Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS3

This review will be short and to the point. I was looking for a comprehensive book on Camera Raw and wanted to avoid the superficial treatment this subject gets in most books. This book succeeds on that level and countless others better than any other book I've encountered. Bruce Fraser's torch has been passed into the extremely capable and equally accessible Mr. Schewe's and we are all the beneficiaries. Some of the most significant points I took away from this book were 1) the inner workings of Bridge's cache and how to take advantage of the optimum settings for your digital workflow. 2) the true advantages of DNG in terms of metadata and long-term accessibility. 3) The importance of designing and following a digital workflow that helps alleviate the burdens of processing hundreds of digital negatives following a shoot. 4) Using the full range of features available with Bridge and converting it from a simple file browser to a workhorse for digital image processing, sorting, viewing, and cataloguing. This book has changed my complete outlook on Bridge and has made it a central part of my workflow. I am recommending this book to anyone who's been on the fence about RAW, DNG format, or Bridge. It is simple a masterful product that is both incredibly practical as well as a joy to read.

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.

This book is clear, well written, organized in an easy to understand way and packed full of information. I wish I had read it before taking thousands of photos with my camera raw. I will absolutely make changes to both the way I shoot and process images. I think this book should be REQUIRED for anyone who uses Photoshop and camera raw with their digital camera. Thank you Bruce Fraser for an absolutely wonderful book - I can't put it down!

Not much to add to others' praise of this book - it's terrific. Bruce Fraser is also one of the foremost experts on color reproduction around. Bruce gives you step-by-step instructions on pp 62-64 for calibrating the plug-in to work with your camera. Those instructions alone are worth the price of this book. Take an hour to make these adjustments. Not only will you save yourself hours of work in Photoshop down the road, but you'll also be sparing the lives of millions of innocent pixels from the ravages of Photoshop color adjustments.

Before getting this book, I knew the advantages for shooting with the raw file format, but dreaded the workflow issues associated. Bruce's book changed all that and now I can't wait to shoot using raw more often. Not only did Bruce throroughly explain the advantages of using RAW, but he also tells you where Adobe Camera Raw works better than Photoshop, where Photoshop works better than ACR, and how to automate a few of the functions to improve your workflow dramatically. I can't begin to explain how much time I now save when processing raw files. It's not a long book, but I have to say it has been one of the most helpful Photoshop books I ever bought. I'll never use my camera's native raw software again!