please ignore the bottom one. That’s the finished version that I need to refer to as I write this post. I made many changes and trying to remember them all and replicate them in this working version would probably drive me crazy.

Anyway, since the Graduate Filter tool is now active, I’ll click my mouse pointer down at the bottom center of the photo and drag up to the horizon line. This will create a very large and soft gradient of changes to things and will be very smooth. I don’t want any abruptness in this part of the photo.

First Graduated Filter Area

If you look closely at the overlay lines of this filter section, you’ll see that one is dashed red and one is dashed green. The green tells us when the gradient starts the the red tells us when it ends. The gradient exists between the two. The closer the green and red lines, the less subtle the gradient will be.

It is worth noting, however, that the edits will still exist in the entire area past the dashed green line. Between the red and green only shows the gradient.

The next things I’m going to tackle are the edits themselves. I’ll push slider values where I want to and then I’ll show the screenshot of the Graduated Filter panel below.

This is what the bottom part of the photo looks like after I made the changes:

Bottom Changes

And here are the slider positions:

Bottom Slider Positions

I think you’ll agree that I didn’t do much in the way of effort, but the difference between the original and this version is substantial. I could go further, but I don’t want to make things look weird. What I primarily wanted to change in this section was the color, which I accomplished by reducing the tint value towards the green side, and the contrast, which I accomplished by increasing the Contrast value and the Clarity value, among a few others.

I’ll now work on the sky section of the photo with another graduated filter.

Giving the Sky Some Color

For this part, I’ll create a new graduated filter area. I’ll begin at the very top center of the photo and drag down just a bit past the horizon line. I want to overshoot slightly this time.

Top Graduated Filter Area

As you can see, the green and red dashed lines are back, but this time they’re upside down. This is because the green always stays where you begin dragging from.

When creating multiple graduated filter areas, slider values will oftentimes be carried over from previous instances. This is almost certainly undesirable in this case. To clear out any preexisting values, I’ll click on the menu that’s located at the top of the Graduated Filter panel and then click on Reset Local Correction Settings.

Reset Local Correction Settings Menu Item

Doing this will zero out all the sliders.

Next, I’ll move the sliders into the proper value positions. This is what I get after doing that:

Top Changes

And these are the new slider values:

Top Slider Postions

Please notice that in addition to the top portion of sliders I pushed, I also adjusted some in the bottom section as well. These sliders are Sharpness, Noise Reduction and Moire Reduction. I mentioned earlier that the sky showed a lot of grain. It was necessary to “denoise” this area to make things look better.

All of these adjustments took fewer than ten minutes to complete. The most important thing to remember when you’re using more then one gradient filter is that you need to reset the slider values when introducing them to the work area. Things can get confusing, so having a clean slate helps a lot.

That’s all for this post. I hope you enjoyed learning about how you can use more than one instance of the Gradient Filter tool to edit a photo in Adobe Camera Raw. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them for me in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


How to Synchronize Settings Across Photos in Adobe Camera Raw

November 16, 2016

Quite honestly, things change as you become a better and better post-processing editor. At first, you’ll be enamoured at what Adobe products can do. You’ll open a photo in Camera Raw, Lightroom or Photoshop and play around for a while. This will be followed by all sorts of oohs and aahs. You’ll tell your friends all about your new-found skills and you’ll have a hunger for more.

Next, you’ll actually want to start getting things done. During this stage, you’ll search around the internet looking for answers. You’re not as impressed with the suite of products you use as you once were because you have tasks that need to be completed. Your thirst for knowledge is quite obvious.

Finally, you’ll have everything you need down pat. You understand how things work and have no issues with executing them wonderfully. It’s during this stage that you begin to wonder how you can get things done faster. You see yourself repeating steps over and over and over again. If you could only combine tasks or mass edit photos. It’s these sorts of solutions you’re on the hunt for now.

Luckily, Adobe is all about speed and efficiency. They have thought, and continue to think, about how you can get from point A to point B quicker than you ever have before.

I’ve written a few posts that touch on this last stage (having to do with Camera Raw). If you’d like to read them, you can here:

Independently Editing Multiple Images in Adobe Camera Raw

How to Copy & Paste Adobe Camera Raw Edit Settings

How to Save Tool Presets in Adobe Camera Raw

How To Edit More Than One Photo at a Time in Adobe Camera Raw

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it’s certainly a place to start. And as I continue writing, I’ll continue sharing shortcuts and methods for combining tasks. I sincerely hope they help.

