Chapter 6. Advanced Editing in Camera Raw

Catherine's Palace, St. Petersburg. Canon EOS 20D with Canon 24-85mm EF. 1/100 at f/4.6.

If the last couple of chapters have made you think that shooting raw is an incredible hassle, don't worry. The fact is, most of the images that you shootparticularly those shot in bright daylightwill probably need very little adjustment. Usually a simple Shadow and Exposure tweak and a bit of sharpening are all that you'll need. Camera Raw's automatic Shadow and Exposure tools can make short work of these adjustments, and sharpening is something that can easily be batch processed.

Where the real advantage of raw kicks in is with the images that do need a lot of adjustments, because they weren't properly exposed, or because you were shooting in a difficult lighting situation, or because the image that you originally envisioned has complicated exposure needs. Whether the image that you're ultimately trying to produce needs subtle adjustments or complex changes, working in rawwith its powerful tools and 16-bit capabilitywill afford you better control and more latitude for making your edits.

Chapter 4 worked you through the basics of how to use Camera Raw's interface and controls. Now we're going to go deeper in this chapter to give you a better understanding of how to effectively use Camera Raw.