Julieanne Kost's Blog

Join me today, Wednesday February 26th,  from 9:00 am – 10:30 am on creativeLIVE for 90 minutes of “Advanced Photoshop Layer Tips” during Photoshop Week. Then, stay tuned because from 10:45 am – 12:15 pm, I’ll be covering all sorts of tips and techniques to help speed up your workflow “Automating Camera Raw” in Photoshop. The best news, is that all of the courses are free during the live broadcast! And, if you’re in a different time zone, the sessions will be rebroadcast. See the complete schedule and RSVP here.

Adobe Camera Raw v8.4 Release Candidate is now available for Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Photoshop CS6! 

As mentioned here, updates to Camera Raw 8 for Photoshop CS6 only include new camera support,  lens profile support, and bug fixes.  The new features listed here are only available in Photoshop CC. 

Here’s an overview of my favorite features: 

1) Previews – Camera Raw can now display  a before/after Preview (with aside-by-side and split-view support) to compare your edits to the original. The Preview check box in earlier versions of ACR has been replaced by three buttons in the bottom-right of the ACR main dialog. From left to right, they are Mode, Swap and Copy:

Click the Mode button to cycle through left/right and top/bottom side-by-side and split-view modes.

• Click-and-hold the Mode button to bring up a popup menu for directly choosing Preview modes and accessing the Preview Preferences (the Preview Preferences support customizing the Preview modes used for cycling as well as some drawing options including divider and pane options).

•Tap Q to cycle through the Preview modes.

Click the Swap button to swap Before/After settings.

• Tap P to swap Before/After settings for the primary selected image only.

• Shift + P to swap Before/After settings for all selected images.

Click the Copy button to copy the After settings to the Before settings. This is useful for establishing a temporary “checkpoint” for your image editing session.

• Option + P (Mac) | Alt  + P (Win) to copy After settings to the Before settings for the primary selected image only.

• Option + Shift + P (Mac) | Alt + Shift + P (Win) to copy After settings to the Before settings for all selected images.

Additional Notes: with regards to Previews: when making changes to images, the changes can only be made to the “after” image and the slider settings (in the panels) will always reflect the “after” image settings. The standard single-image view always shows the “after state”. While in the standard single-view, tapping the “P” key will still hide/show settings for only the selected panel. Zooming and panning on one view will automatically zoom and pan the other.

2) Local correction changes – you can now easily reset all sliders when using the selective adjustment tools (Graduated and Radial filter and Adjustment Brush) by Control -clicking (Mac) | Right Mouse -clicking (Win) on the pin and choosing “Reset Local Correction Settings” from the context menu. Or, you can use the flyout menu to choose “Reset Local Correction Settings” – whichever is faster for you.

Previously, double clicking inside of a Radial Filter set it to fill the image bounds. This still works, however Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) on the pin and choosing Fill Image accomplishes the same thing.

3) When synchronizing, creating new presets, saving settings (all in ACR) and copy and pasting settings (in Bridge), you can now single-click a button to check all/none.

4) Tap X when using the Crop Tool or Straighten Tool to flip the crop aspect ratio (landscape to portrait, portrait to landscape).

5) The Grain effect now varies from image to image to facilitate editing time-lapse and video frame sequences.

6) Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) within the Histogram to enable Lab color readouts, even when the Workflow Options are set to another color space (such as Adobe RGB). Note: the context menu can also be used to toggle the shadow, highlight, and gamut clipping warnings.

7) There are several new color matching profiles for Fuji X-Trans customers that emulate the camera presets including Provia (Standard), Velvia (Vivid), Astia (Soft) etc.. For a full list of supported cameras, click here.

8) The Red Eye tool can now correct bright pupils in animals. Select the tool and, in the Red Eye Removal panel, Select ‘Pet Eye’ from the drop down menu to locate and fix pet eyes. You can also automatically add catchlights and drag to reposition them.

In addition, ACR 8.4 RC adds new camera support and bug fixes.  Click here for more detailed information.

Note: Camera Raw 8.4 and DNG Converter 8.4 are no longer officially supported on the following platforms: Mac OS 10.6.x (Snow Leopard), Windows XP, and Windows Vista.

I’m really excited to announce that my new class: The Art of Photoshop Compositing is now live  on www.lynda.com! 

