Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [110]
Figure 3.73 This shows a Graduated filter being rotated, where the red pin marker is being dragged and rotated around the green marker.
Adding clarity and contrast
In the final example shown here, I wanted to show a further series of steps using the Graduated filter, but this time I wanted to demonstrate how to add contrast and clarity to an image. The photo below shot early one morning in Chicago at sunrise, but I never really managed to get the dramatic colors that I was after. This was mainly because of the early morning misty sky. I later realized this picture could benefit from some added contrast in the softer parts of the image and this was an ideal opportunity to work with the graduated filter tool.
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Here is the original version in which I had optimized for the highlights, shadows and contrast and added a little clarity and vibrance to bring out more definition and color in the buildings.
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I then selected the graduated filter tool and added two color effect gradients: a light blue gradient over the water plus a warm colored gradient to add some warmth to the sky.
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But still, the buildings in this photograph lacked presence, so I added a further gradient in which I combined a +100 contrast effect with +50 clarity and dragged from the middle of the picture down to the water line.
Camera Raw settings menu
If you mouse down on the Camera Raw menu (circled in Figure 3.74 ) this reveals a number of Camera Raw settings options at the top of the list. ‘Image Settings’ is whatever the Camera Raw settings are for the current image you are viewing. This might be a default setting or it might be a custom setting you created when you last edited the image in Camera Raw. ‘Camera Raw Defaults’ resets the default settings in all the panels and applies whatever the white balance setting was at the time the picture was captured, while ‘Previous Conversion’ applies the Camera Raw settings that were applied to the previous saved image. If you proceed to make any custom changes while the Camera Raw dialog is open, you'll also see a ‘Custom Settings’ option. Whichever setting is currently in use will be shown with a check mark next to it and below that is the ‘Apply Preset’ submenu that let's you quickly access any pre- saved presets (which you can also do via the Presets panel that is discussed on the following page).
Export settings to XMP
If you refer to the Camera Raw preferences shown in Figure 3.19 on page 166, there is an option to save the image settings either as sidecar “.xmp” files, or save them to the ‘Camera Raw database’. If the ‘sidecar “.xmp” files’ option is selected, the image settings information is automatically written to the XMP space in the file header. This is the case with most file formats including DNGs. In the case of proprietary raw files such as CR2s or NEFs, it would be unsafe for Camera Raw to edit the header information of an incompletely documented file format. To get around this the settings information is stored using XMP sidecar files which share the same base file name and accompany the image whenever you use Bridge or Lightroom to move a raw file from one location to another. Storing the image settings in the XMP space is a convenient way of keeping the image settings data stored locally to the individual files instead of it only being stored in the central Camera Raw database. If ‘Save image settings in Camera Raw database’ is selected you can always use the ‘Export Settings to XMP’ option from the Camera Raw options menu ( Figure 3.74 ) to manually export the XMP data to the selected images. For example, if you are editing a filmstrip selection of images and only wanted to save out the XMP data for some images, but not all, you could use the ‘Export Settings to XMP’ menu command to do this.
Update DNG previews
DNG files can store a JPEG preview of how the processed image should