Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
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The White Balance tool: Another quick way to bal-
ance the light in your picture is to choose the White
Balance tool and then click on a part of the picture
that is meant to be neutral gray.
ACR will automatically set the Temperature and Tint
sliders so that this picture part becomes a neutral gray
and in the process the rest of the image will be bal-
anced. For best results when selecting lighter tones
with the tool ensure that the area contains detail and
is not a blown or specular highlight.
Overall brightness changes: The next control is the
Exposure slider. Use this setting to adjust the overall
brightness of the image. When making changes con-
centrate on how the setting is affecting the middle
vales of the picture. We'll alter the highlights and
shadows later. Moving the slider to the right lightens
the whole image and movements to the right darkens
the picture.
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Increasing/decreasing contrast: The second tonal
control in the dialog is the Contrast slider. The feature
concentrates on the midtones in the photo with move-
ments of the slider to the right increasing the midtone
contrast and to the left producing a lower contrast
image. Like the Exposure slider, overall contrast chang-
es are best applied first with highlight and shadow
tones finely adjusted afterwards.
Recovering highlights and shadow detail: Now
lets move to altering the brightest 25% of image tones
in the highlights, and the darkest 25% tones in the
shadows. Darken the lightest tones by moving the
Highlight slider to the left. Brighten darker tones by
moving the Shadows slider to the right.
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Setting the black clip point: The Blacks slider per-
forms a similar function with the shadow areas of the
image. Again, the aim is to darken these tones but not
to convert (or clip) delicate details to pure black. Just
as with the Exposure slider, the Alt/Option key can be
pressed whilst making Shadows adjustments to pre-
view the pixels being clipped. Shadow pixels that are
being clipped are displayed in blue and clipped high-
light tones in red.
Setting the white clip point: Establish the white
clip point with the Whites slider. Use this slider to peg
or set the white tones. Your aim is to lighten the high-
lights in the photo without clipping (converting the
pixels to pure white) them. To do this, hold down Alt /
Option whilst moving the slider. This action previews
the photo with the pixels being clipped against a black
background. Move the slider back and forth until no
clipped pixels appear.
 
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