Comments about oreilly Photoshop CS2 RAW:

Review by Cynthia Walker

First thing's first: Make sure you have RAW settings on your digital camera (as they all are different). If you can't shoot RAW, this book won't be of any help to you.

Although this book is quite fuzzy on what a RAW file actually is, it gives a great overview on what the Adobe Bridge is and how to use it to manage your images.

"Photoshop CS2 RAW" goes into great detail the tools to use within Photoshop to achieve the perfect image. A background in photography or design would be considered an asset before purchasing the book. Knowing terminology within these subjects will ease the learning curve and quicken the pace.

I would rate this book useful to someone with intermediate to advanced skills.

If I had one beef about the book it would be that some of the recipes seemed "rushed." In a traditional cookbook, you would find a recipe that will either point you to another recipe required for a portion of the recipe, or have the recipe reprinted as part of the new recipe. Though periodically the book would do this, I found that this was typically done at the beginning, sometimes as we proceeded through the book, this practice wasn't kept up, and I would find myself searching through the book for the recipe that had covered the step that was mentioned but not referenced or explained.

Review originally posted at: http://www.elug.linux.ab.ca/reviews/photoshop_cs2_raw.shtml

Comments about oreilly Photoshop CS2 RAW:

The title of this book is an accurate description, as you would expect, of its contents. It is specifically written for users of Adobe products: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw.

So, if your camera does not provide the RAW format, and/or you do not use Adobe products, should you buy this book?

This book is, obviously, going to be most useful for Photoshop users. However, I suggest there are several reasons why anyone who likes to edit digital images can benefit from the book, regardless of camera capabilities or image editing software preferences.

Chapter 1, Shooting and Importing RAW, has the best description that I have seen of the trade offs between the RAW and JPEG formats.

Chapter 5, Advanced Tonal Control, has examples of what can be achieved with a full-featured image editing application. True, the step-by-step procedures are unique to Photoshop, but seeing the results demonstrates--dramatically--the possibilities.

Chapter 6, Sharpening RAW Smoothly, contains very useful information on "When to Apply Sharpening." Information that is independent of software. To quote the author: "There is a lot of misunderstanding about when and how to apply sharpening." The examples provided effectively demonstrate the use of this software tool.

There is more--a total of 10 chapters. The printing quality is very high. I certainly recommend this book to Photoshop users, but others will find valuable information in this book as well.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop CS2 RAW:

First and formost one of the best books I have come accross in a long time.

If you already understand RAW then, this book will add to your knowledge base. Remember, you will need a camera that has the RAW setting!

Later Gaters!

Comments about oreilly Photoshop CS2 RAW:

The book is excellent, but right now I am very disapointed about the book examples, no place to download or get them, I guess it would be very helpfull for the readers any way to get the book examples online to test with it or practice.

Comments about oreilly Photoshop CS2 RAW:

Photoshop CS2 RAW

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

First Edition: March 2006

ISBN: 0-596-00851-1



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