Getting the Grungy, High-Contrast Look Right Within Camera Raw

If you want that extreme contrast, grungy look, you can create it right within Camera Raw itself by just dragging a few sliders in the Basic panel, and then opening it in Elements and adding a vignette. And, since you’re going to leave Camera Raw and go to Elements anyway, you should try poppin’ some edge sharpening on this puppy. Shots like this, with lots of texture and metal, just love a little edge sharpening tossed on them, so give it a try. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves—here’s the grungy look made easy:

Step One:

Open a photo in Camera Raw. This is one of those effects that needs the right kind of image for it to look right. Photos with lots of detail, texture, along with anything metallic, and lots of contrast seem to work best (it also works great for sports portraits, cars, even some landscapes. In other words: I wouldn’t apply this effect to a shot of a cute little fuzzy bunny). Here’s the original RAW image open in Camera Raw. (Note: This effect actually seems to come out better when you run it on RAW images, rather than JPEG or TIFF, but it does work on all three.)