By placing the automation commands within File Browser they
become more accessible and faster when working with multiple images. This
is especially useful with the Apply Camera Raw Settings command
which allows you to quickly apply any single or combination of
Camera Raw adjustments to a selection of images within the File Browser
itself. Before working my way through a real world example of this
command it's worth spending a few moments reviewing the Apply Camera
Raw Settings dialog.
Apply Camera Raw Settings
The most obvious difference between Camera Raw and the Apply
Camera Raw Settings dialog is the absence of the preview window. You
should also note from Figure 1 below that where you would expect to see
the preview window you now get a list of checkbox options and a popup
called Update All Settings (only visible if Advanced mode is
activated). These settings can be applied individually, as subsets or all
at once. The right hand side of the dialog contains a replica of the
Camera Raw Adjust/Detail/Lens/Calibrate tabs.
Figure 1 - Apply Camera Raw
Settings (Advanced Mode)
A Real World Example - Correcting the Camera
Default White Balance
There will be occasions when the thumbnail and preview images within
File Browser appear significantly different from those viewed within
camera makers own software. There are a number of possibilities for this
including your choosing Auto White Balance when shooting under
lighting conditions that are beyond the range of this setting (e.g.
Tungsten lighting) or the fact that Adobe haven't been able to determine
the actual white balance data tag in the raw images for your camera
model. The example shown in Figure 2 below is a series of shots taken
with a Canon PowerShot Pro1 and as can be seen the As Shot
white balance for each of the images has a red bias. This particular
problem results from my second example above. Actually in this example
the red colour bias is quite significant but thankfully this isn't always
the case. So what can we do about it?
In the first instance you should scream at the camera vendors NOT
Adobe. Whilst this won't resolve your problem any time soon it will at
least let them know how angry you are at their lack of support. Next you
can make a small adjustment to your images to compensate for the unwanted
colour bias. The steps are quite easy to follow and require only minimal
work in Camera Raw.
Figure 2 - Poor White Balance
rendering of File Browser thumbnails
Figure 3 - Selected image in
Camera Raw before White Balance correction
Figure 4 - Selected image in
Camera Raw after White Balance correction
-
Hold down the Alt/Option key (PC/Mac) - this changes the
OK button to Update and press same.
-
The image will be updated but it won't open.
-
In the File Browser thumbnail window select all of the images that
should have a white balance similar to that of the already corrected
image
-
From the File Browser Automate menu choose Apply Camera
Raw Settings
-
From the Settings popup choose Previous Conversion
-
Press the Update button
Depending upon the number of images making up your selection File
Browser can take from a few seconds to many minutes to update all of the
thumbnails and preview images.
Figure 5 - Applying White
Balance correction to remaining images
The final screenshot (figure 6) shows the same set of thumbnails after
the white balance correction has been applied
Figure 6 - File Browser
thumbnails after application of correct White Balance
Many Photoshop power users build up a series of White Balance
adjustments for various types lighting and then save them as settings
within Camera Raw. These saved settings can then be applied directly to a
series of images using the Automate: Apply Camera Settings
command. As similar exercise can be undertaken for the other features
(e.g. calibration settings, lens adjustment, luminance smoothing, etc).
In fact any standard adjustment that you think would apply to a selection
of images is probably best applied using the Apply Camera Raw Settings
command, especially if it doesn't require that you preview it before
hand.