In today’s post, I’ll be discussing a new set of tips that will allow you to manage and edit multiple photos simultaneously inside of Adobe Camera Raw. While these tips are somewhat similar to ones I’ve shared previously, there are distinct differences, so it’s important to read the entire post carefully.

The key word today is synchronizing as opposed to processing or managing. Synchronizing means that certain actions are performed after the fact as opposed to simultaneously or “during.” Obviously, the images will be opened into Camera Raw simultaneously and many of the photos will be updated simultaneously, but in essence, there will be a lot of synchronizing with previous settings going on.

Opening the Photos into Camera Raw

I’ve shared this method many times on this blog, so you should be knowledgeable of it by now. From Adobe Bridge, I’ll select the images I’d like to open into Camera Raw and I’ll click on the Open in Camera Raw button that’s located in the top toolbar.

Open in Camera Raw Button in Adobe Bridge

In this case, I’ll be using example photos I took just last night for my other blog – a cooking website.

Once the photos open up inside of Camera Raw, they look like this:

Camera Raw Thumbnails

Notice the Filmstrip column of thumbnails in the left column. That’s where much of my focus will be today.

Editing One Photo

Here’s the thing – when there are many photos opened up and selected in Camera Raw, as they are edited, there’s a lag after each change you make. So if you’ve got 50 images opened up and need to make 50 small edits, each and every change will have to run the gamut through all the photos. Take it from me – after watching this type of thing for a while, it becomes tiresome. It would be great if each change didn’t have to get applied to each photo every single time. Say, perhaps, we could edit one photo in its entirety and then apply all the edits across the rest of the photos at once. Something like, umm, I don’t know – synchronizing them. I think you know where I’m going with this. Please allow me to explain.

I’m going to choose my favorite photo and edit it inside of Camera Raw. I’ll crop it so it’s square and then push some sliders around in the Basic panel. Let’s take a look.

First, notice how I’ve only got the top thumbnail selected at this point. I don’t want all of the thumbnails selected, only one.

Top Thumbnail Selected

Now, check out the image itself. You can see that it’s been adjusted and cropped.

Edited Image

Finally, look at the Basic panel. You can tell that I moved some sliders.

Basic Panel

Sync Settings Across Other Photos

Here comes the fun part. Let’s say that I’ve got a handful of photos in the group that I opened that I want to apply the same exact settings I just applied to the very first photo I edited to. Or, perhaps I’d like to apply these settings to every single photo that’s currently opened in Camera Raw. How can I do that?

Well, if you only want to apply the settings to a few other images, you can use the Ctrl key on your keyboard to selectively highlight the appropriate thumbnails. If you want to apply the settings to all of the images, you can do two things. Use your Shift key to select everything or simply click into the Filmstrip panel and use the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut to take care of the selection. If you do this, all the thumbnails will become highlighted.

Highlighted Thumbnails

Now that I’ve got all the images selected, I can begin the process of syncing the settings among them. To do this, I’ll click on the menu that’s located at the top of the Filmstrip panel. Once open, I’ll click on the Sync Settings menu item.

Sync Settings

Once I do that, the Synchronize dialog box will appear.

Synchronize Dialog Box

If you look inside this box, you’ll see all the options for the settings you can share with other images. Since I changed some slider positions in the Basic menu along with some cropping a bit, I’ll check off each of the boxes that aren’t currently checked off. When done, I’ll click the OK button and watch as the remaining photos are updated. Now, if you look at the thumbnails, you’ll see that they are brighter and have been cropped. And it only took a few seconds to complete. Much more efficient use of my time than having them update after each and every change I make.

Synched Images

How to Update Individual Photos After the Fact

You may be wondering how you can update individual photos after you applied these changes across the board. Perhaps all the images weren’t as similar as you though or perhaps some changes need to be decreased in intensity or increased in intensity. Whatever the case, all that needs to be done is to have the specific thumbnail for the image you’d like to change clicked on and then edit as you would on any other occasion. The point is, just because you made some mass edits doesn’t mean you can’t make additional edits later on. Remember, the changes you make in Camera Raw are non-destructive, so they can be added to or reversed at any time.

