PSE 9 help

[JRMDC]

Just upgraded my PSE 3 to PSE 9. Quite a jump! So I need some help... I'll do the work, but it would be cool to get a quick start tonight, so I can play with my new toy.

1) The ACR window has lots of new stuff I am unfamiliar with, such as "fill light" which appears to shift the histogram weight between the lower and upper points, whereas brightness seems to shift the points a bit, and exposure shifts the points a lot. Also, what are clarity and vibrance? Do I need to worry about the Camera Profile section?

What about the stuff now in ACR that used to be in PSE, like cropping and red-eye? Is it generally preferable to do as much as possible in ACR?

Under sharpening, what is Masking?

[Sadly, these features postdate the 2005-era book "Raw 101" which was very good although a bit expensive for the page count.]

2) can't find the features: channel mixer, pseudo-HDR

3) in general, what websites and/or books do you recommend? I remember getting a book with PSE 3, didn't use it much (could probably sell it as new today, but alas it has no value).

thanks! new 50D body, new software, like being in a candy store!

[JRMDC]

Just found the channel mixer. It is sweet, in that it allows me to set up my own mix alternatives, in addition to those offered by default, so I can easily click through alternatives and get an initial sense of where to go with the conversion. Super!

[KevinM]

Hi J,

I have PSE 6, which has most of the ACR features that you mention. A few things:

I set the highlights with the Exposure slider first.

Then, I adjust the black point with the Blacks slider.

Brightness is supposed to set mid-tone brightness, but to a lesser degree, it affects everything.

Fill light opens up the dark, shadowy areas...like the PSE shadows slider. You can get more aggressive with it than with the PSE shadows slider because it will not wash out your colors as quickly. Fill light is your friend.

Clarity is a local, mid-tone contrast control. You'll notice the greatest effect in tree tops behind your subject.

Vibrance boosts the least saturated colors in your image without completely oversaturating the colors that already are. Don't get too aggressive with it. You can definitely over-do it easily.

Camera profiles are supposed to be able to make your initial look at the raw image look more like the JPEG you saw on your LCD after you took the picture....meaning they simulate in-camera processing. The ones in PSE 6 aren't very good at all. I'm told that in newer products, like CS5, they have plug-ins for particular camera models. I am hoping they have something like that in Lightroom 3. The "Camera Standard" profile that I usually use in PSE 6 looks pretty doggy before I make any adjustments.

And yes, I do as much in ACR as I can. I make fine adjustments afterward in PSE.

I recommend going to Borders or B&N to get yourself a real manual for PSE 9. There are a gazillion 3rd party manuals on all of the major image processing software packages. Spend some time and really look at each one before selecting. They will probably cost you whatever you saved in the Black Friday software sale, but in the end, you'll have a how-to book that you won't get from Adobe.

Thx,

[JRMDC]

Nice, Kevin, thanks.

[Doug Wolfe]

Hello: I have an earlier version. But, if you go to YouTube they have numerous PSE9 tutorials.