Thank you to Heath Smith for this week’s Challenge Jimmy. In this tutorial we look at how to make the most out of a single RAW file with double/triple processing in Adobe Camera RAW. This allows us to create multiple exposures from a single RAW file and then blend them cleanly using our favourite digital blending technique.
Using double or triple processing, rather than pulling up the shadows and pulling down the highlights in ACR/LR, gives us more control over different areas of our image. For example, if we create a Sky layer where most of the highlights in our image live, this means we can make changes to just that layer which will only affect the sky, like adding warmth naturally. You can see this in action in the Challenge Jimmy video.
To take part in Challenge Jimmy, please email me at challengejimmymc (at) gmail (dot) com. Include a paragraph detailing what you found difficult, and attach a full sized JPEG of your final version.
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Excellent tutorial very easy to follow and understand
Excellent. You are quite the inspiration. 🙂
You already know this and may have mentioned it before, but it’s worth noting here… one of the benefits of working with multiple exposures (whether from the same original or from bracketing) is the increased working bit depth. When you brighten the shadows in a single layer image, it tends to produce noise because there just isn’t enough pixel information to stretch the exposure very far. When you use multiple image layers, that noise is significantly reduced because you have more pixels with which to work. The finished image comes out cleaner and richer.
Thank you kindly for the kind words and explanation!
Thanks Jimmy, I can recal with Frequency separation, that if you are using a 16bit file that the apply image values change… Do you happen to know what the 16bit settings are?
Here you go Kingsley:
https://youtu.be/G9Bybm-gxAM
Terrific! I think I can make great use of this on some existing images as well as in the future. (And oddly enough, I’ll be in Venice to try it out this spring. 🙂 )