Chapter 4. Streamlining Camera Raw

Camera Raw immediately follows image management (Chapter 3) in any workflow that aims to do as much nondestructive editing as possible before rendering the final image. The exception is if you just shot an extremely high-volume shoot, such as a sports event, or one with a digital camera that doesn't shoot RAW. In that case, just go straight to Chapter 7. One of the great benefits of working in the CS2 version of Camera Raw is that it adds quite a bit of power to your ability to adjust the image before it leaves Camera Raw. After all, the more brightness range data you have in your image when it enters Photoshop, the better your chances are for getting the exact interpretation you want at the end.

Actual Processing Begins in Camera Raw

This is the first chapter in which you actually process an image. That's perfect positioning for a book about nondestructive image editing; nothing you do in this chapter will destroy any of the original image data. The magic here is that all Camera Raw does is add instructions to the metadata that dictate how every bit of data recorded by the camera should look when it's opened in Photoshop. When you really need to go all the way back to the very beginning, you simply return to the original RAW file and change the settings in the RAW processor. Also, all Camera RAW data is recorded in 16-bit format, with the data itself typically occupying 1012 bits. JPEGs contain a maximum 8 bits of data. So you're actually working with a positive image that has five to seven more f-stops of brightness range than the analog negative that's often suggested as its equivalent.