The book does a good job explaining how to use Camera Raw. That said, most of what it covers, you can pick up on your own once you learn how to run Camera Raw for the first time (much like HDR, Photoshop does a great job of hiding it). If you are a pro or very serious about your photography, you will find suggestions on how to calibrate and speed up your workflow.

All that said, I find PS + Camera Raw slow and underpowered even compared to Canon's own Digital Photo Pro that comes bundled with each SLR. No wonder Adobe developed Lightroom as a separate product.

Last but not least, do not order this book used from indie sellers with cheap shipping -- it took almost a month to deliver mine from East to West coast!!! I wish I had bought it slightly more expensive from Amazon directly and saved time.

This book enabled me to learn the benefits of shooting in raw. The Photoshop raw image plug-in and all of its controls were described in just the right amount of detail. Since I read this book, I've been able to squeeze every last bit of color and tonal range out of my photos with a better understanding of what I'm actually doing. This book has just the right amount of tech-talk. This is the perfect book for advanced-photo-hobby people that want to get straightforward instruction on how to make the best of using the raw image format.

I am not a professional photographer, rather an interested hobbyist. I just finished studying Camera Raw by Bruce Fraser. I use the term study, because it is a very "readable", but very technical manual which does a great job of explaining the basics of Camera Raw theory and implementation. I took this book with me on a vacation (it is not for vacation reading)and it honestly took me full week to read, re-read and re-read a third time to begin to fully grasp the beauty of a small book which goes from general theory, narrows the focus down to the working detail and then steps back and ties it all together at the end of each chapter and at the end of the book. Bruce Fraser is clearly a very talented writer and teacher. In addition to covering Camera Raw he also explains the use of the File Browser, Metadata, Workflow and Automation better than any other author I have read. If you are "baffled" by the Adobe Photoshop "Help" files explanation of the above, then just give this book a chance and you will come away feeling very much more in control of your Photoshop CS, your camera and your own "style" of using the above mentioned tools. The "clinical" examples are explained step-by-step with visuals of the actual photos and the computer displays to go along with each step in the production workflow. It is just filled with clinical "pearls" of information which all got highlighted with my yellow magic marker. In fact, when I finished, the whole book was one big yellow page, because it is all there with no wasted verbage.
My only critique is one of the printing format. To explain, I have to tell you that if you use bifocals (like I do) it is very difficult to actually see the small print in some of the displays of the actual Adobe menu boxes that are used as examples on at least every other page. So maybe, if this book is updated and re-published, Mr. Fraser could use larger type size in the examples. The type size of the narrative is perfect.

William E. Weddle, MD

The reviewer that gave this book only 3 stars described Bruce Fraser as a gifted author. The description is good. Fraser is always a pleasure to read.
The book deserves the highest rating, even though you might find something to quibble about.

It reveals lots of mysteries about using RAW format in digital photography. This book is easy to read, I enjoy it tremendously.