A straight, 45‑degree line indicates no changes to the tone response curve: The original input values exactly match the output values. If a point on the curve moves up, the output is a lighter tone if it moves down, the output is a darker tone. The vertical axis represents the changed tone values (output values), with black on the bottom and progressing to white at the top. The horizontal axis represents the original tone values of the image (input values), with black on the left and progressively lighter values toward the right. The curves represent changes made to the tonal scale of an image. Use the controls in the Curve drop-down of the Edit panel to fine-tune images after you’ve made tone adjustments in the Basic panel. If you want the default image settings to include automatic tone adjustments, select Apply Auto Tone Adjustments in the Default Image settings section of the Camera Raw preferences. Previews in Adobe Bridge use the default image settings. On the other hand, you can always try clicking Auto and then undo the adjustments if you don’t like them. If you are careful during shooting and have deliberately shot with different exposures, you probably don’t want to undo that work by applying automatic tone adjustments. For this reason, apply automatic tone adjustments first-if at all-to get an initial approximation of the best settings for your image. When you adjust tone automatically, Camera Raw ignores any adjustments previously made in other tabs (such as fine-tuning of tone in the Tone Curves tab). To return an individual tone control to its original value, double-click the slider. To apply an automatic adjustment to an individual slider in the Basic panel, such as Exposure or Contrast, press Shift and double-click the slider. You can also apply automatic settings separately for individual tone controls. When you click Auto in the top of the Edit panel, Camera Raw analyzes the image and makes automatic adjustments to the tone controls. You can adjust the white balance if it is not right. This setting usually yields the correct color temperature, or nearly so. The Camera Raw plug-in reads this value and makes it the initial setting when you open the file in the Camera Raw dialog box. Natural and incandescent light sources give off light in a predictable distribution according to their temperature.Ī digital camera records the white balance at the time of exposure as a metadata entry. When you use the White Balance tool under the Basic panel in Edit, to specify an object that you want white or gray, Camera Raw can determine the color of the light in which the scene was shot and then adjust for scene lighting automatically.Ĭolor temperature (in Kelvins) is used as a measure of scene lighting. A white or gray object in a scene takes on the color cast by the ambient light or flash used to shoot the picture. To adjust the white balance, identify which objects in the image you want to be neutral-colored (white or gray), and then adjust the colors to make those objects neutral.