In the old days, say 5-10 years ago, to do quality photographic imaging, one would have to go into the chemical darkroom, spend hours in isolation from others, while working in the dark. The advent of digital processing has brought the photographer back into the light, and has changed the way that we look at, and work with images.
The tools and the media may have changed, but the search for the quality image has not. With the onset of digital capture came a new concept, that of the digital negative, or the RAW file. While JPEG's are convenient and easy to use, by their inherent nature they throw away a lot of the data that the camera has captured, and that loss of data is permanent. The RAW file retains that information, and that gives the photographer the power and control over their image much in the same way the film photographer had in days gone by.
Photoshop CS3 RAW: Get the Most Out of the Raw Format with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Bridge is all about how to process that RAW file. Like the film negative, you can take the RAW file and just process it using common methods, and what you will get is a common image. But, as in the days of old when you would go into the darkroom, you can now work with a RAW processor application such as Adobe Camera Raw, and with some tender loving care, you can get the same spectacular image that you could with a negative. Photoshop CS3 RAW's goal is to show you how to get that spectacular image. The book is 251 pages in length and is divided into 12 chapters.
Chapter 1, "Shooting RAW," begins by looking at the critical things you need to know before you start shooting RAW. These include the basic questions of why shoot RAW in the first place, when to shoot RAW, and the difference between RAW and JPEG. Chapter 2, "Using Adobe's Photo Downloader," describes Adobe Bridge which is a standalone application that comes with Photoshop CS3. By using its downloader application you can extract the images from your camera.
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