“Join Julieanne Kost as she walks you through her creative thought process and explains how she transforms concepts and raw images into entirely new works of art using Adobe Photoshop. Discover how to select the images you need to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Master the tools used in compositing, including adjustment layers, masking, blending, and Smart Objects, so that the technology doesn’t get in the way of expressing your creative vision. Learn how to adjust scale and perspective and manipulate texture and focus to help viewers temporarily suspend their disbelief long enough to enter your world.”

Topics include:

To reset the White balance to “As Shot”, double click on the Eyedropper tool in Camera Raw. 

If you create and save presets in Adobe Camera Raw, you can then quickly apply those presets in Bridge. Simply Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) on the image thumbnail and select Develop Settings > (your preset name). 

To quickly clear Camera Raw Setting from images in Bridge, Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) on the image thumbnail and choose Develop Settings > Clear Settings.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (Adobe Camera Raw as a Smart Filter in Photoshop CC), Julieanne demonstrates how to take multiple exposures and combine them into a single 32-bit HDR file that can then be edited nondestructively using Adobe Camera Raw as a Smart Filter in Photoshop. In addition, you’ll discover how powerful using Camera Raw as a Smart Filter can be when working with layered files.

There are two choices in the Image Sizing area of the Workflow Options in Camera Raw 8.2 that I didn’t understand the difference between: Width and Height and Dimensions. Well, thanks to Eric Chan, now I know!

• Width & Height: One would use this option to resize using both the image width and height. The width of the resized image will be limited to the unit specified in the “W” field, and the height of the resized image will be limited to the unit specified in the “H” field.

• Dimensions: This option is similar to the “Width & Height” described above, but it disregards the image orientation. That is, the longer edge of the resized image will be limited to the larger of the two specified units. Similarly, the shorter edge of the resized image will be limited to the smaller of the two specified units.

So now we all know. Thanks Eric.  : )

I recently learned a few more tidbits about using the Soft Proofing options in Camera Raw 8.2. Thank you Eric!

• When using Soft Proofing options in the Workflow Settings in Camera Raw 8.2, you can choose the Rendering Intent as well whether or not to emulate Simulate Paper and Ink. However, there is not an option for Black Point Compensation because it is always enabled in Camera Raw.

• In addition, Grayscale color profiles will only appear in the Space popup when processing a monochrome image or when converting a color image to grayscale.

• And finally, when using a Lab or CMYK color space, the histogram and color readouts will change accordingly.

In this episode of The Complete Picture (Adobe Camera Raw 8.2 in Photoshop CC (v14.1)), Julieanne takes a close look at the feature enhancements and refinements made to the Crop tool, workflow settings, and batch saving capabilities in Adobe Camera Raw.  In addition she also covers improvements made to the Spot Removal Tool, Noise Reduction, Local Adjustment Brush, and Histogram.

Note: For more information about the Features in Camera Raw 8.0 (PSCC V14), including the new Upright perspective correction, Radial Filter, and Spot Removal  features please see this video “Adobe Photoshop CC: Favorite Features for Photographers”.

Often I have found that I want to apply perspective correction to multiple files at once using the Upright feature in Camera Raw. But depending on the results I want to achieve, it’s best to know that there are two different ways of accomplishing this. Note: For both methods, it is recommended that you first enable Lens Profile Corrections and  Remove Chromatic Aberration using the Lens Corrections panel in Camera Raw.

METHOD ONE  - in the first situation, you might have a series of unrelated images that all need to have their own set of perspective corrections made to them. In this case, the easiest way to apply Upright would be to:

• Select all of the desired files in Camera Raw. Then in the Lens Correction panel, in the Manual sub-panel (where the Upright controls are) click the desired Upright mode (Auto, Level, Vertical, or Full) in order to apply the perspective correction to all selected files.

Here all of the images are selected in the filmstrip, then the Upright mode is applied.

• With this method, each image is analyzed individually and the perspective corrected.

Note: if you prefer not to select all of the files first (or have additional settings in other panels that you want to synchronize to multiple selected images), you can select the first file and apply the desired changes including the Upright mode. Then, add the other images to your selection and click the Synchronize button. In the Synchronize dialog, check the settings you want, plus Transform. And, if you do this often, you may want to consider creating a preset to apply an Upright transformation mode.

METHOD TWO – in the second situation, you might have a series of related images – such as a sequence of bracketed exposures or a set of time lapse images for which you need the same exact numeric perspective corrections made to each image. In this scenario, you don’t want to run the upright analysis on each individual image because Upright is likely to return a slightly different result on each of the images in the selection. Instead, what you want to do is have the upright analysis be performed on one of the images, and then have the result of that analysis (the numeric transformation) synchronized across the other images in the set.

