[Figure 1.74] The Preferences panel.

Customizing ACR 5 Through The Options Panel
Let’s take a look at how to customize ACR 5.2 to assist you in preparing your photographic images to be imported into Photoshop. Take a look at the icons in the top-left corner of the interface. If you look from right to left, you’ll notice two circular arrows that rotate 90 degrees clockwise to the right and 90 degrees counterclockwise. To the left of those two commands, you will see the Preferences Panel icon for ACR. Figure 1.74 shows some of the options that are available. For example, you can update your JPEG previews to be medium quality or high quality, you can control the cache size, you can make some default changes to your image settings, and you can determine where you want to save the XMP data from the raw files. After you make adjustments to the settings, they will stay as default settings until you go back and alter the changes.

[Figure 1.75] ACR options.

The next icon to the left of the Preferences icon is the Red Eye icon (Figure 1.75G). Another convenient addition to ACR is the ability to correct red eye. CS4 makes it very easy to apply this command. Just select the Red Eye icon and click the red eye in the portrait to remove the red color automatically. You will also have the option to brighten or darken the tonality to make the pupil more prominent.

Figure 1.75F shows the parameters for the Spot Removal brush that allow you to apply the Stamp tool to your raw images to remove blemishes or dust problems from the camera’s sensor.

Figures 1.75E and 1.75D show the options for the Alignment and the Crop tools. The Alignment tool corrects a rotating or offset photograph. The Crop tool does exactly as the name implies—it crops the image.

Figure 1.75C shows the parameters for the Parametric Curve. This is a wonderful feature that lets you apply color and tonal changes just to the areas that you select. In other words, by clicking on a local color, you can drag the slider to alter the Hue, Saturation, Luminance, and Grayscale mix of your selection.

Figure 1.75B displays the icon for the Sampler tool option to assist you with white balance or tonal correction by laying down reference points to select localized areas and adjust the white balance. Figure 1.75A is the White Balance tool icon.

[Figure 1.76] White Balance applied to local areas of the image.

Take a look at Figure 1.76. It displays an example of how the white balance can be adjusted by clicking various areas of the print. When you click a particular tonal range, the White Balance Eye Dropper will neutralize the highlights in your scene toward more of a neutral white balanced look. In this example, a color sampler was placed on the highlight, shadow and midtone region to assist in locating where to click when applying white balance. It is designated with circular markers, which are numbered 1 thru 3.

Maximum Color Samplers Allowed
Take note that the Color Sampler tool only allows up to a maximum of four targets.