Adobe Camera Raw

Processing a JPEG as a RAW File

Opening in Adobe Camera Raw
First go to the Elements File menu item, and select Open. You'll get the window shown above (in Icon view), and when you click on a jpeg to select it, you'll see down at the bottom that the Format entry shows it is a JPEG. Now click the double arrows after that entry for JPEG and you will see the list shown above right, with a check mark in front of JPEG. You want to move on up to Camera Raw and click on that. When you then click the Open button, the jpeg will open in the Adobe Camera Raw Plug-in instead of the Elements editor. Indeed, if in future you double-click that jpeg it will again open in ACR, and will have the same settings you used when you last opened it and processed it in ACR.

Adobe Camera Raw Plug-in Window
	And above is what you will see after you click the Open button: your photo will be in the main section, above it is the toolbar, with some familiar tools, including the magnifying glass, the hand to move things around, the eye-dropper to sample colors, a crop tool, the straighten tool, red eye fixer, and so on. At the end is a peculiar icon which lets you toggle ACR into full screen view by clicking on it. To the right are the things you will use to correct (or artistically tweak) your photo. In the upper right corner there is a histogram, with little tiny triangles at the top. You'll want to click on both of them so you can see the clipping mask for both over-exposed and under-exposed areas. The over-exposed areas will show as red, the under-exposed as blue. On the left is a close-up of the photo, showing over-exposed areas in the leaves, which will show up as plain white, and under-exposed areas in the grass, which will show up as black, and both will thus lose all their details in these areas if the photo is opened now, unless we Do Something about the situation.

First Steps

The first thing you'll want to do is correct the basic color to remove any color cast. If you move your cursor into your photo you'll notice the R, G and B fields directly under the histogram start showing numbers. If something is pure white they will all be 255, pure black is 0, grays can be any number from 1 to 254, but the point is that all three will be the same number. If you have anything at all that is supposed to be white, gray or black, move the cursor over that spot and watch the numbers, often you will see one number is significantly different--in the example above it is B (blue), and indeed the photo has a distinct blue cast. You can either click the Eyedropper tool to select it, and then click on the spot, or just press the Shift key, the cursor turns into the Eyedropper, and click. All the numbers will magically become equal, and all the colors will shift to reflect the fact that the spot you clicked on is defined as neutral. Below you see the result after I clicked on the neutral gray of the mat above, and moved the Eyedropper over another, darker, neutral gray. You'll see all the numbers are the same, and the blue cast has gone. You'll also see that the entry for White Balance has changed from "As Shot" to "Custom", while the Temperature and Tint sliders have also changed to new values, and the distinct blue humps in the histogram have pretty much all moved into the main body with everything else.

The change noted above gives you a hint as to what to do if your photo does not contain anything at all that is neutral. From the drop-down menu for White Balance, you'll notice there are two additional options: Auto and Custom. If the As Shot selection doesn't appear quite correct, you can try Auto, and if that doesn't do it, select Custom, and then drag the Temperature and/or the Tint sliders until you see the over-all color that appears correct to you. Keep an eye on the histogram as you drag the sliders, it may help you estimate how you are doing. A little excess blue in the dark end isn't bad, as it just makes the shadows cooler, while a bit of excess yellow or red on the light end makes light areas warmer. Both can give acceptable results. You may find it less distracting, if your photo has a lot of over and under-exposed areas, to temporarily turn off the clipping masks. But you'll need to turn them back on for the next step.

NEXT: Exposure Controls

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