Bring colors out – in some images you can push the saturation way up if you want to get more vibrant colors, however, a good tip is to start with these changes before you make any other changes to the image.Minimal color boost – you can use it to fine-tune colors in any image by playing with both the hue and saturation of the three primary colors – just remember you are going to affect every area of the image that has the color that you are changing not just the colors themselves.So let’s go over the uses Rudis demonstrates for the calibration tool in the clip above. What can you do with Color Calibration Tool in Adobe Camera RAW? Retoucher Marcin Mikus with a clear explanation about the calibration panel in ACR In the next section, we will look at how Rudis suggests that you can actually use this tool effectively in your edits.
This makes the calibration tool a very powerful tool but it is indeed more complex in nature than a straight forward slider for increasing or reducing a very specific color. It will reduce the reds from each color that has red in it and will change the image accordingly. So reducing the reds for example will not necessarily simply reduce the red in the image like you can do with the ACR color mixer. The color calibration sliders allow you to control this mix for the entire image. So to create yellow for example you combine red and green (in equal value).
They seemingly control the hue and saturation of the red green and blue but not in a way many people might think.Ĭolors on your screen are created by combining different levels of three primary colors. The next 3 sets of sliders are a bit more confusing. The first slider controls the amount of magenta/green tint in the shadows and can have a pretty dramatic effect on your image. There are many ways to manipulate color in Photoshop but the calibration tool works in a very unique way and is often misunderstood and thus probably less used than other ways. The calibration tool in ACR lets you manipulate the red, green, and blue pixels of your image. How does the calibration tool in ACR work? However, after watching this video we will certainly try and see how we can integrate it into our ACR workflow and we think that you should at least give it a go. Like many other users of Adobe Camera RAW, we never gave the calibration tool a second look.
You won’t get the same tonal depth and colour fidelity as with a true raw file, but if you’ve mastered the editing controls in ACR, it provides an easy way to make image adjustments.In this video, Blake Rudis from f64 Academy looks at five different ways that you can use the color calibration tab in Adobe Camera RAW and why it is such a useful but underrated tool.īefore we start we have a confession. A regular file like a JPEG can also be edited with it, and the easiest way to do this is via the Filter menu in Photoshop (Filter > Camera Raw filter). It all adds up to unparalleled image control, so provided you start with a raw file, you can create the best possible version of your image, all thanks to the power of Adobe Camera Raw.Įven if you haven’t captured the photo as a raw file, you can still make use of the ACR interface and suite of controls. That means if you accidentally shoot with an indoor white balance setting when you’re in daylight, or slightly underexpose a shot and want to make it brighter, you can quickly address the issue in ACR and get your shot the way you intended it to be.Īnd with the Photoshop version of ACR, you can do this selectively on specific regions in the image via adjustment brushes, add effects like graduated filters, and even correct lens defects like vignetting, distortion and coloured fringing. With a raw file, all these – and many other values – are ‘floating’ and can be adjusted to give the look you want, rather than the fixed look the camera delivered. The values for the exposure, white balance, colour saturation, contrast and sharpening are all embedded in the file, and give the picture a particular ‘look’ – essentially, what you reviewed on the camera’s screen after taking the shot. With a JPEG or other ‘normal’ image format, lots of attributes that make up the image are fixed in place at the time the file is saved to the camera’s memory card. When you shoot raw files, you get the chance to change the white balance and other contrast and color settings in Adobe Camera Raw, even after you've taken the picture.