Customer Reviews

Epson Complete Guide to Digital Printing, Revised & Updated (A Lark Photography Book)

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First of all I am a fairly serious amateur photographer, and had my own darkroom before digital cameras came on the scene, and I love working with Photoshop.

That said let's see what exactly is in this book that has received a wide spectrum of reviews.
The first part of the book discusses choices in buying printers. I have always been curious about how many people actually go out and plunk down a bunch of money to buy a book about buying a printer or a camera. To me the best way is to get recommendations from other people or look up reviews of products on the internet.

The author then presents information on the printer software screen that pops up when you want to print your photo. Contrary to what one reviewer wrote, the book does not discuss printers other than Epson, and the discussion and pictures of the software screen are all about Epson printers. He does discuss that old bugaboo of picture resolution vs printer resolution, something that has always puzzled me. One interesting bit of information is that if your picture resolution (not printer resolution) is above 400dpi your picture may deteriorate in the printing process.

Then follows a fairly useless section of about 50 pages dealing with adjusting your photographs in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The information is very rudimentary, and cannot suffice as a manual for photo manipulation. After all there are 800 page books on this subject. One and a half pages on layers and layer masks? No way. The manual that comes with Photoshop is 400 pages long, and is still inadequate for most people.

There is a section on basic color management which is informative if you've had no real orientation to the subject.

The last part of the book is devoted to subjects such as matting, framing and displaying photographs, and doing special projects such as making letterheads and mailing labels.

The book ends on the topic of changing color prints to black and white, and making panorama shots and prints. Again only a bare bones approach to these subjects.

Finally Mr. Sheppard talks about archival values of printer paper. Interesting, but the discussion involves only Epson papers. That's fine with me as I own 4 Epson printers, but not so fine if you own a Canon.

I bought this book sight unseen because I wanted an entire book on management of photos between computer and printer. To my intense disappointment I found that only 25 pages of this 160 page book were on this subject.

I bought two copies of this book, as both I and my daughter have the Epson 2200 printer. We both expected to find substantial useful information in it about printing!! Instead, it is ==ENTIRELY== a sales pitch, simply telling you what the printers CAN do. The only 'instruction' content is about how to use your photo-editing software. Sure it tells you about the menu you'll find. But, not a word of useful info for any problematical issues we can encounter when using their printers. If you want to know what your printer can do, you can simply research it or read the manual - there's no reason to pay two cents for this book. For photo editing software help, there are dozens of great books out there which contain far more useful information than this primer for utter beginners. I am astounded that they dare to call this a complete guide to digital printing. It isn't a guide to anything. I am extremely dissatisfied.

I have no idea what anyone who says this is advertising is talking about. I have not seen such practical, down-to-earth advice on printing for photographers in any other book. How is advice on using Photoshop to get a great print or simple ways of dealing with color management or ideas on using prints about a sales pitch for Epson printers? Sure, there is information about the printers, their inks and paper, but duh, the book says it is the Epson guide. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a guide to printing for photographers, even people who don't own an Epson printer.

There are better versions one of which I have, but can't think of the title.
Ta

I've been using an Epson wide-format printer for quite awhile, but I still learned something from this book. It covers more than the Epson line, too, so I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about how to get the best output of their digital images.

Many digital photographers are struggling with the ink jet printing process, Rob Sheppard's book is a great guide ot help demystify the terms and procedures that
might other wise stand in the way of making great prints. Rob explains in a clear and concise manner his approach to the printing process. I have recommened this book
to a number of friends looking for a way to get started, the right way, in ink jet
printing. Way to go Mr Sheppard, another helpful book from you!

Who better to write a book on printing than Rob Sheppard, editor of Outdoor Photographer and PCPhoto magazines. . . author of many books and a wonderful seminar/workshop leader. If you have read Rob's other books, I suggest you add this gem to your collection - no matter which printer you have!

Rob has done another outstanding job with this book on digital printing. For anyone with questions on how to get the most out of your image before you print and then how to get the most out of your printer, this is the book for you! When people ask me about books that can help them with their printing, I always refer to Rob's book.

Bill Campbell
Campbell Digital Institute