Customer Reviews

The Advanced Digital Photographer's Workbook: Professionals Creating and Outputting World-Class Images

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First off, I'm an extremely amateur photographer, so I want to own up to that right away, since I realize that most of the people who buy this book are likely to be professional photographers. I'm not going to do a normal review to discuss the relevant chapter info either. The publisher's official write-up is better for that sort of thing, in my opinion. What I will say is this: I was slow to enter into the world of digital photography. I had the regular middle-range inexpensive digital camera, but whenever I went anywhere that I knew the pictures were going to really matter, I still lugged my SLR with all the great lens choices and accessories.

Last month, after reading through this book as mostly a curiosity, I took the plunge and bought a digital SLR. This book makes you truly appreciate the benefits of digital photography and the flexibility you can achieve through digital that you just can't get with your film negatives. I want to stress in advance that I am not an "advanced" digital photographer, but I still found this book to be beneficial and instrumental in bringing me around to this format. I wouldn't have wanted a basic book for this, since I would have outgrown that with the first round of pictures I took with my new camera.

Now, I'm in the process of working back through this book as I play with my new camera, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is the type of person who craves a little extra know-how when it comes to getting the most out of your work or hobby. If you are an amateur like me, don't be intimidated by the fact that this title was written for professionals who have advanced skills. When it comes to photographs, learning from the professional level is exactly what you want to do. Your pictures can't help but benefit.

The book is full of examples using numerous (and sometimes pricey) 3rd party software and plugins for photoshop. Color management for monitors, printing, and B&W and infrared were focuses of this book, with SEVERAL chapters on B&W alone. Ther was also a lot on printing with your own inkjet printer (most of us use 3rd party professional printing services). The last parts of the book go over making "digital art" or complete collages and pics with photoshop (not photography at all), and the last section deals with turning your photos into paintings using filters.

The description of most everything is pretty broad in nature, and when discussing sharpening (always a hot topic), the suggestion is to "Use USM and keep the pixel radius and threshold pretty low, while changing the % to get the desired effect". That's about the 1 sentence on sharpening without using some 3rd party PS plugin.

Overall, not recommended. I am still looking for a good all-in-one photography book.

Excellent work! Especially the 'fine art workflow' by Stephens Burns!
Debbi