Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Chapter 38 ■ Two Featured Products 445
Clicking on these opens a new menu (or “brick,” as Apple calls them) with three pairs
of slider controls. Boost and Hue Boost allow you to increase color contrast, the latter
doing so without greatly affecting certain colors such as skin tones. Sharpening and
Edges let you control how much sharpening is applied initially during RAW conversion.
The Moiré and Radius pair correct moiré effects and color fringing in patterned objects.
It is a good idea to run a few tests with different settings from all these controls, but do
not overdo it. The output from RAW 2.0 is deliberately flatter and more neutral than
those created by the earlier version, but it preserves more information. If you have more
than one digital camera, you can (and should) create a different preset for each one.
White Balance
White balance adjustment comes with an eyedropper tool that automatically launches
the Loupe tool to give a magnified view of a small area of the image. By running the
eyedropper over a range of neutral or near-neutral grays, you can select the shade that
gives the best result. Color temperature and tint can also be adjusted by slider controls.
Adjusting Exposure
For exposure adjustment there are four sliders. The main exposure control shifts the
image data toward the brighter or darker ends of the histogram. A recovery slider rescues
blown highlights to bring back lost detail. A third slider shifts the black point to
deepen the black tones while preserving light ones, and the brightness slider is used for
making midtones brighter or darker. Most image-processing software has similar controls,
often with different names.
Highlight Recovery
There is more to highlight recovery than meets the eye. If you have shot in RAW it is
very likely that you can rescue blown highlights, bringing back detail that was seemingly
lost. This feature is well implemented in Aperture, with precise control provided
by View> Highlight Hot & Cold Areas, which overlays red on the overexposed pixels
and blue on the lost shadows. To rescue the highlights, you move the Recovery slider to
the right; to rescue the shadows, you move the Black Point slider to the left.
The Enhance Menu
Contrast and local contrast (Definition) tools are the first two controls in the Enhance
menu. Next are Saturation for overall increase of color saturation, and below it a
Vibrancy adjuster increases color without disturbing skin tones too greatly. Three color
tint wheels let you add tints to shadows, midtones, or highlights, although this finetuning
adjustment can require a keen eye for subtle changes of color.