The Tool Palette


Camera Raw's Tool palette contains six tools, three from the previous version, plus three new ones. See Figure 4-7.

Figure 4-7. Camera Raw Tool palette


Zoom and pan

The zoom (magnifying glass) and pan (grabber hand) tools work just like their Photoshop counterparts.

Tip

Use Keyboard Shortcuts for Fast Navigation. Choose the zoom and pan tools from the Tool palette if you get paid by the hour! If you want to work quickly, there are much faster ways to navigate. First, you can always get the zoom tool by holding down the Command key (Mac) or Ctrl key (Windows). To zoom out, add Option/Alt. For the pan tool, hold down the spacebar. Or, press Z for the zoom tool and H for the hand tool.

But all the other zoom shortcuts for Photoshop also work in Camera Raw. Command -+ zooms in, Command -- (minus) zooms out. Command-0 (zero) fits the entire image in the preview, as does double-clicking the hand tool, and Command-Option-0 (zero) or double-clicking the zoom tool zooms to Actual Pixels view, where one image pixel equals one screen pixel. So use them!


White balance

The white balance tool (press I), however, works differently from the white eyedroppers that appear elsewhere in Photoshop. The white balance tool lets you set the white balance by clicking on the image. Unlike the white eyedropper in Levels or Curves, it doesn't allow you to choose a source color, and it doesn't affect the luminance of the image. Instead, it lets you set the white balancethe color temperature and tintfor the capture by clicking on pixels you think should be neutral.

Don't confuse the white balance tool with the gray eyedropper tool offered by Photoshop's Levels command, which is designed to balance a midtone gray. Camera Raw's white balance tool works best on light grays close to diffuse highlight values.

Tip

Click-Balance on Diffuse Highlights. The white balance tool is best used on a diffuse highlight white that still contains detail, rather than on a specular highlight that's pure whitethe second-to-lightest gray patch on the old 24-patch Macbeth ColorChecker works well, as do bright (but not blown-out) clouds.


Click-balancing with the white balance tool provides a very quick way to set color temperature and tint simultaneously. You can always fine-tune the results using the individual Temperature and Tint controls in the Adjust tab, which we'll cover in due course.

Color samplers

The new color sampler tool (press S) lets you place up to nine individual color samplers, each of which gets its own readout, in the image. See Figure 4-8.

Figure 4-8. The color sampler tool


Combined with the static RGB readout, the color sampler tool lets you monitor the values of up to 10 different locations in the image, which should be enough for any reasonable use!

Crop

The new crop tool (press C) lets you drag a freeform crop, choose one of several common predefined aspect ratios, or define your own custom aspect ratio from the tool's pull-down menu. The same menu allows you to clear the crop. SeeFigure 4-9.

Figure 4-9. The crop tool and menu


The Camera Raw preview always shows the crop in the context of the whole image, but the crop is applied to filmstrip previews, to Bridge previews and thumbnails, and of course to the image itself when you open it in Photoshop.

Straighten

The new straighten tool (press A) is an enormous time-saver for those of us who occasionally fail to keep their horizons horizontal. The reason that it's an enormous time-saver is that it should really be called the straighten and crop toolit not only straightens the image, it also automatically applies the crop that maintains the maximum rectangular image when the crop tool is set to Normal, or a straightened crop of the specified aspect ratio when the crop tool is set to something else. If there's an existing crop, it's preserved and rotated. Clearing the crop using the crop tool's menu also clears the rotation.

If you've ever futzed with the tedious process of straightening and cropping an image in Photoshop using the measure tool, Arbitrary Rotate, and the crop tool, you'll be delighted by the speed and simplicity of the straighten tool. Camera Raw's preview always shows the crop rectangle on the uncropped, unstraightened image, but the thumbnails and previews in Bridge show the straightened cropped version you get when you open the image in Photoshop. Straighten and crop the raw image once, and the image is straightened and cropped each time it's opened. See Figure 4-10.

Figure 4-10. Straighten and crop

Drag the straighten tool to define a horizontal or vertical.

A rotated crop appears in Camera Raw. The cropping and rotation are applied to the Bridge thumbnail and preview (below) and to the image when it's opened in Photoshop.


Rotate buttons

The Rotate 90 Degrees Left and Right buttons (press L and R, respectively) aren't strictly speaking tools, in that you don't have to do anything inside the image preview, but since they're placed in such close proximity to the tool palette, we may as well deal with them here.Clicking on them, or pressing their keyboard shortcut, immediately applies a rotation to Camera Raw's preview. When you finish editing the image in Camera Raw, the rotation is applied to Bridge's thumbnails and previews, and is honored whenever you open the raw image in Photoshop.



Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 Industrial-Strength Production Techniques
Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 Industrial-Strength Production Techniques
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 112

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