Simple, Effective Enhancements to Photos

Okay, so the last tutorial was about opening photos in Camera RAW and making adjustments. This one is going to continue from that one, but even if you didn’t read that tutorial you will still be able to follow along completely!!

Sometimes when you take a photo it needs a little “doctoring” to get it as perfect as you want it to be! After you have edited in Camera RAW (or not) you can then open the photo (or just open a jpeg) from Photoshop and edit it a bit more!

This picture has been edited already in Camera RAW and now I am just going to tweak it a bit more:

We are going to go up to the Tab at the top that says “ENHANCE”

You can use the auto fixes if you desire, although I find that they sometimes give you an undesirable look to your photo. If this happens you can always click “Undo”.

Right now we are going to go to “ADJUST LIGHTING” and then click on shadows/highlights

When you click on this, the photo will automatically change a bit(it evens out the shadows and highlights) …if you like the look it gave your photo click “OK”. If not, you can now adjust your sliders to create a look that you like. Play around with them and get familiar with what they do. If you don’t like it, you can always cancel and redo this step! : )

This is my photo after shadow and highlight adjustments:

I brought the “lighten shadows” back to the left a little because I like the darker shadows around her face and I also increased the mid-tone contrast a bit. I kept the “Darken highlights” right where they were as I thought the highlights were just right on this one.

Now, we are going to go back up to the “ENHANCE TAB” , back to “ADJUST LIGHTHING” and select “LEVELS”

This histogram allows you adjust how much shadow and highlights you want to bring to the photo by moving the three sliders underneath it. Again, play with the sliders and get a feel for what each of them does to the photo. If you want to start over you can press “RESET” .

I brought my shadows (the left slider) in a bit more and also brightened my highlights (the right slider) by bringing that slider in a bit also. When you are finished, hit “OKAY”.

One other thing I like to do, depending on the photo is to go back up to the Enhance Tab, back to “Adjust Lighting” and go to “Brightness/Contrast”. I sometimes increase the brightness but most of the time, I just increase the contrast a bit.

There are several other things that you can do under the enhancement tab, but if you have already adjusted these things in Camera RAW then you will not need to make these adjustments again in Elements. Play around with some of the other things in the Enhancements tab…you can always cancel and reopen your picture. : ) nothing is permanent unless you save the photo!

After these steps, I usually run an action or two over my photo to complete it! Check out the Actions Tutorial if you want to learn more about these!!

Here is a before and after with only the adjustments that I have showed you in this tutorial:

Opening RAW Files using Elements with Camera RAW

 

RAW files are a way of shooting with your DSLR Camera that will allow you to “edit” straight out of camera. They are not compressed in anyway, giving you much more versatility to fix your photos without losing detail.

Here is how you do it:

Step 1: Open Photoshop Elements

Step 2: Choose File, and then Open

Step 3: Find the folder containing the photos that you wish to open in Camera RAW

Step 4: You may select more than one, either by holding down your control button as you select photos or by clicking and dragging until all the photos are selected. Now click on “OPEN”

Step 5: Your pictures should load into Camera RAW. It should look like this:

When I am in Camera Raw, I am unable to toggle back and forth between other things on my tool bar and I am not sure why, but as you can see, there is a strip of your RAW files down the right side and whatever picture you choose will show up in the middle. Now, as I have already done my adjustments to this photo, the left side for you will probably look very similar except that your sliders may be in different positions and your White Balance will be set to “AS SHOT”. Play around with this and learn what each slider does to your photo and get your picture just the way you want. Notice that at the top, above all of the sliders, you have a histogram and a densitometer (the small R G B box to the left of your camera info). These are tools that will help you determine the correct exposure of your photos. Watch your histogram at the top as you change your sliders…unless you are on purposely trying to make this a high key image (like the photo I have on the screen), then you really want your histogram to show you good highlights(Right side) and Shadows (left side). The main thing that you want to try to avoid (unless of course you meant to do it) is to have very high peaks on either side. This means that you have loss of detail in the Shadows or the highlights. You will also notice if you run your cursor over the photo, your RGB numbers will change. If you have loss of detail in the shadows or highlights, you can run your cursor over the parts that look like they may have loss of detail and watch your densitometer: The RGB Numbers will read very high or very low. For loss of shadow detail the numbers will read 0 or close to it. For Highlights, the numbers will be close to 255. Anything over zero for shadows or under 255 for highlights, means that you still have some detail left in those places on the photo. Your numbers and your histogram will probably never really be the same for each individual photo and they shouldn’t be! These are just guidelines to help you make the best possible photo you can! : )

Here is an example of a more “even” histogram:

With the exception of the Shadows being clipped (notice how high the peak is on the left side), this photo has quite an “even” dynamic Range. The only reason it is showing clipping for the shadows is because she is wearing a black coat.

Step 6: When you have your photo(s) just the way you want them in RAW you can then select the one(s) that you want to open in Elements by holding down control and selecting the ones you want. Click on “Open Images” and they will load into Elements and close your Camera RAW window.

Notice that all of the images that I selected in Camera RAW appear in the project Bin below the Workspace Area.

Now, you can make even more adjustments to your photos if you wish! For example, you can make a few more changes by adjusting the lighting levels or the shadows and highlights or just by running an action (or two or three) over your photos! There is another tutorial that I have already posted if you would like to learn how to use actions! : ) I will get another tutorial up to help with some other simple enhancements of your photos in Elements itself soon!

Good Luck and hope this was helpful!!