Well, I can't comment on how "hard" the release date is since I'm not done writing it, but yes, I am taking the book over for Bruce Fraser...it was something he asked me to do and I also have the full support of the Camera Raw team (including Thomas) as well as the Peachpit team that worked with Bruce in the past.
While Camera Raw 4 basically blows CR 3 out of the water in terms of controls (so that chapter will be written from scratch) and CR 4 now has this really weird relationship to not only raw but tiff & jpgs (which is STILL something we're all trying to adjust to) I plan on adding a chapter in the book on the relationship of Camera Raw to Lightroom-it won't be a how to for Lightroom, our other PG partner Martin Evening already has a good book on that...it'll be more about how CR and LR interact and relate to each other.
I plan to continue Bruce's outline for the book and use his words (and images) where still appropriate.
I also know that Bruce had asked Conrad Chavez to step in and take over Bruce's role in Real World Photoshop series...Chris Murphy and Andrew Rodney are "talking" at this stage about that to do when Real World Color Management needs updating.
At this point, since Real World Image Sharpening is such a new release (and we're all still learning from it) I don't know what plans there are for a revision...
But, we're all pretty committed to preserving and extending Bruce's legacy...
