Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Where is the Real World Workflow?, October 25, 2009
This review is from: Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) (Paperback)
I was surprisingly underwhelmed by this book. I am normally a big fan of Jeff Schewe (see my Real World Camera RAW review for example) but this book really missed the mark for me. I really expected the same book layout presented in Real World Camera RAW, that is, a brief overview of the advantages of the proposed process, lots of in-depth examples to show the technical variations, and some additional "advanced" topics to help readers structure an improved process. Unfortunately, this book was plagued by a lack of focus and a theoretical approach that lacked substance.
The book seemed to get lost in esoteric and sometimes confusing examples that are often concluded with summary paragraphs with this basic theme of, "You could do it that way but it's not very good." I was left with the feeling that the authors included numerous examples and provided great detail just to debunk a specific technique. I don't really need 4 pages to get the point, simply recommend that we not use Sharpen or Edge Sharpen and be done with it.
My interest was in seeing examples of differing sharpening approaches and the advantages and disadvantages of each. There are a few examples like that in the book, but they are, unfortunately, few and far between. In fact, if you've read Real World Camera RAW, you've actually seen one of the examples already. Perhaps I had false hopes in a book about sharpening focusing primarily on examples. I have no interest in Continuous Tone printing, I do very little Creative Sharpening for the majority of my work, and I only rarely sharpen images for Offset Press. With only a portion of the book aimed at photographers using Camera RAW and an Inkjet Printer, this book seems to be misaligned with the majority of photographers out there with DSLRs and a desire to understand sharpening.
I really hope that the author retools this book for the third edition and simply goes after "Real World Sharpening in Camera RAW and Lightroom" and aims it towards the majority of photographers printing to inkjet printers. This approach would seem to have a much larger base of interested readers and would address the key concepts of sharpening as applied to a tangible workflow. As the book now stands, it's a theoretical approach short on examples that leaves this reader needing additional information.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything you need to know about sharpening a photo, September 12, 2009
This review is from: Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) (Paperback)
Save for certain "special effects", sharpness, clarity and smooth tonal gradations are amongst the critical hallmarks of excellent photographs, and go to the heart of what distinguishes photography as an art form. If you never thought that anyone could fill over three hundred pages with technically essential information and instruction about sharpening photographs, think again because here it is, and it's really important for anyone who strives for excellence in their digital imaging work.
Much more than a cookbook on how to sharpen a photo (though it does that too), this book, now in its second and expanded edition, describes in a way that's easy to understand the very fundamentals of digital imaging technology and image structure which give rise to the need for a multi-stage and multi-purposed sharpening workflow; from there the authors go on to present in considerable detail the optimal techniques for implementing it, so that those of us who read from cover to cover will understand the basis of the techniques they recommend. Years of experience and experimentation are bundled into these techniques, so one can have every confidence that they work well - as I do from having used a fair number of them myself. The book should cater to a broad audience because it covers sharpening, smoothing and noise reduction using a number of applications including Lightroom, Camera Raw, Photoshop and several 3rd party applications. Because some of these techniques have elements of repetitive operation image after image, certain parts of the sharpening process can be automated to improve our workflow efficiency. Photoshop has a functionality called "Actions" which permit one to do this. Hence I really appreciated the authors' inclusion of step-by-step instructions for creating several such Actions, along with Chapter 6 which contains one of the most approcahable introductions to the creation, editing and use of Actions that I've seen in the Photoshop literature.
I own a substantial collection of books, videos and other reference materials on digital imaging, and I must rate this particular volume as one of the most valuable in my library. It is the most technically comprehensive and innovative resource I've ever seen covering sharpening, smoothing and noise reduction, all of which are vital to achieving excellence in the production of fine photographs. It is also very readable and well illustrated.
Oh - and more thing: "Hamish" plays a central role in this book, so if you'd like to find out all you want to know about "Hamish", you'll just have to get it :-)
Five Stars Plus
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Longer Insecure, September 30, 2009
This review is from: Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) (Paperback)
I consider myself a fairly competent user of Photoshop (PS), Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which is a plug-in that comes installed in PS, and Lightroom (LR), but one area where I didn't feel post-processing in my bones was image sharpening, which is the process of adjusting images to both overcome the image softness inherent in digital photography and to make artistic adjustments. I'd read the first edition of this book, and understood the difference between capture, creative and output sharpening, but wasn't always sure what those sliders in Unsharp Mask were doing for me. Since that first edition, Adobe had improved the sharpening facilities in ACR and LR. It seemed like visiting the second edition was in order.
After explaining what sharpening is and why images need to be sharpened, Schewe, building on the work of the late Bruce Fraser, explains multipass sharpening and the somewhat different approaches taken by the main PS, ACR and LR software. The author then describes each of the tools available and their effects. He then shows the application of each of the tools to a digital workflow in each of the three softwares, and finishes up by showing how to speed up the processes by using actions and presets. Along the way, he also discuses digital noise and its reduction, an area that is intimately linked with sharpening.
This is not a subject for the photographer new to post processing. A description of the tools involved may be quite intimidating to the tyro, but ultimately every image processor has to face up to sharpening. Luckily, it seemed to me that Schewe had improved on previous explanations, and he incorporates several graphic techniques that make it clear. If the reader really wants an appreciation of the sharpening tools, create the test file presented in chapter 4 and follow along with the author on a computer. When I had finished the book this time I not only had a much better feel for sharpening but I also had several pleasant surprises.
As Schewe explains, capture and creative sharpening require the use of several different PS tools for effectiveness, and understanding what each does is important to understanding the process. But LR and ACR combine these processes and ultimately make capture sharpening much simpler. Similarly, output sharpening is much more cut and dried, with the sharpening to be applied a matter of factors, like original and final image size, all of which are virtually formulaic, and which my image processor of choice, LR, applies on the fly. Creative sharpening (if needed for artistic reasons) still requires an export to PS, but is much easier if one is not being confused by capture and output sharpening.
To test my knowledge and good luck, I reprocessed and printed several pictures from scratch (i.e., the RAW file). Following Schewe's guidance I was happier with each of these images than, or at least as happy as, I was with my old prints. I think I finally have a handle on sharpening.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
