# PhotoshopElements

# Tonal and image adjustments in camera raw files

Exposure
  Adjusts the brightness or darkness of an image. Move the slider to the left to darken the image; move it to the right to brighten the image. The values are in increments equivalent to f‑stops. An adjustment of +1.50 is similar to widening the aperture one and one-half stops. Likewise, an adjustment of ‑1.50 is similar to reducing the aperture one and one-half stops.
  Hold down Option while moving the Exposure slider to preview where the highlights are clipped. (Clipping is the shifting of pixel values to either the highest highlight value or the lowest shadow value. Clipped areas are either completely white or completely black and have no image detail.) Move the slider until the highlights (not specular highlights) are completely clipped, and then reverse the adjustment slightly. Black indicates unclipped areas, and color indicates areas clipped in only one or two channels.
  Hold down Option while moving the Exposure slider to show clipped highlights.

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 similar to 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 appearance of increased contrast in the image. The greatest change is in the shadows, with less change in the midtones and highlights. Using the Blacks slider is similar to using the black point slider for input levels when using the Photoshop Levels command or the After Effects Levels effect.

Brightness
  Adjusts the brightness of the image, much as the Exposure slider does. However, instead of clipping the image in the highlights (areas that are completely white, with no detail) or shadows (areas that are completely black, with no detail), Brightness compresses the highlights and expands the shadows when you move the slider to the right. In general, use the Brightness slider to adjust the overall brightness after you set the white and black clipping points with the Exposure and Shadow sliders.

Contrast
  Adjusts the midtones in an image. Higher values increase the midtone contrast, and lower values produce an image with less contrast. Generally, use the Contrast slider to adjust the contrast of the midtones after setting the Exposure, Shadow, and Brightness values.

Clarity
  Sharpens the clarity of edges in the image. This process helps restore detail and sharpness that tonal adjustments may reduce.

Vibrance
  Adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colors approach full saturation, changing the saturation of all lower-saturated colors with less impact on the higher-saturated colors. Vibrance also prevents skin tones from becoming oversaturated.

Saturation
  Adjusts the color saturation of the image from –100 (pure monochrome) to +100 (double the saturation).

Sharpening
  Sharpening enhances the definition of edges in an image. Additional controls are available in the Detail panel. The zoom level must be set to 100% or greater in order to view the effects of these controls.

  - Amount: Adjusts edge definition. Increase the Amount value to increase sharpening. A value of zero turns off sharpening. In general, set Amount to a lower value for cleaner images. The adjustment locates pixels that differ from surrounding pixels based on the threshold you specify and increases the pixels’ contrast by the amount you specify.

  - Radius: Adjusts the size of the details that sharpening is applied to. Photos with very fine details may need a lower radius setting. Photos with larger details may be able to use a larger radius. Using too large a radius generally results in unnatural results.

  - Detail: Adjusts how much high-frequency information is sharpened in the image and how much the sharpening process emphasizes edges. Lower settings primarily sharpen edges to remove blur. Higher values are useful for making the textures in the image more pronounced.

  - Masking: Controls an edge mask. At a setting of zero, everything in the image receives the same amount of sharpening. At a setting of 100, sharpening is mostly restricted to areas near the strongest edges.

Noise Reduction
  Adjusts the color saturation of the image from –100 (pure monochrome) to +100 (double the saturation).

  - Luminance: Adjusts grayscale noise.

  - Color: Adjusts chroma noise.

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