Prepare for impact!

George Cairns explains how to boost colour and contrast in raw files in a matter of minutes...

Improve a digital negative (.dng) with our best-practice RAW editing guide

Camera Raw is the ideal tool for processing a RAW file to reveal missing tonal detail and enhance colours. Our starting image lacks detail in the shadows, so we’ll show you how to use the sliders in the Basic panel to selectively lighten these areas without blowing out the sky. You’ll also learn how to use the Clarity slider to tease out more texture.

You may feel that to shoot and process in RAW is an advanced skill, but this isn’t the case. The RAW editor places all the colour, composition and tone-tweaking tools close to hand. What’s more, it’s 100% non-destructive – you can’t permanently change any of the original file’s information, which means that you’re free to experiment without spoiling the original image.

When you shoot JPEGs, the camera will apply colour and tonal tweaks to the image according to the Scene mode that it’s set to. This makes it much harder to change the look of the image. By shooting in RAW you have much more control.