Camera RAW 101: Better Photos with Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom
by Jon Canfield
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jon CanfieldEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-08-18
ISBN: 0817432299
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Amphoto Books
Book Reviews of Camera RAW 101: Better Photos with Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom
Book Review: A deeply flawed book
Summary: 1 Stars
What this book attempts is admirable -- to introduce digital photographers to the process of using Photoshop to convert RAW images to fully usable formats. But it aims at a broad audience audience of users of so many programs -- Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom, in all their various versions -- and this is its fatal flaw. For there are differences among these various programs and the many versions thereof, some minor but some very significant, and the book's efforts to distinguish among them are desultory and inadequate.
The book is also extremely incomplete, sloppily put together, and carelessly edited -- like a cookbook whose recipes were never field-tested before being published. Here are just a few examples. The many excellent illustrations showing screen shots of Adobe Camera Raw in action switch from one version of Camera Raw to another, without comment. Up until p. 58 we see one version of Camera Raw, but suddenly on p. 59 there is a shift to a different version -- one that has different control sliders. But there is no comment about this in the text. How is the reader to make sense of this? Which sliders from the first version correspond to which from the second? The author never even discusses the differences between versions. There is only a vague reference to "all versions of Camera Raw" on p. 59 to even hint to the reader that there are many versions of the camera raw plug-in, and that the one the reader is using may not match the illustrations and descriptions in the text. It is left to the reader to make guesses. I suppose that what is called the "Shadows" slider in one version is called the "Blacks" slider in the other, but who knows? And what about the important "Recovery" slider? There doesn't seem to be any corresponding slider in the other version. What is worse, the author doesn't even mention this slider, either in the text or the index. I had to go to my trusty "Photoshop Elements 7: The Missing Manual" to discover that this important control allows you to bring back detail in overexposed highlights without overexposing the rest of the image. How could a careful and responsible author fail to even mention this feature? It boggles the mind.
Pages 156-161 put forward a fascinating procedure for increasing dynamic range, allowing you to salvage a photograph with a compressed dynamic range by in effect combining two images -- one adjusted for shadow detail and the other for highlights. Unfortunately, the procedure does not work. Where it breaks down is on p. 158 where the author tells us to "open the same image [a second time] in Camera Raw" without bothering to mention that after the image was manipulated the first time in Camera Raw, an .xmp file was created recording the raw conversion data for the image. Once that file is created, opening the image in Elements bypasses the Raw Conversion software altogether. I'm sure there's a way around this, but the author never gives us a clue that problem even exists.
Finally, there is almost no discussion of the crucial issue of file formats, which ones to use and when to use them. At various points in the conversion process, one is faced with the question of whether to save one's work as a .jpg, or a .dng, or a .psd (among others). How is the beginning user of raw conversion software supposed to decide this when the issue is not even broached in the text?
So my advice is not to waste your money on this book. For just a few more dollars, you can get Ben Long's excellent "Getting Started with Camera Raw," which is not plagued with the problems that bedevil Canfield's deeply flawed manual.
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