Settings?

[sydneysnana]

This is my new puppy....... I'm still learning my Canon Rebel XTi. I have noticed that in many pictures it's hard to get his liver color to show. This picture has a full histogram range, but it is dark and flat. Why is that? What would you use to adjust in PSE?

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1ndLtZigjNIhKfGGENUlgELA149AS0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ndLtZigjNIhKfGGENUlgELA149AS0)

Thanks

Michelle:D

[Jeff Perry]

Michelle, a very nice picture, but the exposure seems a little off (underexposed) hence the "too dark" darks. I would suspect that the white balance is also a tad off, hence the "not the right liver color" hair.

If your camera was set to Auto WB it may have been fooled by what appears to have been a shaded scene. Obviously if it was set to Sun and the shot was in the shade, well you get the picture (pun intended).

Fortunately both can be quickly fixed in Adobe Camera Raw. Assuming you have it installed with Elements, start up Elements, and go to File>Open As> (not that is not Open, but Open As), and assuming it is a JPG file format.

In the dialog box at the bottom should be a drop down menu called Format - select Camera Raw, and the navigate to your image and select it.

ACR will open up, and you can adjust Exposure and Temperature (White Balance) to correct both the darkness and the color cast.

After you have it corrected, select Open Image and the file will be transfered with all those settings in tact to Elements for further tweaking.

If the Camera Raw plug-in is not installed, we'll have to point you to Adobe for a free download. In the mean time you can also correct the image in Elements almost as easily. Write back if you have any other problems.

Jeff

[Not4wood]

Or to see if I can help in camera, while shooting this you mentioned looking at the Histogram and you thought it was fine. While looking around did you also look at the image on the back of the camera? While doing this I zoom in close to see what the image details look like to see if I have to shoot it again. What also helps is what Jeff has mentioned, that if you have shot this in Raw you can correct a lot of the images after the fact including these kinds of problems.

I have also started to play with the WB settings while I shoot. You can set the WB for your camera to Shade and this will help a lot in these situations. But you have to now be careful, while you walk around shooting keeping an eye on your aperture/shutter speed combination and glancing at your ISO settings to make sure everything is correct while walking around you now have to keep an eye on your White Balance setting as well. Moving this as to situation instead of keeping it in Auto Mode will make a very big differance in your end results.

[Jeff Perry]

One minor clarification to Not4Wood's great advice, the latest version of ACR will allow you to make all the same adjustments I suggested to a JPG image. While there are other advantages to capturing images in RAW, you do not have to shoot in RAW format in order to use Adobe Camera Raw.

Jeff

[Not4wood]

One minor clarification to Not4Wood's great advice, the latest version of ACR will allow you to make all the same adjustments I suggested to a JPG image. While there are other advantages to capturing images in RAW, you do not have to shoot in RAW format in order to use Adobe Camera Raw.

Jeff

Yeah, did I say that?? :twisted: I've been seeing this, and the last time I read an article that mentioned this it says once you are ready to go to this image go to the File/Open As and this will point you to ACR with your image.

Doing this will help, you can change the WB of this Image here. But, it really wont compare to having a Raw Image with all the Details in the Under and Over Exposed areas.

[Jeff Perry]

Not4Wood, I agree with you that shooting RAW files leave you with a much more flexible format to tinker with, however, my point was not that JPGs are better (or worse) than RAW, but that ACR allows a number of quick fixes to both RAW an d JPGs, IMHO, that are better and certainly faster to do than in PSE or CS3. It is akin to the fixes available to both JPGs and RAW in Lightroom (not surprisingly considering they both hail from the same source code).

You can adjust WB, Exposure, Fill Light, and add pop with Clarity and Vibrance, literally in a matter of seconds. I still haven't been able to duplicate the Fill Light function in PSE without a lot of mask and adjustment layers. Its just a better way of making minor adjustments to you out-of-camera images.

Jeff

[Not4wood]

Speaking of ACR, matter of fact I just found on the net that a new version of Camera Raw is out.

Seems that ACR is turning out to be a major player as well in making adjustments to JPG's as well as Raw files.
Its that little tweeking of stuff that matters, but for the extreme problems having the same shot in JPG or Raw when your trying to make the shot work, I would rather have all of the problems in Raw so they can be fixed and not have to bury the shot because the details aren't there because of the exposure was done in JPG.

[sydneysnana]

Thanks you for the answers. I have finally had a sec. to play with them. I am looking at the RAW plug in in PSE5. Wow, now I have something else to learn!! I do look at the picture through the LCD screen on the back, but again I must not see results as well as when I download. I will work on that. I will be more aware of WB setting. I tend to leave on auto. Think I'll go out and take some pictures now so I can practice.

