Part II: Working with Camera Raw Images 202 printed at 72 dpi looks extremely pixilated, giving it a jagged look. Increasing the resolution to at least 200 dpi gives you a much better result. Increasing the resolution automatically reduces the size of your image without resampling it. Instead of spreading 72 pixels per inch over 30 inches of photo, you can use the same pixels to pack 300 pixels per 7 inches of photo, giving you not only a better print resolution, but a more reasonable print size. Sharpen For/Amount This allows you to apply output sharpening for Screen, Glossy paper, or Matte paper. This option is best used when you are planning to use your image straight from Camera Raw without opening in Photoshop. Sharpening an image is usually the last step you take before output because sharp- ening not only loses its effectiveness as other adjustments and filters are placed over it, but it is also one of the more destructive edits, making visible changes to the pixelization of your photo. After you have chosen an output to Sharpen for, you can choose to sharpen a high, standard, or low amount. Open in Photoshop as Smart Objects Opening your raw image as a Smart Object makes it a little more complicated to work with in Photoshop, but it protects it from the Photoshop edits and allows you to open it back up in Camera Raw and make additional changes to it. Smart Objects operate very differently from image files. You can’t make adjustments directly to them—limiting changes to the layer adjustments. The filters added to a Smart Object also are added as separate sublayers. After you’ve learned more about Smart Objects and how they work, the benefits and drawbacks of this option will be clearer to you. Cross-Ref You learn more about Smart Object layers in Chapter 10. n Now that you’ve seen the Workflow options, the blue readout at the bottom of Camera Raw should make sense to you. You can glance down at any time to check your Workflow option settings and click to make changes if they are not set correctly for the image you are working on. Note The Workflow Options settings stay the same as the last time you set them even if you are working on a new image in Camera Raw. Even if you resize an image, the next image is set to the same resize option. This is con- venient if you want your color workspace to always be set to ColorMatch RGB, but it’s something to be aware of when working with different sizes of documents that you may or may not want sharpened. n Setting Preferences The Camera Raw preferences can be accessed by clicking the Open Preferences icon in the tool menu, as shown in Figure 7.8. Preferences allow you to make changes to the way the image file is handled in Camera Raw. You find these options in the Preferences dialog box: 12_584743-ch07.indd 20212_584743-ch07.indd 202 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM Chapter 7: Camera Raw Basics 203 FIGURE 7.8 You can reset Camera Raw preferences by opening the Preferences dialog box in the tool menu. General The General preferences allow you to change your image and sharpness settings. You can choose to save your changes to a raw file as a DNG file or a XMP file and choose where to store that XMP file. You also can decide to apply sharpness to the saved file or just to the preview. Save Image settings in Changes made to camera raw images are not actually stored in the raw image file. Instead these changes are stored in separate location. These settings can be stored in one of three ways; as a side- car file with a filename ending in .xmp, in a camera raw database that Photoshop provides on the local computer, or as part of a Digital Negative (DNG) file. 12_584743-ch07.indd 20312_584743-ch07.indd 203 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM Part II: Working with Camera Raw Images 204 The sidecar .xmp files are files with the same name as the camera raw image file, except they end in .xmp. These files have the advantage of being able to transfer from one computer to another along with the camera raw image. The camera raw database is a simple database that is part of the Photoshop application on the com- puter. Using the camera raw database means that you do not need to worry about any secondary files; however, the database is not available if you open the image on other computers. If you choose to save your camera raw files in the DNG format, the settings you make in Camera Raw are embedded into the file, eliminating the need for a sidecar .xmp file and making the set- tings portable. DNG files are discussed in depth later in this chapter. Note The default preferences you configure are applied only to camera raw images that have not been opened in Camera Raw. Camera raw images that have been opened before use their previous settings. This is an excellent reason to review and set your preferences long before you open more than one file in Camera Raw. n Apply Sharpening to This setting gives you the option to sharpen the image preview only, which is the one you’re look- ing at in the document window, or to sharpen the image output as well by selecting all images. This setting works with the Sharpness slider in the Detail tab. If you choose to sharpen the preview images only, the Sharpen slider does not affect the output image. You may or may not want to sharpen your images at this stage, but you probably want the Sharpness slider to be an accurate representation of the sharpness applied, so this setting is best set to all images. Default image settings The default image settings allow you to apply auto adjustments to images that are opened in Camera Raw. Auto adjustments override the settings applied to your image by your camera, but they are non-destructive and changeable, so you can tweak your images on a case-by-case basis. You can also make your