Smart Object Pipeline [Book Review]

Revolutionary? Tactics? Photoshop?

Dem’s fighting words and author Ted Dillard pulls no punches when he sets out to tech “How to process the ‘Digital Latent Image ….’”

This is the first comprehensive book about Smart Objects in Photoshop and it promises to change how you work with RAW files. I takes the reader through the foundations: the RAW file, its processing, layers and masks, explaining the techniques and strategies to use. Dillard’s attitude is to build an image “rather than chip away at it.”

The points of using Smart Objects in this workflow is to access the image detail in the RAW file when it was originally written to memory.

Moving on, the book goes deeply into the Bayer pixel array and how, during initial exposure, the current each pixel stores is the key to how you can access information.

Techy? Yes, the book is very techy, as it explores bit-depth, colour management and the way you can handle white balance, contrast and brightness to extract every last atom of information in the image.

Fortunately, for those who have a smattering of knowledge about how a digital image is formed will be able to access Dillard’s treasure-house of information in the book.

The book will appeal to experienced desktop pixel pushers, possibly even more so than photographers per se.

The book gains much from large and copious illustrations; as they say, each is “worth 10,000 words.”

Author: T Dillard.
Publisher: Lark Books.
Distributor: Capricorn Link.
Length: 288 pages.
ISBN: 978 1 60059 397 0.
Available at: Smart Object Pipeline: Revolutionary Tactics for the Photoshop Layer Workflow (A Lark Photography Book) (Amazon: $22.76 – 24% off)