Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 8: Elements for Digital Photographers 221

The RAW Converter

by moving the slider and creating a new camera default setting, as described on

page 216.

Adjusting Sharpness and Reducing Noise

Once you’ve got your exposure and white balance right, you may be almost done

with your photo. But in most cases, you’ll still want to click over to the RAW Con-

verter’s Detail tab to do a little sharpening.

There are two other important adjustments available here as well: luminance

smoothing and noise reduction (both described in a moment). None of the adjust-

ments on this tab have Auto settings, although you can change the standard set-

tings by moving their sliders where you want them and then creating a new camera

default, as described earlier.

• Sharpness. Use this slider to increase the edge contrast in your photo, which

makes it appear more crisply focused. If you’re not planning on making any

further edits to your photo when you leave the RAW Converter, go ahead and

sharpen it here by dragging the slider to the right to increase sharpness.

On the other hand, some people prefer to wait to sharpen until they finish all

their other adjustments in Full Edit mode, so they skip this slider. But in fact

you can usually sharpen here, and then sharpen again later on, outside the Con-

verter without causing yourself any trouble.

The next two settings work together to reduce the noise (graininess) of your ...