Should be thinking about work but need to sort out my RAW processing
When I process my RAW images, I generally do white balance, whites so they're not clipped and blacks the same. I then probably lighten mid-tones aboove necessary and then do most of the contrast bit on the .tif in PS.
I can see the logic in doing the whites and blacks so they're not clipped, but what on earth do you do with mid-tones? Is this where experience comes into it or are there some kind of guidelines or tips?
Perhaps a stupid question, but I was just wondering
I am certainly not an "expert", but I use the following flow. I generally use Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). I uncheck all default boxes. Then I adjust white balance and go down the adjustment list kind of in order to get the various options the way I want them. I often will recheck the box to see what the default effect would be and often end up with something in between the default and the setting right out of the camera. I have turned off all sharpening in ACR as the sharpener I use (PK Sharpener) does initial sharpening after loading into CS2.
I find that if I can get it right using ACR I can avoid work in CS2.
Hope this helps.
Posted by Carol Hyman on April 11, 2007 at 12:53 PM
Graeme,
I may be the least qualified person to post an answer; however, in the space of 24 hours I've begun to master luminosity masks that make all of the difference in the world between creating images that snap, crackle, and pop from dull, drab, and lifeless captures.
Yesterday I posted Moody Mountain and folks (God bless them all) pointed me to Tony Kuyper's Photography pages in which he has written a tutorial on creating luminosity masks.
See:
http://www.goodlight.us/writing/tutorials.html
While I realized what Tony was writing about, actually creating the masks took a bit of practice.
Once I have my masks created, what makes sense to me is to order them from Super Lights to Super Darks and then the fun begins. As you load each specific mask, you can see the selected area and then make a new layer in which you modify levels, curves, contrast, almost anything.
I would encourage you to read Tony's article; good stuff.
BTW, I'm working with psd images so I can go back and make additional modifications later. Not sure that saving your image as tiff images permits you to do that.
I think you will discover this wonderful world of exciting mid-tones makes a lot of sense.
Hopefully others with more experience than my own will also answer your question which isn't at all stupid.
The Radiant Vist web site has a recent Photoshop Workbench videos that goes into a little detail about RAW conversion, specially RAW conversion using the new verions of Adobe Camera RAW.
Discussion
4 repliesShould be thinking about work but need to sort out my RAW processing
When I process my RAW images, I generally do white balance, whites so they're not clipped and blacks the same. I then probably lighten mid-tones aboove necessary and then do most of the contrast bit on the .tif in PS.
I can see the logic in doing the whites and blacks so they're not clipped, but what on earth do you do with mid-tones? Is this where experience comes into it or are there some kind of guidelines or tips?
Perhaps a stupid question, but I was just wondering
Graeme
I find that if I can get it right using ACR I can avoid work in CS2.
Hope this helps.
I may be the least qualified person to post an answer; however, in the space of 24 hours I've begun to master luminosity masks that make all of the difference in the world between creating images that snap, crackle, and pop from dull, drab, and lifeless captures.
Yesterday I posted Moody Mountain and folks (God bless them all) pointed me to Tony Kuyper's Photography pages in which he has written a tutorial on creating luminosity masks.
See:
http://www.goodlight.us/writing/tutorials.html
While I realized what Tony was writing about, actually creating the masks took a bit of practice.
Once I have my masks created, what makes sense to me is to order them from Super Lights to Super Darks and then the fun begins. As you load each specific mask, you can see the selected area and then make a new layer in which you modify levels, curves, contrast, almost anything.
I would encourage you to read Tony's article; good stuff.
BTW, I'm working with psd images so I can go back and make additional modifications later. Not sure that saving your image as tiff images permits you to do that.
I think you will discover this wonderful world of exciting mid-tones makes a lot of sense.
Hopefully others with more experience than my own will also answer your question which isn't at all stupid.
Good luck.
Carol
Now to find some time to have a look at it
Pete D.