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The Color Noise Reduction sliders reduce color noise, the unexpected color vari-
ations that often appear. Although this noise is most common in the darker tonalities,
it can also sometimes be seen as green and magenta blobs in areas that should be neu-
tral gray and as rainbow artifacts in the highlights. Again, zoom to a 100% or 200%
view of the areas demonstrating problems with noise, and move the sliders to reduce
the color variations. Make the minimum adjustment necessary to decrease the noise.
T• he Color slider determines the amount of color noise reduction to apply.
T• he Color Detail slider enables you to refine the color noise reduction that is
applied to thin, detailed, color edges. Higher settings will retain more color
detail in the edges but may cause more color noise to remain. At lower set-
tings, more color noise suppression is applied, but this may result in thin edges
becoming desaturated or in color bleeding.
We tend to use the Color Noise Reduction sliders in ACR to remove as much
color noise as possible when noise is an issue.
Correcting Color: The HSL/Grayscale Tab
The HSL/Grayscale tab (HSL is short for hue, saturation, and luminance) is a very
visual tool offering the ability to fine-tune each color range on a variety of parameters.
For example, you can modify the yellows so that they are closer to orange or closer to
green. You can also adjust the saturation of the yellows and then the luminance—or
lightness/darkness—of them. This means you can make subtle—or not-so-subtle—
adjustments to individual color ranges in your image without affecting other colors.
When you click the Hue, Saturation, or Luminance subtabs, the eight color
range sliders change to gradients, as shown in Figure 3.17, indicating how moving the
slider will change the appearance of the colors. You set each color individually.
Figure 3.17 By using the HSL controls, Ellen ne-tuned the colors in this sunower image.
Ph ot o b y El lEn Ano n
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■ SETTING THE OTHER TABS

Clicking the Saturation or Luminance tabs changes the eight color sliders so
that they reflect increased and decreased saturation or modifications in luminance.
Spending the time to fine-tune the colors in your image may not be something
you do to every image, but for some images, these tweaks can take an image from
ordinary to extraordinary!
If you checked the Convert to Grayscale option on the Basics tab, then a Gray-
scale Mix tab will appear in place of the HSL tabs. Adjusting the sliders for each color
lightens or darkens that color range. By using these sliders, you can alter the contrast
within your image and create dramatic black-and-white versions of your images, as
shown in Figure 3.18.
Figure 3.18 A Straightforward grayscale conversion is often lackluster, but by using the grayscale controls
you can create a more vibrant image.
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Alternate Interpretations: The Split Toning Tab
The Split Toning tab is not one that we have found a lot of use for with nature
photography. However, you may well find that a specific image lends itself to this
creative interpretation based on a grayscale version of the file. The concept (seen in
Figure 3.19) is that you assign one color for the highlights and a different color for the
shadows so that you “split” the tones of the image.
Figure 3.19 A Split Tone version of this image increases the feeling of fall colors but may or may not be to your taste.
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■ SETTING THE OTHER TABS
Fixing Aberration and Vignetting: The Lens Corrections Tab
The Lens Corrections tab offers solutions to some issues—specifically vignetting and
fringing (chromatic aberrations)—that may result when using particular lenses with dig-
ital cameras. Some photographers either never have these problems or never notice them,
and that’s fine. Others perceive them readily and are quite bothered by them.

Chromatic aberration, also known as fringing, occurs when the lens fails to focus
the red, green, and blue wavelengths of light on exactly the same plane (the camera’s
image sensor); this causes color fringes along high-contrast edges. Chromatic aberration
seems to be more of a problem with wider-angle shots, especially those made with lenses
not optimized for digital cameras. It may be more noticeable toward the corners of the
image, as shown in Figure 3.20.
T• he Fix Red/Cyan Fringe slider helps you to reduce or remove red/cyan fringing.
T• he Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe slider addresses any blue/yellow fringing.
T• he Defringe drop-down determines whether defringing is applied to just high-
light edges or to all edges.
Figure 3.20 Chromatic aberration (fringing) is noticeable along the branches in this image, when viewed at 100–200%
magnication, but you can easily remove it by adjusting the Chromatic Aberration sliders.
Ph ot o b y El lEn Ano n
Before using these sliders, it’s a good idea to zoom in to 200% or more to easily
see the fringing and the results of moving the sliders. Holding down Alt/Option while
dragging these sliders limits which color channels are visible and makes it significantly
easier to locate the best setting for each slider.
Vignetting is darkening in the corners of your images. It typically occurs when
a lens originally designed for 35mm film photography, and not optimized for digital
cameras’ sensors, is used with a digital camera that has a sensor that is smaller than the
film area would have been. However, vignetting also sometimes results when using a
lens hood with wide-angle lenses or even from using filters with wide-angle lenses. The
Vignetting controls enable you to reduce or eliminate the darkening in the corners:
T• he Amount slider controls the amount of lightening or darkening that is
applied to the corners.
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T• he Midpoint slider controls where the adjustment gets applied. Larger values
on the Midpoint slider increase the area that is affected, while smaller numbers

reduce it.
Make adjustments in small increments while closely watching the effect on your
image.
Adding Grain and Vignetting: The Eects Tab
CS5 added an Effects tab to enable you to add grain to an image and/or apply a
Post Crop Vignette as shown in Figure 3.21.

