Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3 [Paperback]

This book should be reviewed in the context of three key directions in which the Creative Suite developers have been moving digital imaging over the past few years: workflow and process integration, major development of the raw processing pipeline and the creation of many more user-friendly and powerful tools which directly respond to the needs of photographers. To date, the culmination of these related initiatives is the production of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw 4.x and Adobe Bridge 2.x. The important new features of these applications are so extensive that no book dealing with previous versions of Camera Raw and Bridge will give users adequate instruction and advice about how best to use them.

This leads to the question of who should be using these programs, and therefore who should be reading this book. Anyone who wishes to maximize the quality of their photographs and have the fullest possible control over doing so should use a camera giving them "raw" files, Adobe Photoshop and Camera Raw for converting those raw files into high quality photographs, and this book to learn how to master and manage Camera Raw, Bridge and the DNG open-source raw file format.

There is, however, much more to this book than editing the appearance of photographs, as fundamentally important as that is. Reflecting the contemporary evolution of these programs, the book has three major areas of emphasis, these being a primer on the nature of a digital image and a raw file (very useful for understanding what one is working with and why some kinds of editing operations are preferable to others), instruction on how best to use Camera Raw for getting the most out of the images one has captured, and workflow (i.e. "what to do when") - emphasizing and explaining not only an orderly way of working within the Camera Raw module itself, but also how to get optimal efficiency in organizing, identifying and processing ones' images using the integrative features of Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop. This structure of the book makes perfect sense given the intended integration of these applications to facilitate efficient and effective workflow.

Hence Chapters 1 and 2 provide a compact and highly readable primer on the anatomy of a digital image and a raw file and basically how Camera Raw works. If you weren't totally convinced before you bought the book why you should be working as much as possible with raw files rather than JPEGs, these two chapters will make that issue will go away.

Chapter 3 provides a handy integrative overview of how Camera Raw, Bridge, Photoshop and DNG all hang together as a system. The remainder of the book is devoted to a very detailed and comprehensive explanation of when and how to use these tools.

Chapters 4 and 5 explain the Camera Raw controls in depth - which is really important, because the last I counted there are at least 84 of them that could be independently combined in infinite ways to produce the image in the eye of the user's mind (and this excludes DNG creation and camera calibration also explained here in depth). The book explains what each of these tools do, how to use them, and most instructively, in Chapter 5, the authors present a very well selected variety of imaging situations we would all encounter, showing firstly how to evaluate what the images need done to them. Then they demonstrate in detail the individual edits performed to improve sharpness, contrast and color as appropriate to the objectives of the edits. Once you've completed reading this chapter you will have a very solid knowledge base from which to gain experience using this program to greatest advantage on your own images. I've processed about 1600 images in Camera Raw and I've run across every situation the authors cover here. I think they've done an excellent job in terms of both correct treatment of their sample images and the exposition of how to do it. It's clear, well illustrated, detailed and accurate.

That takes us to page 201, and Chapters 6 to 9 inclusive. As far as I know, you won't find a more convenient, comprehensive and detailed treatment of how to work with Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw, developing efficient workflows for handling files, folders, collections, metadata and process automation. For busy people needing to organize, recall and process large numbers of images quickly and efficiently, there is a wealth of indispensable instruction here covering the many features in these programs which make this possible.

Having read the book, I'm now keeping it beside my keyboard. It will serve as the most useful hands-on reference work that I own on Camera Raw, Bridge and DNG. It is with deep regret that Bruce Fraser is no longer with us to celebrate the accomplishment of this book, but we can take comfort in the fact that Jeff Schewe has picked up the torch, run with it and brought to fruition a remarkable piece of work which makes a really important contribution to our knowledge of digital imaging.

Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser, RIP, have done an excellent job in the second edition of Real World Camera Raw. Jeff obviously believes in the view - `if it ain't broke, don't fix it' because Bruce Fraser's original concepts (and some newer ones) are still the backbone of this volume.

That isn't to say there isn't anything new - there is - Chapter Four "Camera RAW Tools - examining the Camera RAW Tools In Depth" by itself, is worth the price of the book. One could be a virtual newbie to Camera RAW and be able to convert RAW images well, just by reading and following Jeff's instructions in that chapter on all the past settings and the vast array of new and helpful settings and sliders added by the Adobe engineers for CS3. Jeff's understanding and expertise in the practical use of each setting is well demonstrated, with helpful screenshots (and tips) all along the way. Intermediate and advanced users will benefit from his `inside knowledge' and the most effective use of the new features.

And while Chapter 4 is huge, there is a lot more new material (50 pages worth with bigger & better illustrations, the penguin shots are great ), in the rest of the Chapters, including all the new settings in Bridge and the Digital Negative Converter (DNG), handling of xml files, batch, scripting and suggestions on the various ways to configure ACR and Bridge for optimum use. The information on basic and detailed workflows from camera to print coming from a working photographer is a true value and gives an insight on how a pro best utilizes the tools.

All in all, Real World Camera RAW for Adobe Photoshop CS3 still remains THEE book/bible to have on RAW conversion. Bruce would be proud.

Kent C. retouch forum [...]

I am a commercial photographer, as well as an author. I have been a photographer since the middle seventies, and grew up on film. I mention this detail, because if you are shooting digital (and most people are these days) and you are not shooting Raw format, then you are not getting the full potential from your images. I'll go further: apart from sport photogs who shoot JPEGs by necessity (instant wireless transfer of finished images), everyone can benefit from shooting Raw--the capacity to recover highlights and to lift shadows noiselessly alone (and Raw can do so much more) makes this a necessity in countries where the light is very bright--like Australia.

This book provides the understanding of 'what goes on under the hood', essential to a deep understanding of a complex piece of software, Adobe Creative Suite, and its key plug-in, Adobe Camera Raw. Following this, the authors take you through the processing of real images, step-by-step, and showing what the adjustments have done to the original. Alternatives are presented too, so the flexibility of this excellent software is revealed. Following this, the authors take you though the maze of Batch Processing--with humour and precision together--and, frankly, if you are not using Batch Processing, then you are only using a fraction of this software's potential. Do you want to save time? Batch processing is the answer, yet virtually impossible to learn from Adobe's "Help" files.

I was an advanced level user of this software before I bought this book (having used ACR since the first inception), and use Capture One Pro, and two other Raw processors, but feel that the combination of keyboard control and flexibility of workflow when processing hundreds of images makes ACR the winner. You will not need to touch a mouse if you follow the authors' directions; they reveal ALL the hidden keyboard shortcuts. Bruce and Jeff's book is the key to unlocking this power--the additional information I gained about the new sharpening features of the latest version of ACR from this book alone paid for itself in saved time on a project I have starting next week.

IMHO, this is the only book on Raw processing you will need. Once you understand all that is written here, you will be a genuine expert Raw processor yourself.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 35 reviews  4.9 out of 5 stars