I know this was a simple post, but I think these were very valuable tips to share. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw


Independently Editing Multiple Images in Adobe Camera Raw

November 12, 2016

In a previous post, I talked about how we can launch multiple photos into Adobe Camera Raw and edit them all simultaneously. As you can imagine, this is a huge time saver. Doing these types of things one by one can become monotonous, especially if the photos were taken of similar objects or subjects under the same lighting conditions. Really, there’s no reason not to “mass edit” these types of things.

I began using this feature in Camera Raw a while back. When photographing, I would focus my efforts on clusters of similar photos with this type of editing in mind. This way, when I returned to my computer from outside, or from wherever it was I was taking the photos, I could easily group them together for some quick modifications. The things is, I quickly realized I needed a bit of flexibility. Having the same exact edits apply to every single image that I opened into Camera Raw sort of tied my hands. I knew I needed to learn more about what was going on behind the scenes because the way things were, I was getting stuck when I went to edit those outlying photos. You know, the ones with the differences that just didn’t fit in with the rest.

In today’s post, I’ll open a few random images into Adobe Camera Raw with the intent of demonstrating how we can edit them all together or how we can use Camera Raw’s algorithms to edit them simultaneously, but independently. I know, that’s weird to think of. Let’s just say that we can have more them one photo launched onto Camera Raw and selected, but have different edits applied to each image. If you found my previous post about editing multiple images helpful, you should find this one just as helpful.

Opening Image Via Adobe Bridge

The first thing I’ll do is to open Adobe Bridge. I’ll locate the images I intend to launch into Camera Raw, select them and click on the Open in Camera Raw icon.

Open Photos From Adobe Bridge into Camera Raw

Once I do that, Camera Raw will look like this:

Multiple Images Opened in Adobe Camera Raw

Selecting All the Images

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that only one of the five images I opened is currently selected (the first one). To select them all, I’ll simply hold down the Shift key on my keyboard and click on the last image in the series. They will appear highlighted when I do this, with the first one still visible.

Highlighted Images

Now, if you compare the previous two screenshots, you’ll notice there’s a difference between them. The first one has only one image selected and visible while the second one has all five images selected with the same one visible.

Selecting a New Image

Where things stand, I have all five thumbnails “selected.” That word is sort of misleading though, so I think a few definitions are in order. When a thumbnail (image) in Camera Raw is selected, it will appear highlighted, meaning, it will have a light gray box around it. If the image is “visible,” it will appear in the content panel at the center of the screen and will not only be highlighted with a light gray box around it in the left column, it will also display a blue outline around the gray box. This is an easy way of distinguishing between which images are selected and which one is actually visible.

In the title of this section, I wrote that I’d like to “select” a new image. In reality though, all five are selected. What I mean is that I’d like to select a new image to make it visible in the center panel instead of having the very first image in the series visible. Making this change is very simple.

If I merely clicked on a new thumbnail with the intention of making it visible, I’d deselect all the other images in the series. To keep the others selected, but make a different photo visible, I’d have to first press and hold down the Alt key on my keyboard. Once I do that, I can click on a different thumbnail so that one is visible. I’ll do that right now. Notice how a different image is visible at the center of the application while all the others are still highlighted in the left column.

Selecting New Image in Series

Auto-Editing in the Basic Panel

Much of this post is going to stray from the “how-to” type of writing I typically engage in to a more “informative” style. There are areas of Camera Raw that essentially need to be explained. I can’t tell you how to do some of these things because there’s really nothing to do. I do want you to be aware of some aspects though. With the knowledge I share below, you’ll definitely be able to go ahead and make all sorts of edits the way you see fit.

With all five thumbnails selected in the left column, I can move over to the Basic panel in the right column. From there, I can begin my editing.

Basic Panel

In my previous post where I discussed editing more than one image at a time, I told you that if more than one image is selected in Camera Raw and a slider in the Basic panel is moved, both images will take on the exact value of that slider, no matter what the image looks like. This is why I said editing this way is perfect for groups of photos that were taken of similar items under similar conditions. You certainly wouldn’t want to use this method to edit two photos; one of bright daylight and one of a dark interior room in a house.

