Call it a control thing, but until recently–or, more specifically, until the availability of digital raw camera formats–you simply weren’t ready to make the move to digital photography. Raw formats, however, changed all of that by allowing you to retrieve images before any in-camera processing has been performed. Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw plug-in makes that process even easier by providing a standardized way of accessing and working with these uncompressed digital negatives in your favorite image-manipulation software. In the first volume devoted exclusively to the topic, best-selling author Bruce Fraser shows you how to take advantage of Adobe Camera Raw to set white balance, optimize contrast and saturation, handle noise, correct tint, and recover lost detail in images before converting them to another format. After learning about the raw formats themselves, you’ll discover hands-on techniques for exposing and shooting for digital raw, using Bridge, Adobe’s new standalone file browser, to preview images and automate tasks, and building a workflow around the digital raw process.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 54 Ratings

Yawn - 2007-07-06
Reviewer Rating:
Personally, I felt this book to be redundant and a wordy tale of how to organize files. I tried to read it but kept dozing off. For me, I just want the writer to get to the point. Anyone well versed in Adobe products will already know most of this information. And let's face it, we all just want to be creative and take pictures. Do we really need to know every--little--minute--detail on how a RAW file is constructed?

For me, I could stand to hear the short version of RAW Files 101. I agree, a little knowledge is great. Also, would like to know how Bridge can be used to process them. But honestly, I was really hoping it would detail the differences of Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" to Adobe's conversion plug in. Nothing.

I'm disappointed...

Most Effective Sharpening I've ever used! - 2008-06-02
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book about 6 months ago and it has become a "bible" of sharpening for me. I shot with 6mp and 8mp (now 10mp) dSLRS and had previously used a single pass of UnSharp Mask or Smart Sharpen for sharpening. (all digital photos need sharpening -- *all* of them -- and in-camera sharpening is not desirable for many reasons)

My photos never came out as sharp as others I had seen published and I kept asking myself, "what am I doing wrong?! Is it my equipment, my photo technique, ...?". Now I know that at least part of it was my *sharpening* technique. Also, I needed to learn that photos properly sharpened for output (printing) will likely *not* look good on the screen (esp at 100%), and how to better judge output sharpness when viewing on the screen. Hints: (1) don't get freaked by apparent sharpening ugliness when viewing at 100% or greater; (2) only view at even zoom factors like 25% and 50%; and (3) 50% is often a fair zoom to use when judging sharpening for output.

The results I've seen from the sharpening techniques in this book range from "great" to "oh-my-god-this-is-*fabulous*". I'm finally producing photos that are as sharp as I had always hoped for, comparable to anything I've seen published.

Bruce Fraser starts at the beginning, explaining the need for sharpening, and proceeds to build a case for why a three-level sharpening process is so effective (Source Sharpening, Content/Creative Sharpening, and Output Sharpening). After you're convinced by his sound reasoning that this is a good idea, he details *how* to implement this 3-pass sharpening process. I codified the three passes into Photoshop Actions, which now take no more time for me to run than the single-pass sharpening I had previously done.

I keep this book in my car or on my shelf, with dozens of post-it tags sticking out where I added my own indexing to all the good parts. I'm sure that this book will become ragged with use, over the years. It is without a doubt the most useful photography book I've bought in the last 10 years.

Great book - 2008-01-07
Reviewer Rating:
This book was a great help getting me started on processing my RAW images. It not only explaines the differences with Camera Raw and JPEG formats,, but also goes into depth on how to edit. It has many nice illustrations, and step by step instructions. Also talks about the different saving formats,,, I would highly recommend this book if you are new to RAW.

Excellent CS2 book - 2008-04-21
Reviewer Rating:
This book is an excellent primer on the fundamentals of Camera Raw, covering a wide array of topics in an effective manner, while also offering many places for you to explore further on your own. Although this book is now out-of-date, with Photoshop CS3 on the market as I write this, this book would still be of value to those who could not afford the current version for some reason.

good value - 2007-10-02
Reviewer Rating:
The text in the book is very good, I really like it. Unfortunately, pictures are not that great, you cannot see those small differences author tries to show you. I think print quality suffers. But I still strongly advise to get this book if you are in RAW and PhotoShop.

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