O'Reilly Digital Media

Sharpening with Camera Raw

Almost every RAW file requires some degree of sharpening to counter the effect of blurring that occurs at some stage of image capture or image processing. But when do you apply the sharpening? In Camera Raw or later in Photoshop? The answer isn't as straightforward as you might think. In this excerpt from Photoshop CS2 RAW, Mikkel Aaland shows you how to sharpen your images with confidence.

Shooting RAW with Mikkel Aaland

We talked to Mikkel Aaland about shooting RAW when we met up with him at the MacWorld Expo in January 2006. Aaland is the author of Photoshop CS2 RAW and is an expert with working with RAW files in Photoshop, Bridge, and Adobe Camera Raw. (11:34)

Mikkel Aaland is an award-winning photographer, popular workshop leader, and the author of ten books, including Photoshop CS2 RAW (O’Reilly 2006), Shooting Digital (2nd edition, Sybex, 2006), Photoshop Elements 4 Solutions (4th edition Sybex/Wiley, 2006), Photoshop for the Web, 2nd edition (O’Reilly, 1999), Still Images in Multimedia (Hayden, 1996), and Digital Photography (Random House, 1992). Since 2001 Aaland has been a regular guest on G4’s Call For Help TV Program with Leo Laporte. In 2003 he was a guest columnist for newsweek.com. In 2004, Shooting Digital was named the best "Digital Photography" book of the year by the Designer’s Bookshelf.

Aaland’s documentary photographs have been exhibited in major institutions around the world, including the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and the former Lenin Museum in Prague. In 1981 he received the National Art Directors award for photography. He has contributed both text and/or photography to Wired, Outside, Digital Creativity, American Photo, The Washington Post, and Newsweek, as well as several European publications.

Aaland has been a pioneer in digital photography, an interest that dates back to a 1980 interview he conducted with Ansel Adams. When Aaland asked Adams what he would be pursuing if he were just starting out, Adams discussed at length his fascination with digital photographs of the planets. Aaland has pursued this new technology since its infancy. During the 1980s he reported on digital photography as west coast editor of the Swedish FOTO magazine, and wrote a column on the subject for American Photographer magazine. Aaland is one of the few orginal Adobe Lightroom’s alpha and beta user, and he served as an unpaid advisor on the project for over a year.

Julieanne Kost: Window Seat Photography

Julieanne Kost is an amazing amalgamation of personalities: painter, humorist, inspirational speaker, technician, educator, photographer, and illustrator. She assembled this portfolio of images over the course of five years while traveling for her job as a Photoshop evangelist for Adobe. And they are also included in her new book: Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking.

Walking the Talk with Julieanne Kost

In addition to over 150 full-color images, Julieanne Kost's new book, Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking includes details on such topics as how to make great-looking images of clouds, mountains, farmland, and water, while photographing through airplane windows. This excerpt from Kost's book explains how to do just that. Kost details some of the techniques she used to transform images captured from the skies above into the final images that appear in the book.

Photoshop Hall of Fame member Julieanne Kost joined Adobe Systems in 1993 and currently serves as the Graphic Arts Evangelist, educating graphic designers, photographers, educators, and fine artists. She is a master of both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and has used them extensively in graphic design, print, and photography as well as cross-media for online and multimedia productions.

Julieanne is a passionate photographer. She has had several shows of her work, and many of her images have been published. She is a frequent lecturer and teaches courses in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator at prominent industry tradeshows, distinguished fine art and photography schools and workshops, and numerous trade conferences around the world.

Managing Digital Images: Applying Ratings and Keywords

The explosion of digital imaging has left professional and serious amateur photographers drowning in photographs, with little guidance on how to store, sort and organize them. In this excerpt from The DAM Book, Peter Krogh shows you expert techniques for applying ratings and keywords so you can begin to take control of your digital photo library.

Peter Krogh is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on DAM, or digital asset management. A professional and avid personal photographer for more than twenty years, Peter is a passionate advocate for both the photographer and the photograph. He is an Alpha Tester for Adobe and his contributions can be seen in some of the features available in Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Bridge, and the DNG RAW storage format.

You can see his photography work on his website, www.peterkrogh.com. Read more about the book, and participate in an online discussion about the principles he promotes at www.theDAMbook.com.

Introduction to Camera Raw

Adobe's Camera Raw is arguably the most popular RAW-format converter available today. In this video, Deke McClelland introduces you to this tool and shows you tips for making image adjustments.

Introduction to the Variations Color Correction Tool in Photoshop

Photoshop's Variations tool simplifies color correction by presenting you with visual options in realtime. In this training video, Deke McClelland shows you how perform simple color correction quickly.

Check out dekePod, a video podcast series with Deke McClelland.

Electronic publishing pioneer Deke McClelland is a popular lecturer on Adobe Photoshop and the larger realm of computer graphics and design. He has hosted the interactive "Video Workshop" CD that shipped with Photoshop Versions 7, CS, and CS2, as well as hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for industry leaders lynda.com and Total Training. In addition to his video work, Deke has written 84 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print.

One of the most award-winning writers in the technology market, Deke received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Computer Book in 1989. Since then, he has garnered more than 20 honors, including seven independent citations from the Computer Press Association. In 2002, he was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame.

In 2004 Deke created the One-on-One™ book series, which uses video, step-by-step exercises, and hundreds of full-color illustrations to provide readers with the closest thing possible to private instruction from a recognized expert. These ambitious, self-paced guides include the bestselling Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One and Adobe InDesign CS2 One-on-One. Late in 2006 Deke teamed up with vanguard online training company lynda.com to bring the One-on-One training strategy to a line of video products, beginning with Photoshop CS3 Beta One-on-One Preview, the first series available for the public beta of Photoshop CS3. In addition to the full 20-plus hour Photoshop CS3 One-on-One, his plans include Illustrator One-on-One and InDesign One-on-One. Among Deke’s current lynda.com videos are Photoshop Elements 5 Essentials and the #1 ranked Photoshop CS2 Channels and Masks (available for immediate viewing at www.lynda.com/deke).

Deke is an Adobe Certified Expert, a member of the PhotoshopWorld Instructor Dream Team, and a regular speaker for the Photoshop Fling cruise seminars. Deke lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife and two super-powered boys.