Touching up in Camera Raw

I decided to apply some of the PhotoShop techniques that I've recently learned to some favorite old pictures.  My latest exercise involved a reprocessing of a photo I took with my old Canon XSi and the EF-S 18-55mm kit lens.

It was the evening before with winter solstice in 2009.  The clock on Woodburn Hall read 5:25 p.m.   WVU students were on break, and a fresh snow had recently fallen, leaving the grounds around the downtown campus relatively pristine.

Following tips in Scott Kelby's "The Adobe Photoshop CS6 book (for digital photographers)," I worked directly in Adobe Camera Raw, spot-touching the clipped highlights (shown in red below) around all of the lights.  I then took on the clipped shadows (shown in violet below), which were predominantly among the bushes in the foreground as well as in the trees around the building.

After correcting the exposure in Camera Raw, I finished the touch-up work in PhotoShop, correcting the barrel distortion on Chitwood Hall, to the right of Woodburn.  I removed a little "noise" from some of the dark areas on the building, too.

I really liked those old lights.