Adobe Camera RAW - Product Review - Brief Article - Product/Service Evaluation

PSA Journal, Sept, 2003 by Bruce Clifton

$99.00 from adobe.com

Adobe Photoshop[R] Camera RAW is something you can do without, but if you intend to use raw image files from your digital camera, you won't want to. Camera RAW is a plug-in for Photoshop 7.0.1 or later, or Photoshop Elements 2.0, and can only be obtained by download from the Adobe website: http://www.adobe.com/products/ photoshop/cameraraw.html

Be sure to note if this plug-in will work with your camera, as it will not be updated by Adobe and it will be included in future versions of Photoshop, so if you can wait....?

Raw files are the actual in information from the digital camera sensor with only minimal processing by the camera. They are not compressed, but are only 1/3 the size of an equivalent RGB file since each pixel is either red or green or blue in stead of red and green and blue.

Compared to the Canon FileViewer Utility and Canon ZoomBrowser EX that came with my Canon EOS-1Ds, the Adobe Camera RAW is much faster, much better, and much more intuitive for adjusting image settings prior to opening in Photoshop. For example, the color balance controls in Camera RAW provide easy-to-use sliders for blue-yellow balance and the green-magenta balance, as well as an eyedropper for setting a neutral balance.

Here are some websites that have indepth reviews of Adobe Camera RAW:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/ camera-raw.shtml

http://www.dpreview.com/news/ 0302/03021904adoberawplugin.asp

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ SOFT/PCR/PCR.HTM

http://www.creativepro.com/story/ review/19008.html

There are other raw file conversion utilities, but this one by Thomas Knoll, the original author of the Photoshop program, is a real winner.