Hello readers! Today, I’m going to talk about how immensely powerful Adobe Camera RAW can be. In a world where many use Nik Filters, Topaz, Photomatix, and a myriad of other programs, great images can still be made without spending all that extra money and just using Camera Raw, whether you’re in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Lightroom. To demonstrate this, I’m going to edit an image of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, using nothing but Camera RAW. Here’s the original RAW file: Now, as a short disclaimer. This photo I’m using was pretty good before even doing any work in the RAW editor. It had good light, a decent exposure and good sharpness. Shooting with bad light or botching things in camera will more likely than not make a shot unworkable. We here at DPB like to think of the digital darkroom as a way of enhancing our photos, not as a crutch used to correct our mistakes. Moving on, the first thing I do when working in Camera RAW is adjust the White Balance. This shot had a pretty good balance of color temperature, so I actually left it on the “As Shot” selection. This usually is not the case. I usually tend to like my images a little warmer, so I tend to go higher on the WB. Next is Exposure. What Exposure does is simply to adjust your exposure. If you think your image is a little dark, or you want to bring out some shadow details, [...]
