Note: I revised the workflow steps substantially on 11 DEC 2009 to avoid any confusion as to when or when not to use the Exposure Slider. Thanks to BPN Participant Brent Wellander for helping me see the need to clarify things there.

The tutorial below is adapted from the Digital Basics excerpt from BAA Bulletin 291. Bulletins are free. You can subscribe via the link on the home page. You can see the whole Bulletin here: http://www.birdsasart.com/bn291.htm and visit the searchable archives here: http://www.birdsasart.com/bn.html

MAJOR BAA DIGITAL WORKFLOW CHANGE

 Regular readers and Digital Basics purchasers know that I tried using Adobe Camera Raw to convert my Canon RAW files for about a year before giving up some time ago due to problems with the accuracy of the colors. About 8 months ago I began experimenting again with ACR, especially with images that featured saturated REDs and/or YELLOWs. When using BreezeBrowser to convert my RAW files (BrBr uses the Canon software development kit), I found that I had to dramatically darken many images in order to prevent burning the RED or YELLOW channels. It was impossible to create pleasing images from the too-dark converted TIFFs, so I returned to ACR to take advantage of the Recovery Slider. This restores highlight detail while not affecting the overall exposure. The more I used it the more I liked it. And as I concentrate so on exposing to the right I often have images with some overexposed highlights. I would say that right now I am using ACR for more than 95% of my conversions. Go figure.
I do need to say that BreezeBrowser is still the heart and soul of the editing portion of my digital workflow. It is still the fastest way to edit large numbers of images. And it is relatively inexpensive. In addition, BreezeBrowser is the storehouse and filing cabinet for our entire digital image collection.

Here is my ACR conversion strategy (working in Photoshop CS-3):

 1: From BreezeBrowser, hit Control D to open the image in the ACR dialogue box within Photoshop. (Working from BrBr is far easier than working from Bridge.)
2: There will be a line of text bottom center. Mine reads “Adobe RGB (1998); 16 bit; 2592 by 3888 (10.1MP); 300 ppi. Adobe RGB is my preferred color space. 16 bit is to be preferred to 8 bit for its greater range of colors. 2592 by 3888 (10.1MP) indicates the native resolution of the camera you are using, in this case, the E)S-1D MIII. 300 ppi is my personal preference. You can set your preferences here by clicking on the text line and then selecting from the various drop-down menus (and by typing 300 ppi into the appropriate box if need be).
3-Make sure that the highlight and shadow warning boxes are activated . You will find them in the upper left (shadow) and right (highlight) corners of the histogram box. A thin white box around each signifies that it is active.

4-Recovery Slider

(See the note in Pane 33.)

Whether you see any red warning pixels or not, first hold down the Alt key and then left- click on the Recovery slider. The image will turn black. If here no bright pixels are showing, you are done with the Recovery slider. Skip down to the directions for the Exposure Slider.

If any number of bright pixels appear when you hold down the Alt key and left-click the Recovery slider, move the slider to the right until all of the bright pixels disappear. If you move the Recovery slider all the way to 100 and there are still bright pixels indicating over-exposure, leave the Recovery slider and 100 and try the same technique with the Exposure slider; the results are likely to be unsatisfactory. (You need to learn to make good exposures in the field; see Understanding Histograms and Exposure Simplified in ABP II.)

If you used the Recovery Slider to recover any highlights you should not touch the Exposure Slider. Skip down to the Black Slider.

5-Exposure Slider

Hold down the Alt key. The image will turn black; any bright pixels that appear indicate overexposure. If there are some bright pixels, move the Exposure slider to the left until they disappear. If the image is all black, move the Exposure Slider to the right until some bright pixels begin to appear. When they do, back off slightly until the disappear.

Some folks feel that it is OK to have a few overexposed pixels in just a single color channel but I do not like that approach at all. The only time that I do not eliminate all of speckles is when they result from over-exposed specular highlights such as those in a bird’s eye, those on a wet rock, or those in a spray of water droplets. If you darken the image enough to eliminate specular highlights when adjusting the Exposure slider, objectionable digital noise will be introduced when you attempt to lighten the image with the Brightness slider.

6-Black Slider

Whether or not you see any electric blue Shadow warnings, first hold down the Alt key--the image will turn white and then left-click the Black Slider. If you see any colored pixels, move the slider to the left until they disappear. If you move the Black slider all the way to the left and there are still some colored pixels indicating underexposed shadow areas, simply leave the slider at 0 and continue. If there are no colored pixels when you hold down the Alt key and left-click the Black slider, move the slider to the right until some colored pixels begin to appear and then back off.

7-Brightness Slider

The Brightness Slider is pretty much the same as the middle tone slider in Levels in Photoshop. Before adjusting the Brightness slider to my personal taste I make a habit of visiting the Avian Forum at Bird Photographers.Net here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...isplay.php?f=2. Then I scroll down to the bottom to the calibration strip. Next I adjust the angle of my monitor so that I can differentiate the tonalities of the last two or three dark boxes on the left and the two or three light/white boxes on the right. By doing this I know that my Brightness Slider adjustments will be accurate. Now simply adjust the slider until the brightness of the image looks good to you.

(Note: I never touch the Curves tab in ACR.)

8-I almost always move the Clarity slider to +30. This applies a small amount of “in-camera” sharpening. I have never had an image look oversharpened while using this setting.
9-I play with the Vibrance slider usually ending up somewhere between -10 and +30. (The only time that I touch the Saturation slider is when I need to desaturate some YELLOWs or some REDs. Doing so may eliminate a red highlight warning.)
10-Hit Open Image. The RAW file will be converted to a 16-bit TIFF and opened in Photoshop.

 If you are at a loss as to what to do next, get yourself a copy our Digital Basics PDF. Learn more here: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252

 The information above and the Refine Edges Tutorial in the BAA Bulletin 290 has been added to the recent update of Digital Basics.

 If you are fairly experienced in Photoshop but like my easy-to-read, easy-to-follow writing style (as above), you can learn a ton about our digital workflow along with dozens of great Photoshop tips in Digital Basics. And “The Art of Bird Photography II” (916 pages on CD only), written in the same style, covers in detail everything that I learned about nature photography between 1998 and late-2006: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19 or on sale with the original ABP here: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=84.