Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

In time, you may find that you prefer to double-click a thumbnail and

have it open in Camera Raw in the Bridge. If so, press Esc to return to the

Bridge, choose Edit→Preferences (Adobe Bridge CS5→Preferences on

the Mac), click General, and turn on the Double-Click Edits Camera Raw

Settings in Bridge check box. Now click OK, double-click the Checkers.

dng thumbnail, and watch the image open in Camera Raw in the Bridge.

2. Adjust the highlights, shadows, and midtones. The Basic panel
   includes a collection of sliders that allow you to control the
   exposure and overall brightness of your images. Very briefly,
   here’s how the options work:
   
   
   • Exposure gives you control over the highlights of an image,
     much like the white slider triangle in the Levels dialog box
     but with two big differences. First, Exposure is computed in
     f-stops. For example, raising the Exposure to +0.50 simulates
     opening the lens aperture of the camera a half-stop wider.
     Second, because a raw image includes colors beyond those
     rendered in the preview, you can sometimes use Exposure
     to recover blown highlights, as we will shortly.
   
   
   • Recovery allows you to darken your highlights, reining
     them in from the extremes without affecting the exposure
     of the entire image.
   
   
   • Fill Light brightens the shadows independently of the high-
     lights. Recovery and Fill Light work much like the Amount
     values in the Shadows/Highlights dialog box.
   
   
   • Blacks sets the black point of your image, permitting you
     to set the clipping point for shadows. It works just like the
     black slider triangle in Photoshop’s Levels dialog box.
   
   
   • The Brightness value controls the midtones. It’s computed
     as a percentage of an image’s original linear luminance
     data. This data requires lots of darkening, which is why
     the default value is 50 percent. Values below 50 percent
     compress shadows and expand highlights, thereby lighten-
     ing an image. Values over 50 percent do just the opposite,
     darkening the image.
   
   
   • Increase the Contrast value to exaggerate the difference be-
     tween shadows and highlights, creating a valley in the center
     of the histogram. Decrease the value to converge shadows
     and highlights into the midtones, so the histogram looks
     more like a central mountain.
   
   
   
   

308 Lesson 9: Pro Photography Tools