Chapter2.Raw Hide: mastering camera raw

Chapter 2. Raw Hide: mastering camera raw

Photo by Dave Moser

Exposure: 1/4000

Focal Length: 300mm

Aperture Value: /2.8

This is the first version of this book to have an entire chapter devoted to Camera Raw. So why a whole chapter? Three reasons: (1) Camera Raw is that important, has that many new features in Elements 4.0, and I felt I needed to cover them all; (2) I needed the extra pages to get my page count up; (3) I really didn't need the page count, but you can't be sure of that. Now, is this chapter for everybody? No. It's really only for people who shoot in RAW format (you'll know if your digital camera can shoot RAW, because the salesman who sold you the camera would've been totally naked at the time of your purchase). Okay, I'm going to get serious for just a moment (and only for a moment, so don't get excitedespecially with that naked salesman around). Camera Raw isn't for everybody. For example, if you're a seasoned pro who gets the exposure dead-on every time and never has white balance issues, go ahead and shoot in a high-quality JPEG format. But for everyone else, RAW lets us fix all sorts of things after the fact, in Photoshop Elements, and because it's all happening within the data from the camera, we can tweak the exposure, white balance, and a dozen other settings to create a new, perfectly balanced "original" from our digital negative. This is very powerful stuff. Now, back to the crazy crap. See the title for this chapter, "Raw Hide"? You're thinking it's that old western TV show, right? Well, I'm thinkin' it's the theme song from that old western TV show. Come on, sing with me: "Head 'em up, move 'em out, Rawwwww Hidddeeee!" (Note to editors: Insert whip sound effect here.)