How to process raw images (steps 7-12)
07 Lighten the mist
Click New in the Adjustment Brush palette. Set Exposure to +10 for a more subtle exposure adjustment, and then spray the brush tip over the distant mist to lighten it a little. The increase in contrast makes the dark mountains stand out more from the lighter mist.
08 Remove sensor spots
Grab the Zoom tool and magnify the image to 100%. Next, click on the Spot Removal tool and set the Radius to 4. Hold down the space bar and click to pan around the magnified shot. Click on sensor spots in the sky to replace them with an adjacent clear patch.
09 Pick up litter
Set the Spot Removal Type to Clone and then push the Radius up to 10. Click the red overlay on the piece of litter that is overlapping the foreground rocks. Next, drag the green overlay over a clear patch of grass. The sampled grass patch will now replace the distracting litter.
10 Reduce the noise
Zoom in to 100% magnification or you won't be able to make an effective noise reduction. Click on the Detail tab, then push the Luminance slider up to 25 to reduce the grain without blurring any delicate details. You can drag the Colour slider up to 100% without causing blurring.
11 Improve the composition
To straighten the horizon, grab the Straighten tool from the tool bar and draw a line from the peak of the mountain on the left to the top of the hill at the far right. Next, to give your image an extra colour boost, go back to the Basic tab and increase the Saturation slider to +17.
12 Open the image
Click on Open and you will see what your image looks like once it has been cropped and rotated by the Straighten tool. You can save and print this new version, safe in the knowledge that all the adjustments you made to the Raw file can be fine-tuned later in Camera Raw if required.
PAGE 1: How to process raw images - steps 1-6
PAGE 2: How to process raw images - steps 7-12
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