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The first option in the Adjust tab is actually for White Balance. The White Balance dropdown and White Balance tool provide the potential to establish good color within the image quickly and easily; however, to me this contradicts the very benefit of RAW capture: the ability to exercise greater control over your images. I strongly recommend skipping the White Balance dropdown and instead starting with the Temperature and Tint sliders. In the vast majority of RAW conversions, you'll probably want to fine-tune these sliders anyway, so it makes sense to start with them and achieve the best results possible in your image.
The Temperature slider allows you to adjust the color temperature of the lighting for which you want to compensate. In theory, that means you simply want to adjust the slider to the color temperature of the lighting under which the image was captured. Of course, chances are you have no idea (or just a general idea) of what that color temperature was. Also, you don't necessarily want to simply compensate for the lighting that was used. Instead, you should take advantage of the capability to fine-tune these adjustments to provide the best image in terms of aesthetics with no penalty in terms of image quality. This will enable you to interpret the image as you desire, rather than simply neutralizing a color cast.
As you get started with the Temperature slider, I recommend moving it between extremes to get a sense of how the adjustment will affect the overall image and to get a preview of what variations might be possible (slide show, image 7). Moving to the left will cool down the image, compensating for "warm" lighting (light with a lower Kelvin temperature), and moving the slider to the right will warm up the image, compensating for "cool" lighting (light with a higher Kelvin temperature). Obviously, either of the extremes isn't likely to be an appropriate choice, but the perspective of those extremes helps you determine which setting is best. After sliding through the extremes, start to settle down on the area that seems to represent the most pleasing color for the image. After you have moved the slider to the point that seems to provide the best color, release the mouse and use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to fine-tune the adjustment. This will make it easier to make subtle adjustments as you make a decision about the best look for the image.
With the Temperature value established, you can move to the Tint slider. This should be thought of as a tool for fine-tuning the white balance in your image. It effectively adjusts the color balance between green and magenta. As with the Temperature slider, I recommend sliding through the extremes to get a sense of how the image is affected, even though you won't use those extremes for the final setting. Adjust the slider to taste based on the preview image, and then use the arrow keys for fine-tuning, as you did with the Temperature slider.
With both the Temperature and Tint sliders established, the overall color balance of the image should look pretty accurate. Of course, accuracy is in the eye of the beholder here; you may be adjusting the sliders to introduce a desired color cast, as opposed to focusing exclusively on compensating for the color of light that illuminated the scene.
Tonal Adjustments
With the white balance settings established, you're ready to move on to the overall tonal adjustments for the image. When doing so, it is important to keep in mind that the basic goal of tonal adjustments in a RAW conversion should be to optimize dynamic range and ensure maximum detail within the image. In other words you shouldn't be concerned at this point with producing an image that is ready to print because that will be dealt with during the rest of your workflow in Photoshop. Instead, you should be looking to maximize the amount of detail within the image so you have as much flexibility as possible when optimizing the image.When making tonal adjustments in Camera Raw, the four key controls are Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, and Blacks. Together these controls allow you to optimize tonal range while maintaining detail, as well as adjusting the overall appearance of the image.
Exposure
The Exposure slider allows you to adjust, in effect, the brightness of the image, using as its scale an Exposure Value. In other words, if you adjust the Exposure slider to a +1 value, that is the same as though you had brightened the exposure by one stop in the capture. Likewise, setting the slider to -1 would produce a similar effect to darkening the exposure by one stop in the camera. This would lead most photographers to believe that the Exposure control should be used as a basic brightness adjustment (and would probably make them wonder why there is also a Brightness slider in the same dialog box).
The behavior of the Exposure slider makes it ideal for establishing the white point within your image. By adjusting this slider, you can effectively determine which pixel value within the image should be set to white. This is virtually identical to the behavior of the White Point slider in Levels.
As a general rule, I recommend setting the Exposure slider to maximize the white point for the image without clipping any detail. In other words, use Exposure to brighten the image just to the threshold before you start to lose detail in the highlights. You can watch the histogram display as you adjust the Exposure slider, but it can be a challenge to determine when you've actually started to lose detail. Fortunately, by having the Highlight Clipping option set in the histogram display, you'll have a visual indication when you lose detail in the image. With the checkbox selected, raising the Exposure setting to a value where clipping occurs will cause a red overlay to be shown in those areas. Adjust the Exposure slider to the point just before this overlay starts to appear.
I prefer to use an option with the Exposure slider that provides a bit more detail about any clipping that will occur with the adjustment by utilizing a more powerful clipping preview display. To enable this display, hold the Alt/Option key as you adjust the Exposure slider. When you do so, the image will go completely (or nearly completely) black. As you increase the Exposure value, you'll start to see pixels appear. The color of those pixels indicates the color channels that are losing detail with the current Exposure adjustment, and when the pixels shift to white, it indicates those pixels have indeed gone to pure white. In general, I recommend increasing the Exposure value until you start to see pixels appear, and then moving the slider back to the left until the point just before the pixels start to appear, leaving no pixels visible (except specular highlights).
Although setting the Exposure to make the brightest pixels nearly white works with many images, that doesn't mean it should be adjusted this way for all images. You need to evaluate the image itself to make sure the adjustment is a good one, and refine the adjustment as needed.
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