Rating: 

I first learned of RAW digital images via the Olympus e-10 camera I bought in early 2001. However, the proprietary software that Olympus provided to process their RAW files was so clunky that I didn’t actually switch over to the format until the free version of Adobe Camera Raw software came out as a Photoshop 8 add-on. The problem then became that there was (and still is) no instruction manual for Camera Raw and some of the choices in the user interface are less than intuitive. The value of using RAW files was obvious however, so I have stayed with shooting that way routinely. Thus, I brought to this book review several years of catch-as-catch-can Camera RAW editing experience … but still some nagging questions remained such as, “Just what is Luminance Smoothing all about?” and “What am I really doing when I change Shadow Tint?”.

On the cover there is a subtitle which is easy to miss but that really tells the whole story: “Using Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop to Get the Most out of Your Digital Camera”. Five of the 10 chapters do provide a systematic and detailed understanding of all the editing functions of Camera Raw along with a very complete set of screen shots that provide a visual complement to the text. But really, there is more to the book than that. It is organized as a comprehensive look at how Adobe has provided a set of interrelated software packages for digital workflow, editing, and data management needs. This coverage begins with making the choice to shoot in the RAW format and how to set up your camera in order to provide the best digital data for editing. We then go to getting the files out of your camera and into Adobe Photoshop by using Adobe Bridge software to open Adobe Camera RAW. We learn about keeping the software up to date (though I must say, I find the Adobe internet link works only sporadically at best). After we learn to edit in Camera RAW, we learn about batch processing, automating tasks, archiving, and distributing files. There is even a section on writing custom scripts.

This book is an easy read. The author has a “sharing” style in which he passes the most technical of information by acting as a guide rather than a tutor. As a knowledgeable reader, he hit me just right. I didn’t agree with everything I found here however. He has a whole chapter on “Making Better Black & White Images in RAW”. Now, there are a lot of ways to go from color to monochrome in Photoshop. I tried his suggestions and decided never to repeat that approach again. On the other hand, I agree with him that reducing noise is usually better done in Photoshop. He tells all about how to reduce noise in Camera RAW (and answers my quandary about Luminance Smoothing in the process) but then he goes on to show and tell how to do it better in Photoshop CS2. I’m not sure where any part of this book fits in with Photoshop Elements. Elements isn’t even found in the index. I’m sure parts of the content will be helpful to Elements users but as usual, you will have to figure out how to make the transfer.

Jim Hawkins
http://home.earthlink.net/~jhawkinssprint5/index.html
Light and Shadow Camera Club