Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 127)

121 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Importing and managing footage items
Last updated 12/21/2009
To adjust the white balance quickly, select the White Balance tool , and then click an area in the preview image
that should be a neutral gray or white. The Temperature and Tint properties adjust to make the selected color exactly
neutral (if possible). If you’re clicking whites, choose a highlight area that contains significant white detail rather than a
specular highlight. You can double-click the White Balance tool to reset White Balance to As Shot.
Adjust tone in Camera Raw
You adjust the image tonal scale using the tone controls in the Basic tab.
When you click Auto at the top of the tone controls section of the Basic tab, Camera Raw analyzes the camera raw
image and makes automatic adjustments to the tone controls (Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, and
Contrast).
You can also apply automatic settings separately for individual tone controls. To apply an automatic adjustment to an
individual tone control, such as Exposure or Recovery, press Shift and double-click the slider. To return an individual
tone control to its original value, double-click its slider.
When you adjust tone automatically, Camera Raw ignores any adjustments previously made in other tabs (such as fine-
tuning of tone in the Tone Curves tab). For this reason, you should usually apply automatic tone adjustments first—if
at all—to get an initial approximation of the best settings for your image. If you are careful during shooting and have
deliberately shot with different exposures, you probably don’t want to undo that work by applying automatic tone
adjustments. On the other hand, you can always try clicking Auto and then undo the adjustments if you don’t like them.
Previews in Adobe Bridge use the default image settings. If you want the default image settings to include automatic
tone adjustments, select Apply Auto Tone Adjustments in the Default Image Settings section of the Camera Raw
preferences.
Note: If you are comparing images based on their previews in Adobe Bridge, you may want to leave the Apply Auto Tone
Adjustments preference deselected, which is the default. Otherwise, you’ll be comparing images that have already been
adjusted.
As you make adjustments, keep an eye on the end points of the histogram, or use the shadow and highlight clipping
previews.
While moving the Exposure, Recovery, or Blacks slider, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) to preview
where highlights or shadows are clipped. Move the slider until clipping begins, and then reverse the adjustment
slightly. (For more information, see “ Preview highlight and shadow clipping in Camera Raw ” on page 119.)
• To manually adjust a tone control, drag the slider, type a number in the box, or select the value in the box and press
the Up or Down Arrow key.
• To reset a value to its default, double-click the slider control.
Exposure Adjusts the overall image brightness, with a greater effect in the highlights. Decrease Exposure to darken the
image; increase Exposure to brighten the image. The values are in increments equivalent to f-stops. An adjustment of
+1.50 is like widening the aperture 1-1/2 stops. Similarly, an adjustment of -1.50 is like reducing the aperture 1-1/2
stops. (Use Recovery to bring highlight values down.)
Recovery Attempts to recover details from highlights. Camera Raw can reconstruct some details from areas in which
one or two color channels are clipped to white.
Fill Light Attempts to recover details from shadows, without brightening blacks. Camera Raw can reconstruct some
details from areas in which one or two color channels are clipped to black. Using Fill Light is like using the shadows
portion of the Photoshop Shadow/Highlight filter or the After Effects Shadow/Highlight effect.
Blacks Specifies which input levels are mapped to black in the final image. Increasing Blacks expands the areas that
are mapped to black. This sometimes creates the impression of increased contrast in the image. The greatest change is