Photoshop
Elements Raw Workflow
(see Screen Shots below!)
Shooting in Raw and converting Raw images is actually faster and simpler than shooting in jpg and editing the images using various tools in the Editor requiring multiple clicks to open Levels, Contrast, Hue and Saturation, noise reduction, etc. You can do all of this in the 2 panels in the Raw Converter. You can crop, adjust tone and color, reduce noise and sharpen and the sliders are easy to use and grouped together in the Basic panel and Details panel.
In the Elements Organizer (image browser), import your images if they haven't been imported by the Adobe downloader when you insert your card into your card reader or attach your camera. Then click to open your image in the Editor and it automatically opens in the Adobe Raw Converter.
Check to make sure that the bit depth showing is 16 bits for serious photos that you want to print or leave it at 8 bits if desired. Double click on the magnifying glass to view it 100% to check for focus and sharpness. Click on the Hand tool to drag the image to view all sections of it. There are also crop, straighten, rotate image and redeye reduction tools available at the top of the screen and an eye dropper tool to help remove color casts by clicking on an area that should be white (or gray if there is no white in the image). Also, notice the two triangles at the top of the histogram. If you click on each one, it will show any shadows ( in blue) and highlights (in red) that are clipped, meaning they have little or no detail. You can use these to gage if you are adjusting the image or parts of it to be too light or too dark. If it is too dark, then slide the exposure slider to the right until you see only a little red and then you can use the Recovery slider until the red disappears. If the shadows are too dark only in the small dark unimportant spots, don't worry about it. Otherwise, use the Fill Light slider to bring them up until the blue disappears. It's kind of a balancing act, a little of this, a little of that. Most properly exposed images don't require much adjustment. Here is the order in which you should adjust your images:
1. Adjust color
balance using the top two sliders. If the color is too cool (blue),
too warm (yellow), too red or green, adjust the Temperature and Tint sliders
until you like what you see. An easy way to fix a color cast is to
click on the eyedropper icon and click on something that is supposed
to be
white and it will adjust the colors to make it white.
2. Adjust the Exposure slider
if necessary if the photo is too dark or too light all around. Watch
the histogram and highlight warnings to make sure you don't lighten
or darken it too much. Don't pay attention to any small spots that
are over-exposed such as reflections. Same with the shadows. If the
blackest
shadows
are small and show clipping in
the
blue warning
color,
don't
worry
about
it.
3. If you find that by increasing your overall exposure you now have some
blown-out highlights, use the Recovery slider to bring back
detail or decrease the Exposure slider amount and increase the Brightness slider
to bring up just the mid-tones and not the highlights
4. Blacks - The default setting of 5 is good for most images.
If your image is lacking in contrast without enough black or dark colors you
can
increase
the Blacks
slider a little but don't overdo it. Watch the histogram. If it's too dark,
you can lower the Blacks but
don't go below
3.
Use the
exposure slider or brightness slider instead.
You
can use the Fill
Light slider after adjusting blacks to lighten shadow areas to show
more detail but go easy if it starts to look gray or dull. Only
use this after making all other adjustments.
5. Increase the Contrast if your image still looks flat
due to low contrast. Lower it if your image is too contrasty.
6.You can use the Vibrance slider
to give a boost to the colors that aren’t already fully saturated,
and even pump up the Saturation overall a bit if needed.
You can also decrease Saturation if the image is too saturated.
6. Nearly all photos benefit from using the Clarity slider
which increases the mid-tone contrast to make images "pop". All
images will benefit from a setting of +10 and up to +50 depending on the
original contrast in the mid-tones. It can also
be used
to decrease mid-tone contrast in certain situations such as portraits to
help smooth skin.
7.You can sharpen images and reduce noise in the Details Tab. All Raw
photographs do require some amount of sharpening. You can do the first
sharpening, referred to as "capture sharpening" in the RAW converter
(Click the Detail tab at the top of the screen). It is
set on 25 by default and I usually leave it there. The amount
is how much sharpening is applied. Between 25 and 40 is fine, depending
on sharpness of the original image. Radius is how wide
the sharpening halo is. For most images, leave it at 1.0. If there is
lots of detail in your image, lower it to .8. For portraits, raise it
to 1.1 - 1.3.
Detail and Masking act like supression
controls. Setting Detail below 100 allows you to suppress the effects
and the default 25 is fine for most
images. You can go higher, to 50 or so for detailed images, but keep
it low for portraits.
Masking applies a mask to areas without much detail such as sky or
still water or a blank wall. With lots of detail in the image, leave
it at
0 but for large blank areas raise it up to 25 or so. This helps to keep
from sharpening noise in those areas.
NOTE: If
you have purchased a 3rd party noise removal plugin such as Noiseware
or Noise Ninja (two of the best ones) then you should not sharpen them
at all in the Raw converter if they contain a lot of noise. After you
open the image in the Editor, run the noise reduction filter first
and then make any image corrections. Sharpening
is the last step after sizing the photo for print or for the web. In
the Elements Editor, use Adjust Sharpness.
8.Noise
can be reduced in the Raw Converter to a certain extent but
not nearly as well as a specialized noise reduction plugin. If your
image has visible noise (graininess), use the Luminance
and Color noise reduction sliders to reduce it. I often
start with a setting of 20 for Luminance and if there is no
color noise visible,
in the shadow
areas in particular, viewed at 100%, you can
slide the Color slider down to 10 from the default 25.
9. When you are done, click Open Image to open it in
the Editor for the final steps of cropping, if not done in the Raw converter,
sizing and sharpening last before saving the
image using Save As or Save for Web.
These steps take only a very few minutes once you get the hang of it. You will soon realize that the effort involved in shooting Raw and processing your images with the Raw Converter will really improve your photos by giving you more control on the final appearance of your images and allowing more tolerance for fixing tone and color problems!
Tools
At the top are the tools. If you click on the magnifier and then click on the image it will zoom in with each click. If you double click on it, it will go to full size. Use the Hand tool to move the image around. If you double click it, the image will Fit Screen so yu can see all of it. Use the eyedropper on a white or neutral gray spot to set white balance. You can crop the image with the crop tool although I usually do that in the Editor. There is also a redeye tool but I'd rather do it in the Editor. And a straighten tool to straighten tilted images by dragging along a line that's supposed to be straight.The last 2 tools are to rotate images shot in vertical orientation. Another icon is to set the preferences.
Adobe Raw Converter Opens in Basic Tab View (Shown - Elements 6 Raw Converter)
Details Tab View