AGAIN, thank you for the help.
Michelle

[Edmund]

Mark, what version did you find on Adobe Camera Raw ? All I found was Camera Raw version 4.4.1 which was released back in April 08.
Eddie:)

[Ric Cisson]

Eddie, what Mark is referring to is a Beta version. ACR 4.5 has not been "officially" released at this time. However, if you would be interested in trying the Beta version of ACR 4.5 here is the link http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_4.5 I suspect that it may be possible for ACR 4.5 to be released in conjunction with LR 2 soon. At this time it is available for CS3, according to the system requirements. I have not tried to install in PSE 6. One of the noticiable additions, or changes, is the Clarity slider. It now has negative values for softness, particularly nice when working with Portraits.

[Abby]

Michelle, love the photo of your puppy--what a doll.

Just thought I'd mention that if you're a member you can view two videos on using Camera Raw--they're under the Videos link in the subscriber area--"The New Camera Raw 101" and "The New Camera Raw 102." They're very helpful in learning how to use this feature. Having said that though, if you're shooting jpg many of the features are grayed out for jpg, but the videos will help with the ones that are available.

[Not4wood]

Eddie, what Mark is referring to is a Beta version. ACR 4.5 has not been "officially" released at this time. However, if you would be interested in trying the Beta version of ACR 4.5 here is the link http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_4.5 I suspect that it may be possible for ACR 4.5 to be released in conjunction with LR 2 soon. At this time it is available for CS3, according to the system requirements. I have not tried to install in PSE 6. One of the noticiable additions, or changes, is the Clarity slider. It now has negative values for softness, particularly nice when working with Portraits.

Yeah Ric thanks,

Thats exactly what I saw for the newer version of ACR.
I haven't done it yet but I'm curious as to how much damage to the image ACR does to the JPG if any? Is the ACR a non destructive or desructive way of altering the JPG in conjunction with the compression factors? If altering the JPG in ACR to getting it to look closer to almost printer ready before editing in any of the Advanced Color Management Programs and this being a Non-Desructive way would almost surely make this a necesary step in post processing.

[genevh]

Did some looking and quick search and came up with this blog entry (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/02/nondestructive.html) by John Nack, who clearly says that ACR editing is non-destructive to JPG/TIFF files. Here is a quote from that entry:

But what about non-raw files? Both Lightroom and Camera Raw now offer the ability to edit JPEG and TIFF files, so that no matter what format(s) your camera generates, you can use the same non-destructive tools.So who is John Nack? I didn't know so I did some more looking. Turns out he's a Senior Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop according to this Photoshop News article (http://photoshopnews.com/2006/12/14/closeup-with-john-nack/) and according to his About (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/about.html)section in his blog.

[lexcell]

From Marks' thread on calibrating...
You can use this technique to remove the color cast of an image. It will not only remove the color cast but often gives the image more pop.

You can do this in Elements...it's called color cast removal. Follow these steps to get to Threshold...
The Threshold filter converts grayscale or color images into high-contrast, black-and-white images. You can specify a certain level as a threshold. All pixels lighter than the threshold are converted to white; and all pixels darker are converted to black. The Threshold command is useful for determining the lightest and darkest areas of an image.



In the Editor, select an image, layer, or area.
Do one of the following:

Choose Filter > Adjustments > Threshold.
From the Layers palette or Layer menu, create a new Threshold adjustment layer, or open an existing Threshold adjustment layer.
The Threshold dialog box displays a histogram of the luminance levels of the pixels in the current selection.

Select Preview and do any of the following:

To change the image to black and white, drag the slider below the histogram until the threshold level you want appears at the top of the dialog box, and click OK. As you drag, the image changes to reflect the new threshold setting.
To identify a representative highlight, drag the slider to the right until the image is pure black. Then drag the slider back until some solid white areas appear in the image.
To identify a representative shadow, drag the slider to the left until the image is pure white. Then drag the slider back until some solid black areas appear in the image.

(Optional) To return to default settings, hold down Alt and click Reset.
Drag the left slider until you begin to see black, use the black eyedropper to set a point.
Drag the right slider to the left until you begin to see white, use the white eyedropper to set a point
(Optional) Click Cancel to close the Threshold dialog box without applying changes to the image.
Then go to curves and using the black and white eyedropper from the Threshold settings, set a black and/or white point.
I rarely use the grey eyedropper myself.

[Not4wood]

Wow, thanks Laurie.

This does make it easier to understand and actually to see what is the highest whites and the deepest blacks. I can see picking the wrong spots without this method.

OK, so you set the White, the black but I thought you needed the mid point. Can you give an explaination as to why you said..

quote from Laurie "I rarely use the grey eyedropper myself. " and why? Thanks for your very technical answer. I will try it out and see how I can make it work thanks.

Have a good, Happy and Safe Holiday.

Happy Fourth Everybody.........

[lexcell]

Hi Mark,
If you have a neutral black and a neutral white the rest of the colors fall into place. Finding the grey point is a lot more difficult and can really have an impact on your image if you don't find the true neutral grey point. Your colors can really be skewed if you miss the mark.

[Not4wood]

LOL, I thought I was doing something wrong. I ran into that and I couldnt figure out why, now I know.

Thank you very much.