REAL WORLD CAMERA RAW WITH ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS
By Bruce FraserReviewed by Tom Zinneman
Camera Raw! What’s that? If you’re not into digital photography, you probably have no idea what this means. However, if you’re a digital shooter, you probably know that RAW is one of the formats used to store images on an advanced digital camera. As one becomes more knowledgeable with digital cameras, at some point you may want to switch to the RAW format. Most professionals using a digital camera, shoot entirely in RAW.With the RAW format, which is different for each manufacturer, one needs a special program to convert it to a more useful format, such as .jpg, .tif, or Adobe’s .psd. Each manufacturer, such as Canon or Nikon, provides a conversion program with the camera when it is purchased. In addition, there are third-party programs, such as Phase One Capture and Adobe Photoshop CS that provide conversion programs. This book discusses how to use Adobe Photoshop’s Camera Raw feature that was available as a plug-in for Photoshop version 7 and is now part of version 8, which is called CS. The latest version (3) of Adobe’s Photoshop Elements also includes a Camera Raw plug-in.
As indicated in the title, this book describes Photoshop’s Camera Raw feature. The book has seven chapters, the first three of which deal specifically with Camera Raw. These three chapters discuss what Camera Raw is, how it works, and how to use it. Adjustments, such as bit depth (8 or 16 bit), white balance, tint, exposure, luminance smoothing, color noise reduction, chromatic aberration, vignetting, and calibration are discussed in detail.
The remaining four chapters deal with aspects that are related to Camera Raw. These include discussions on the File Browser, Workflow, Metadata, and Automation. The chapter on Understanding Metadata is rather interesting. The author provides a good discussion of XMP (Extensible Markup Platform), which is an open, extensible standard for creating, storing, and sharing metadata. Of importance to photographers is how copyright and rights management notices are embedded right in the image. The final chapter on Exploiting Automation discusses how one can convert raw images that contain the metadata you want in a batch process mode, thus saving considerable time as opposed to working with images individually.
This is a very specialized book. However, it provides a wealth of information for those photographers working with RAW files and using Adobe’s Photoshop CS to process them. It is a worthy addition to a photographer’s library.
Copyright 2005
Peachpit Press
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Retail - $34.99; 235 pages