5 creative photo editing tricks for Adobe Camera Raw

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In the latest post of our ongoing Raw Tuesday series on editing raw format images we show you five simple ways to add a variety of creative Photoshop effects and cool photo editing tricks using only the tools in Adobe Camera Raw.

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Creative photo editing tricks

01 Black and white
Adobe Camera Raw is a great place to make your mono conversions. It’s just like using a Black and White Adjustment Layer in Photoshop.

Go to the HSL/Grayscale panel and check Convert to Grayscale box. Use the colour sliders to tweak the tones and the Adjustment Brush to simulate the Dodge and Burn tools.

02 Solarised
The inverted tones and haunting hues of a solarised image were popularised by the surrealist photographer Man Ray in the 1920’s after a fortuitous darkroom mistake.

Go to the Tone Curve Panel and skew the curve into an upside down U shape. It’s worth experimenting with the curve. Push and pull it to extremes and see what happens.

03 Cross process
This popular technique references a chemical process from the traditional darkroom with characteristically skewed colours, saturation and contrast.

To replicate this in Adobe Camera Raw, go to the Tone Curve Panel and select the Point Curve window. Here you can tweak the individual Red, Green and Blue channels. Once you’re happy, save the effect as a preset.

04 Split tone
Adding a split tone is a great way to give your mono images a creative twist by adding different colour tints to the highlights and shadows.

In the Split Tone Panel, use the sliders to target different colours and intensity for the shadows and highlights.

05 Hand colour
It might be hard to believe, but it is possible to replicate the look of a hand painted image in Adobe Camera Raw.

You’ll need to make your image black and white, but do this using the Saturation slider in the Basic Panel rather than the HSL/Grayscale Panel. Next, select the Adjustment Brush and paint colour with a low saturation onto the image.

Posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 at 2:00 am under Photoshop Tutorials, Tutorials.