In order to do this,  select the first image of the series (in this case one of several exposures necessary to create a single HDR image) and apply the desired Upright transformation option.

Apply the Upright transformation to the single selected image.

Then, add the additional images to your selection and, in the Lens Correction panel, in the Manual sub-panel, click the Sync Results hyperlink.

With all of the images in the series selected in the filmstrip, the Sync Results hyperlink becomes available..

With multiple images selected, Camera Raw will copy Upright’s numerical transformations from the primary image to the other selected images.

Lightroom can understand changes made in Bridge and Camera Raw (such as the addition of metadata like copyright and contact information as well as enhancements made using ACR such as modifications made to Color Temperature or Exposure). By default however, if you open a file in Bridge and make changes to the Metadata, Lightroom will NOT automatically update the Metadata. Instead, Lightroom displays an icon warning that the file has been changed by an external application.

Lightroom displays an icon to notifying us that changes have been made to these files in an external application.

You can then choose whether or not you want to use the updated Metadata from Bridge/Camera Raw or use the information in Lightroom’s database. To update the file with the external application’s Metadata, click the icon and choose “Import Settings from Disk” (or select the file in the Grid view and choose Metadata > Read Metadata from File). If the information in the Lightroom database is correct, choose Overwrite Settings.

Note: Additional software applications that follow the XMP standard should also be able to read/write Lightroom and Photoshop’s metadata.

Lightroom 5.2 and Camera Raw 8.2 both include lens profiles for the GoPro HERO3. Click here to find out more with Russell Brown.

Improvements made to both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) in Photoshop include:

• Refinements to the Spot Removal/Healing tool include a new Feather slider to control the softness of the edge when cloning or healing areas of an image. In addition, there have been improvements in the way that the Spot Healing tool determines the auto source location (the area that it clones/heals from), so that it  now works better for images with textured areas. And, if the image has been cropped, the Spot Removal/Healing tool will bias the selection of the auto source location from within the crop rectangle (as opposed to auto-choosing image areas outside the crop).

• To help reduce low-frequency color mottling like you see on the left side of the illustration below, a new Color Smoothness adjustment slider has been added to the Color Noise Reduction options in the Detail Panel. When the amount is increased, the color mottling is removed (as you see on the right side of the illustration below).

In addition, several improvements were made to Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) as they are already available/not applicable in Lightroom.

• The Histogram is now interactive in ACR. This enables the ability to click and drag on the Histogram to adjust the Blacks, Shadows, Exposure, Highlights, and Whites slider adjustments in the Basic tab.

• ACR now has separate Auto Temperature and Auto Tint controls, which are applied by Shift -double clicking on either the Temperature or Tint adjustment sliders.

• Refinements to the Local Adjustment Brush include the ability to reposition brush adjustments by clicking and dragging on brush adjustment pins. In addition, Command + Option -drag (Mac) | Control + Alt -drag (Win) a Local Adjustment Brush pin will duplicate the pin and Option -click (Mac) | Alt -click(Win) will delete the pin. If you prefer, Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) displays both options – to duplicate or delete a pin.

• Workflow presets are now available for defining and then quickly choosing output settings in ACR. And, after creating your custom presets, you can Control -click (Mac) | Right Mouse -click (Win) the workflow link to quickly switch between them. In addition, when changing image size, a new option for Percentage is available in the drop down menu.

• Save Image options now include Color Space, Image Sizing, Output Sharpening and Presets. This means that you can select the desired images and save them using Save Image presets without having to change your current workflow settings.

Click here for more information, about the Photoshop Photography Program.

Camera Raw 8.1 now includes the ability to select RGB, CMYK and LAB ICC profiles to soft proof images. To select a profile, click the workflow Options (accessed via the blue hyperlink at the bottom of the Camera Raw window) and in the Color Space section, choose the Space from the pop-down menu. Once a profile is selected, Camera Raw displays a “soft proof” of that image.  In addition you have the ability to choose either Perceptual or Relative as your rendering Intent and can choose whether or not to Simulate Paper and Ink.

Note: For accurate results, monitor calibration is a must! In addition, there may very well be some colors that simply aren’t reproducible on a monitor that can be printed and vice versa.