preferences specific to the camera or ISO setting in this area of the Camera Raw Preferences. That means that the preference settings will only be applied to the camera used in the selected image or the ISO setting of the selected image. Apply auto tone adjustments When you open an image in Camera Raw, it reads the settings made by the camera to the metadata of your image and previews your image with those settings. If you check Apply auto tone adjust- ments, Camera Raw reads all the metadata and tries to apply its own settings for the best image. You also can apply auto settings by clicking the Auto link in the Basic panel, so I recommend you leave this option unchecked and try the auto settings on a photo-by-photo basis. Apply Auto grayscale mix when converting to grayscale When you create a grayscale image from a raw image by selecting the Convert to grayscale option in the HSL/Grayscale panel, you are presented with a color mixer that allows you to set the grayscale 12_584743-ch07.indd 20412_584743-ch07.indd 204 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM Chapter 7: Camera Raw Basics 205 tones of the various color information in your image. By default, Camera Raw sets those tones to an auto balance, hoping for the best mix to begin with. This is a good place to start, so I recommend leaving this setting checked. Make defaults specific to camera serial number If you shoot with multiple cameras that use different initial settings, select the option to Make defaults specific to camera serial number. When you are adjusting an image and save the default settings, the settings are applied only to images taken by the same camera. Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting If you are shooting at different ISO settings that require their own auto adjustments, select the option to Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting. Camera Raw cache This specifies the amount of space allotted to Camera Raw for processing information. The higher the memory, the more temporary information Camera Raw can store on your computer. That memory on your computer is always allocated to Camera Raw, however, making it useless for any- thing else. The default is set to 1GB. If you increase the size, it can make processing time in Camera Raw faster. You can choose to create this cache on any drive connected to your computer. DNG file handling The settings in this area deal with DNG files. If you are using DNG files, you can choose from these options. Ignore sidecar “.xmp” files If you have decided to work using the DNG file format, selecting the Ignore sidecar “.xmp” files setting stores your settings embedded in your DNG file and an XMP file is not created. Update embedded JPEG previews If you are working with DNG files, you can select the Update embedded JPEG previews option so other applications can preview the image without having to read the camera raw data. You can choose to set the preview file size to either Medium or Full size. JPEG and TIFF handling Choose these options for either JPEG or TIFF files: l Disable JPEG/TIFF support: This prevents JPEGs or TIFFs from being opened in Camera Raw. l Automatically open JPEGs/TIFFs with settings: You can specify whether to open a JPEG or TIFF in Camera Raw. To open one of these file types in Camera Raw, right-click the image preview in Bridge and choose Open in Camera Raw. 12_584743-ch07.indd 20512_584743-ch07.indd 205 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM Part II: Working with Camera Raw Images 206 l Automatically open all supported JPEGs/TIFFs: This automatically opens supported JPEGs and TIFFs in Camera Raw before opening them in Photoshop. You can make tonal and color changes faster in Camera Raw than in Photoshop, but you don’t have the tonal range that you do with a raw image. These changes are permanent and destructive to a JPEG or TIFF file. The Camera Raw Panel Menu The Camera Raw panel menu is accessed by clicking the Panel Menu icon under the Image Adjustment tabs as shown in Figure 7.9. In this menu, you have the following options: FIGURE 7.9 The Camera Raw panel menu Panel menu icon l Image Settings: This option applies to images that you have previously opened and changed in Camera Raw. A check mark next to it indicates previous settings. After making additional changes, you can select this option to return to those settings. l Camera Raw Defaults: If your image is newly opened in Camera Raw, this option is selected. You can click it at any time to return to the original camera raw settings. l Previous Conversion: This option applies the settings used for the last image open in Camera Raw to the current image. This is handy if you have photos that were taken at the same time with the same camera in the same lighting conditions. l Custom Settings: After you make changes to an open image, the Custom Settings option is checked. This allows you to check the original image by selecting Camera Raw defaults or Image Settings and then returning to the changed image by clicking Custom Settings. l Preset Settings: This option displays any Presets you have applied to your image. 12_584743-ch07.indd 20612_584743-ch07.indd 206 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM . amount. Open in Photoshop as Smart Objects Opening your raw image as a Smart Object makes it a little more complicated to work with in Photoshop, but it protects it from the Photoshop edits. database that Photoshop provides on the local computer, or as part of a Digital Negative (DNG) file. 12_584743-ch07.indd 20312_584743-ch07.indd 203 5/3/10 10:22 AM5/3/10 10:22 AM Part II: Working. another along with the camera raw image. The camera raw database is a simple database that is part of the Photoshop application on the com- puter. Using the camera raw database means that you do not