From the course: Photoshop for Designers: Filters

Use Camera Raw as a filter - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop for Designers: Filters

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Use Camera Raw as a filter

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- [Instructor] We now have the ability to apply Camera RAW as a filter for a faster, more flexible workflow when editing images. Camera RAW is really a one-stop shop for the vast majority of our image editing needs. And for a long time we've been able to use the Camera RAW plug-in to edit TIFF and JPEG images, as well obviously as Camera RAW files themselves, but now we can apply it as a Smart Filter directly to the layer. Best case scenario you'll have access to the original RAW image. This workflow supposes that the original RAW file is not available, but you want to use the power and flexibility of the Camera RAW editing environment. So let's see what I can do with this slightly underexposed image. I'll start out by converting it to a Smart Object by right clicking, or control clicking on the layer, choosing Convert to Smart Object, and then choose Camera RAW Filter. What's great about this environment is you can just drag the histogram one way or the other to brighten things up, in this case, 'cause I'm moving the histogram to the right. And then you can move these sliders around, and this is typically what I like to do, I like to increase the Clarity to about 25, increase the Vibrance, not having too much effect here, but I'm still going to go out to about plus 25. I'm also going to open up the Shadows. Now I'll move onto my Detail options, where I can increase the Sharpening. And, it does tell me down here that I really need to be at 100% view size in order to see this, so I'm going to double click on my Zoom Tool to zoom in to 100%. As well as Sharpening, I'll also apply some Noise Reduction to smooth out the texture of the image. I'll then come to HSL, and here I'm going to see if I can make the blues of the sky a little deeper. Let's press command or control + zero to go back to my Fit in Window view. I'll get my Targeted Adjustment Tool. Click on the blue of the sky, and then drag to the left. And you can see my blue slider is now moving to the left, and my blues are becoming darker. Can't go too far with that, 'cause it's going to introduce more noise if I go too far. Now it's time to go to my Local Adjustment Tools, and there are three that I want to use. There is the Adjustment Brush, the Graduated Filter, and the Radial Filter. I'll start out with the Graduated Filter. Still not quite happy with the sky. I'd like it to have a little less exposure, and a bit more contrast. The settings over here reflect the last settings used, and I can just leave them like that for the time being. I'll drag my Graduated Filter down, and then I can come and adjust these. So let's just put them all into their neutral position, and you can reset any of these sliders simply by double clicking on the triangle. And I'm now going to reduce the Exposure, and I think I'm going to increase the Contrast and increase the Clarity. Now in addition to that, I also would like to add a Radial Filter around the raven. So I'm going to draw myself a circle around the raven. When you use a Radial Filter are you affecting the inside or the outside? In this case I want the inside to be affected. I want its edges to transition as subtly as possible so I have the Feather amount all the way up to 100. And then I'll take away the Clarity, and the Contrast, and I'll just increase the Exposure slightly. I now move to my Local Adjustment Brush, and here I would like to just increase the Shadows. So I'll, this time actually before I use the brush, I'll move the Shadow slider to the right, and then I can just paint over this rock in the foreground to open up some of those shadows. And of course, as you're using this brush, left bracket makes it smaller, right bracket makes it larger. Should you decide that you want to go back on any of these changes, if you turn on this checkbox here, Mask, you can see where you have painted. I could now go to the Erase Brush, and I could start rubbing out any of those areas if I need to. So those are some of just many possible changes I could make in the Camera RAW environment. I will just come back to my basic options, I've clicked on my Hand Tool, and I can now access my basic options, and I am going to increase my Highlights a little more. I want to get that histogram all the way over to the right. And I can either drag the histogram itself, or I can use the sliders, either or, or both. Now if I want a preview of the before and after, I can either press the P key to turn the preview off, P key again to turn it back on, or I can use the Q key to cycle through these different before and after views. If I like what I have, I can commit to the changes by clicking OK, and there I see the changes applied as a Smart Filter. I can revisit those changes at any time. I'll find all of the sliders exactly where I left them. I can if I want reduce the intensity of those changes by dialing down the Opacity. I could even experiment with applying the changes using a different blending mode. And I could also paint on the Filter Mask to prevent the changes reaching certain parts of the image. So what I love about Camera RAW, the Camera RAW plug-in is that it's fast, and it's flexible, and it's linear. You move from one step to the next in a really fluid way, and now having the ability to use that same workflow applied as a Smart Filter, really gives us way more options when editing our images.

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