There are, however, methods for editing groups of images independently, no matter their capture conditions. For instance, now that I have all five photos selected in the left column, I can click on the Auto link in the Basic panel. When I do this, the slider values will change depending on what’s actually inside of each image, not just as a blunt instrument. Camera Raw will intelligently adjust all selected images uniquely.

Let’s compare the slider values of two different photos after I press the Auto link in the Basic panel (directly above the Exposure slider).

Basic Slider Values for the First Photo

Basic Slider Values for the Second Photo

As you can see, each image has wildly different slider values, yet they were both edited at the same time. I’m sure you can see the benefit of this, especially if you use the Auto feature frequently. By the way, Auto does a really great job. Even if you use it as a starting point and then edit via the sliders later on, it’s pretty spot on.

Lens Correction & Transform

Using the Lens Correction and Transform features are other areas where you can edit different photos uniquely, but simultaneously. If I head into the Lens Corrections panel, I can see what’s going on.

Lens Corrections Panel

In this panel, I can check off the two top check boxes to allow Camera Raw to automatically adjust and correct any lens issues I happen to have with the photos in hand. Again, since this is an “auto” function, Camera Raw will treat each photo independently.

I do want you to be aware of something though. Just because we can use this auto feature and Camera Raw will determine each photo’s needs uniquely, that doesn’t mean we can go nuts with changing all sorts of things in this panel. Just like in the Basic panel, if I change something manually, that manual change will apply to all selected photos equally. We’re back to the blunt instrument type of thing. So, if I choose Apple from the Lens Profile drop-down box, that value will apply to each and every photo I currently have selected. Think of it this way: auto features are unique among photos and manual changes area applied across the board.

Let’s take a quick look into the Transform panel. I’ll click the Transform Tool from the top toolbar and the panel will appear. Inside the panel, I can click on the Auto button to let Camera Raw auto correct each of the selected photos. Each photo will be corrected independently, while if I pushed a slider at this point, that slider value would be applied to all images the same exact way.

Auto Transform

In the screenshot above, I used the auto feature. I’ll go ahead now and push a slider and show you how that affects the thumbnails. This will give you a clear picture of what I mean.

Rotate Photo

In the above screenshot, I pushed the Rotate slider all the way to the left. When I did this, all selected photos were rotated. Obviously, this is not a good way to edit different photographs.

Converting to Grayscale

This is a very helpful topic. If I visit the HSL/Grayscale panel, I’ll see a bunch of color sliders.

HSL/Grayscale Panel

If I click inside the Convert to Grayscale checkbox, each selected image will turn to grayscale, but with unique slider values. Take a look.

Grayscale Values for First Photo

Grayscale Values for Second Photo

You can see from the two screenshots above that each photo has different slider values. If I went ahead now and pushed one of the color sliders manually, I’d set that value among all photos the same way. Again, the “auto” feature uniquely changes photos while manual changes are applied to all photos the same way.

If you’d like to learn more about how to make photos black and white in Camera Raw, please take a look at these posts:

Creating Black & White Photos in Adobe Camera Raw

How To Enhance Black & White Portraits in Adobe Camera Raw

Other Tools

Editing multiple images simultaneously is a great way to speed up your workflow. You do have to use this method with caution though. If we look up at the toolbar that runs across the top of Camera Raw, we’ll get a glimpse of the available tools.

Top Toolbar in Adobe Camera Raw

As you can well imagine, you should really use some of the tools for independent photographs. For instance, if I cropped one photo to a certain shape while all thumbnails are selected, each and every photo will be cropped the same way. The same is true for the White Balance Tool, Color Sampler Tool, Targeted Adjustment Tool, Spot Removal and Red Eye Removal tools. If you make a change to a photo with one of these tools, that change will apply to everything selected. That’s actually a good thing and a huge time saver in its own right.

Basically, what I’m trying to say here is that you really need to work with each tool to see what it does. Many of them behave differently when you have multiple photos selected. While editing images simultaneously is a huge time saver, you don’t want to do the wrong thing and have to backtrack, especially if you’ve got dozens of photos open at the same time.

I hope I’ve given you a good introduction into working with and editing multiple photographs simultaneously inside of Adobe Camera Raw. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Filed Under: Design Tagged With: Camera Raw

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