Figure 3.21 In CS5 it’s possible to add grain as well
as several types of artistic vignettes.
With digital photography, some people miss the grain that was characteristic of
various types of film. There are three sliders to use to add grain to an image. The first
slider controls the amount of grain to add, the second the size of the grain, and the
third the texture of the grain. The best way to get a feel for these sliders is to adjust
them to their extreme settings, then adjust them visually to achieve the desired results.
The Post Crop Vignetting controls enable you to add a vignette, either dark or
light, after cropping an image. There are three styles to choose from the drop-down
menu. Highlight Priority applies the vignette while trying to maintain the natural
highlights as much as possible, rather than uniformly darkening (or lightening) every-
thing. This tends to make the edges look “burned in.” However, it’s possible that there
can be some color shifts in the darkened areas. Color Priority tries to maintain as
much of the color fidelity as possible while darkening just the edges. In some ways the
effect looks like a less opaque layer or black on the edges over the color. Some people
find it dulls the appearance of the photo. Paint Overlay is similar to the basic Vignette
tool on the Lens Correction tab but can be applied to a cropped image. You may want
to try the various effects to see which is best for a particular image, but we often find
that Highlight Priority gives the best results.
In addition to the Amount and Midpoint sliders, you can control the shape of
the vignette with the Roundness slider, and control how gradually the vignette blends
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■ SETTING THE OTHER TABS
into the image with the Feather slider. The Highlights slider is enabled only with
the Highlight Priority and the Color Priority Styles. Use it to apply less vignetting to
strong highlights. The best way to get comfortable using these sliders is to experiment
by setting the Amount very high so the effect is easy to see. Then adjust the other slid-
ers. Finally, back off the Amount until you achieve the desired effect.
Accounting for Camera Variation: The Camera Calibration Tab
The Calibrate tab contains settings that control the algorithms used to process the
raw information from your camera. The default is now Process 2010 and is what you
should use most of the time. Adobe claims that among other tweaks, the processing
of some reds and yellows has been noticeably improved. Earlier versions of ACR used
Process 2003, and this option appears as an option for legacy reasons for use with
images previously processed in ACR.
The Camera Profile drop-down menu contains a variety of presets that yield
slightly different interpretations of your images. These profiles differ according to
your specific camera model. The algorithms used in each vary slightly so that some
have more contrast, some more saturation, etc. We suggest you experiment with the
presets and choose the one that results in an initial image appearance closest to your
personal style. This profile setting is sticky, meaning that whatever profile you choose
will be used for other images unless you specifically change it.
Most nature photographers never touch the remaining sliders; those who do will
need to use them only rarely. The purpose of the these sliders is to tweak the performance
of the built-in camera profiles to account for any variations between your camera and the
one they actually used to build the profiles in ACR for that specific camera model. If you
notice that your images routinely have a slight color cast, rather than removing it in the
Adjust tab, you can use the sliders here to set a correction. To do this accurately, you need
to shoot a color-checker chart, such as those available from X-Rite (
www.xrite.com), and
then compare it to a downloaded version with known values. You then move the sliders
to match up the colors. To modify the reds, use the controls in the Red Primary section;

to adjust the greens, use the ones found in the Green Primary section; and to adjust the
blues, use the sliders found in the Blue Primary section. You can also adjust the tint of the
shadows.
After creating settings for a particular camera, save them as the Camera Raw
defaults by using the fly-out menu as described earlier in this chapter. Then go to the
toolbar in ACR, and click the Preferences icon to access the Preferences dialog box.
Check the option Make Defaults Specific to Camera Serial Number. That way, if you
have several cameras, ACR will use the correct camera calibrations for each one.
Preset Tab
The Preset tab contains a list of all the presets you’ve created. To create a preset,
adjust the sliders and options. Then access the fly-out menu by clicking the
icon
to the right of the name of the tab and choose Save Settings. That way, you can use
the same settings on other images by choosing the particular preset.
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Snapshot Tab
It’s now possible to create and save multiple versions of an image. For example, you
could create a black-and-white version as well as a color version or one with a very
different crop, etc. When you have adjusted the image in a way that you’d like to keep,
go to the Snapshot tab
and use the Snapshot icon

to create a snapshot of the
image looking this way. That way you can further modify the image any way that you
like. To return the image to the snapshot, open the Snapshot tab and click the snap-
shot or choose Apply Snapshot from the fly-out menu at the top right of the tab and
choose the desired snapshot. To delete a snapshot, select it and then click the Trashcan
icon in the lower right of the interface.

You can make multiple snapshots for each image, and open each simultaneously
into Photoshop. This is particularly useful with very contrasty images if you want to
create two versions to merge together to extend the dynamic range. This way you can
use the raw file to access highlight or shadow information that may not be accessible
in the converted image that HDR Toning uses. (We cover single-image HDR Toning in
Chapter 8, “Composites.”)
Making Localized Adjustments
ACR includes the ability to make localized adjustments right in the raw converter.
This means that you can make adjustments to specific parts of your image while still
accessing all the information your sensor captured rather than having to wait and use
the converted file in Photoshop with selections and layer masks. It’s worth spending
the time to get comfortable with these new tools. At first they may seem a bit quirky,
but if you follow our instructions, you’ll have them under control in no time!
There are two tools you can use: the Adjustment Brush
and the Graduated
Filter
.
Using the Adjustment Brush
When you click the Adjustment Brush icon, the interface changes, as shown in Fig-
ure 3.22. The first controls consist of three radio buttons that let you specify whether
you’re making a new adjustment, adding to or modifying an existing adjustment, or
erasing part of an adjustment. Every time you use a new Adjustment Brush on the image,
a pin
appears on the image. You can toggle the visibility of the pins by checking
Show Pins in the lower-left part of the interface. To remove a pin, click on it and press
Delete.
Lower in the interface are sliders to control the features of each brush. Size
refers to the size of the brush, and Feather controls whether the edges of the adjust-
ment blend in gradually to the image or have a discrete edge. Flow controls the rate
the correction is applied or, in other words, how rapidly the effect flows out of the

brush. Density refers to the opacity of the effect.
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