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*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
In Photoshop, when you want to reduce a blemish, a popular technique is to use the Healing Brush tool to completely remove the blemish, then go under the Edit menu, choose Fade Healing Brush, and then lower the Opacity in the dialog, so a little hint of the blemish comes back. You can now do the same thing in Camera Raw when using the Spot Removal tool ( B ). But it’s even easier in Camera Raw because there’s now an Opacity slider that appears in the Spot Removal panel.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
When you use the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw, you’ll notice that there are two brush cursors displayed at the same time, one inside the other. The smaller one shows the size of the brush you’ve selected; the larger (dotted-line circle) shows the size of the feathering. Increase the Feather value to widen the distance between the rings; decrease the value to 0 and you’ll see that there’s no space.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
Want your RAW images to look more like what you saw in your camera’s LCD display? Then check out the new Camera Matching Profiles in the Camera Calibration tab of Camera Raw. They approximate the “looks” you can apply in camera. Camera Raw looks at your image’s embedded EXIF data to determine whether you took the shot with a Nikon or Canon (so far, those are the only two camera brands it supports), and then it gives you a corresponding list of looks you can apply (these can help you get closer to the JPEG look). Just choose from the pop-up menu to begin (I recommend starting with the Adobe Standard Profile).
Here’s a quick way to reset your preferences in Photoshop: Press-and-hold Command-Option-Shift (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift) while you start Photoshop. As you start the program you will get a pop-up dialog asking you if you would like to delete the settings file. Deleting the file will create a new set of preferences from scratch.
Often, I echo Matt Kloskowski’s feeling that font preview is either loved or hated. I find myself usually turning it off, and here’s why: I love fonts—lots of them. I install fonts like there’s no tomorrow. I’m assuming that this is going to catch up to me at one point or another, but I continue to troll sites to find more and more fonts.
As you install more and more fonts on your machine, you might notice that there could be a performance problem. Because of this, we should go to Photoshop>Preferences>General (PC: Edit>Preferences>General) and turn off the Font Preview Size checkbox in the Type preferences. You can also turn on the Font Preview Size there too, if you happen to like it. I’ll stay away from that argument now.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
To hide the pins that appear when you use the Adjustment Brush, just press V on your keyboard or uncheck the Show Pins check-box at the bottom of the adjustment sliders when the brush is active (it toggles the pin visibility on/off). More pins are added if you click the New button at the top of the adjustment sliders, make an adjustment, and then click on the image.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
When you grab the Crop tool ( C ) and crop a photo in Camera Raw, you can now see the final cropped image without having to open the image in Photoshop. Once your cropping border is in place, just change tools (or double-click the Crop tool icon at the top of the window), and you’ll see the cropped version (in previous versions, the cropped-away area was still visible; it was just dimmed). If you need to adjust the crop, simply switch back to the Crop tool and the cropping border reappears.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
It’s now safe to use the Auto setting in Camera Raw (just click the Auto button above the Exposure slider to see). Adobe has changed the algorithm used by the auto-correction feature and now it’s actually usable (the old version used to overexpose your photos most of the time). It makes a nice starting place in many cases, so give it a quick click and see what you think.
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
Want to soften your subject’s skin? Then use “negative clarity” (just drag the Clarity slider to the left, to a negative number) and paint over her skin (but avoid any detail areas, such as eyes, eye-brows, lips, etc).
*Adobe Bridge CS4 and Adobe Camera Raw 5 Tip*
Want to focus the viewer’s eye on a particular area? Get the Adjustment Brush, set your Saturation to 0, and then paint over everything in your photo except where you want the viewer to look. This makes everything grayscale except the area where you don’t paint.
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Corey shares another way to get a cool 3D light beam effect.
Corey finishes up the Olympic-inspired design that he began last week in Part 1.
The Olympic-inspired tutorial will be coming in two parts. Stop by next week for the conclusion to this video.
This week’s tutorial deals with creating masks for complicated images by using channels.
You can open RAW images in Camera Raw right from Bridge in Photoshop CS3. This frees up Photoshop to continue working on your files while they’re being processed in Camera Raw. Just select one or more images in Bridge, Control-click (PC: Right-click) on them, and choose Open in Camera Raw. This will open the image(s) in Bridge’s Camera Raw rather than Photoshop. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command-R (PC: Ctrl-R).