Camera RAW instruction

Using Camera Raw is like having a negative to go back to each time you adjust your photo. When you adjust a jpeg and save it, it is changed forever, unless you save it with a different name. And if you save and re-save it several, the photo becomes more and more pixelated. Did you know that? Not with RAW. We use to use RAW just for family portraits that were going to be enlarged to 20x30 or larger, but with CS3 there are so many more options that make my life easier that I use RAW when ever I get the chance. Now let me tell you, RAW is easier with my Nikons than it is with my Dad's Canon - but I guess once you get the hang of it, it will be okay whatever camera you have. Mostly it was difficult to install the Canon camera RAW plug-in. Of course, since it makes such a big file, we have had to upgrade to a larger card - well several larger cards. The 2GB pro card I just bought cost me $50. Oh and I use compact flash, not SD. But whatever you use, RAW is incredible and quick. Today I am showing a few of the things I adjusted with a quick slider for my garden photos. There is also a way to take what you did to one RAW photo and add it to several all it once while in Adobe BRIDGE, but I'll get to that later.

Here is how I quickly added contrast and brightened my photo. The nice thing about RAW is that if you decide a year from now that you don't like what you did, you select camera RAW default and you can start over again. It always keeps a knowledge of its original settings.


Here is another screen you can choose in RAW and here I added the dark Vignette. Yes, a slider, well 2, and it took me all of 3 seconds to get it the way I wanted. It's not perfect for all photos, but for this it was the best and the easiest way to vignette.


I would not normally vignette with white, but I have with some snow photos of my daughter and that is the only time I have used the white.