Product Description

Understanding RAW Photography offers enthusiastic amateur photographers everywhere a beginning to discover their potential and opens up a whole new world of image processing, allowing you to perfect your images simply and quickly. A RAW image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera or image scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and ready to be used or printed and yet they allow far more flexibility than a JPEG will. Understanding RAW Photography takes the form of an easy-to-follow workflow, covering everything that you need to know right from the start of a shoot, to processing your image and ultimately displaying it in print or on screen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83722 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

From the Author
I wrote this book as a follow up to the very successful DSLR Masterclass that has helped many novice photographers get to grips with their new digital cameras. Understanding Raw Photography is targeted at the novice RAW photographer and you should not buy it if you are experienced with RAW workflow and expecting an in-depth technical hints and tips book. What this book does do is put everything that you need to start your own RAW workflow in a single book, as usual written in plain english. It takes all of my experience at the RAW workflow and provides handy hints and tips throughout to help the novice RAW photographer get the most from their images. Like I said it is not a comprehensive technical manual but a damn good overview!

About the Author
Andy Rouse is a world-famous photographer, specialising in wildlife photography. He has also been consulted by several software manufacturers during the course of their RAW software development and in Understanding RAW Photography he uses no-nonsense language outlining exactly what amateurs need to understand, without becoming mired in jargon.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant "Beginner" Book on RAW
When I first received this book I felt I wouldn't learn much from it and I was tempted to give it 4 stars, but boy (or should I say "and girl" in the name of equality) was I wrong! I am not really that advanced in raw photography and I have learn't a bit more, let me explain!

The book is made up of 140 pages (my 1st thoughts were that's not many!).
It is divided up into 6 sections - Workflow overview, In the field, Editing essentials, RAW correction and processing, Finishing off and DAM.

I have to admit I personally didn't learn too much from the initial chapters that I had not read in Andy's previous books or from what I knew.

Oh I forgot, yep I did learn one thing in the 2nd chapter and it is very important, it's about exposure and reading the histogram. It explains about shooting to the left or right on the histogram, and the pro's and cons of both.

Apart from that it's not until page 42 that you get to Editing Essentials that the book comes into its own. I should point out that you should not expect a "hold your hand book" or "step by step book", it is fairly basic info, then get out there and try it yourself stuff and wetting the appetite.

We now have downloading info, editing basics, picking the best,and backing up.

We then get RAW correction and processing. Adjusting the black and white points, colour balance and contrast, saturation and black and white, dust spot removal. That is all in about 15 pages with some great shots.

Practical considerations - the histogram is re investigated here.

Finishing off - Direct RAW printing, workflow, and extra info on post processing software and saving the corrected raw files. I will have to try that, I thought you just converted the raw to a tiff or jpeg and the original file was left alone. Bit more learning I think!

Then it finishes with DAM - Digital asset management, concentrating on iView and Picasa.

I definately learn't a few things and will re read the book in the near future as a reminder / reference when I get down to doing more RAW conversions etc and saving to DAM's.

I would say if you are already quite to very competent about DAM and RAW conversion then I doubt you will learn too much if any more from this book, try a more advanced book on specific software like CS3 / Lightroom etc. But for us that are really still begining and learning the ropes this is a useful edition to the library!

RAW explained using some stunning images.
It is always difficult to give credence to any book about photography where the quality of the published pictures is suspect. The digital revolution as far as cameras are concerned have led those of us who were previously successful with film format into a whole new area of learning. Consequently, there are books and tutorial DVDs which seek to assist in that process of education. Those products generally fall into the 3 broad categories of Good, Not so good, and Abysmal.

In this case, however, we have an exception. This is a product which falls into the category of Excellent!

Quite seriously, this man knows his stuff, is able to take some pretty amazing photographs and also quite able to put his skills into book form so that we who wish to learn may do so.

His photography is of the highest calibre and, whilst I did not buy the book to look at his pictures - but, instead, purchased it in order to learn about RAW, I would have found it very difficult to accept anything written by someone who was not able to practise what they preach.

If you are at the stage where you also need to understand RAW, this is the book for you. It will not disappoint.

NM

A must for all Digital Photographers
There are quite a few books out there now on digital photography, most will have a section on RAW, however most will also leave many of your questions unanswered or leave you a little confused. This book not only answers all your questions but is written in a way that makes it easy to understand and follow. It starts with an introduction to why you should be shooting RAW, then covers workflow overview, in the field, editing essentials, RAW correction and processing, finishing off and finally digital asset management. If you have read any Andy Rouse books before you will realise that this is a reference book that you will enjoy reading. I regard myself as an experienced semi pro photographer but have already improved my images from this book. The photographs in this book are amazing, again if you have followed Andy Rouse you will know what to expect and you will not be disappointed. This is simply a must buy for anyone who wants to get the best from their photographs.