Most Helpful Customer Reviews
73 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the digicam/image editing books I've seen!, February 7, 2003
As a relatively novice photographer (haven't owned one since my old Brownie Hawkeye) with some knowledge of computers and a new digital camera, I've been working my way through as many books on digicams and image-editing software as I can find. Some are pretty general, some are more specialized, but most seem to repeat the same mostly superficial information and advice on both photography and digital editing. This book is the great exception! Ang is a very talented photographer and this lushly printed... volume is crammed with his work, but he's also a very good teacher. The first part of the book, under the heading of "Total Photography," is a mini-course in types of cameras and lenses, lighting, optical physics, and the essential practical differences in using film-based and digital cameras. (There's also a survey of information on specific models of cameras, printers, and scanners, which will soon be outdated and which might have been omitted.) The second section, "Photography for the Digital Age," leads you through such topics as composition, zoom, optical distortion, color balance, and how to avoid or at least fix the most common mistakes; I learned a great deal from his clear explanations and visual examples. "A Compendium of Ideas" is almost a separate book, being an excursion through all the major categories of subjects that interest people with cameras, from buildings and travel to microphotography and high-speed sports; you'll want to return to this section now and then for leisurely browsing. "Radical Conversions" and "All about Image Manipulation" are worth the price of the book all by themselves, with very clear and often very detailed discussions of issues which I'm sure are old hat to experienced shutterbugs but which are new and often perplexing to me, including proper cropping, burning-in and dodging, sharpening, blurring, cross-processing, color vs. black-and-white, and lots of others. Ang is quite good at balancing received photographic wisdom with new digital ideas. He also gets deeply into such computer-specific subjects as levels, cloning, and the differences and similarities between channels, layers, and masks. (He seems not to have much use for such glitzy effects-filter tricks as stained glass and embossing filters, with which I have to agree.) "The Output Adventure" is very good on getting the color on your monitor to agree with the color your printer produces, and there's a final section on portfolios, copyrights, and the business of photography. I can't recommend this one highly enough.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully done - Excellent content - I use it in my class, January 21, 2003
As an instructor of digital photography at Florida Atlantic University, I recently selected this work for use as a required Textbook for all my classes. It is a must read for a variety of levels of experience. The selection of pictures, illustrations, use of color are well thought-out. Even the gloss-coat paper gives a notice of quality. Let me say this another way; I had already begun writing my own textbook, being unsatisfied with what was available, until I came across this book. My classes contain many diverse students, from practicing medical doctors, attorneys, e-bay retailers, photography enthusiasts, and of course college students. All are quite satisfied with this 400+ page work of art. Jim Wilson ...
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great all around book for the beginner, February 12, 2007
Digital photographers handbook.
This book is about the preparation that goes into planning trips, the digital darkroom, file maintenance and to a certain extent the composition of the photo.
The photos in the book are ok but not great. They are normal day to day shots that most people take but I think thats part of the concept of the book was to use photos that most people could take so that they don't think to themselves "I cant take that shot". As an example there are shots of kids playing on a beach.
Where this book hits the mark is in it coverage photo manipulation, the hardware involved and how it works, cameras, computers, memory cards and card readers as well as software applications used in image manipulation. In detail it covers how a camera works. How lens's work. The book also describes how to compensate for environmental and lighting conditions and what can be done upfront while taking the picture to minimize any negative effect of light or environmental condition.
One of the helpful things about this book is that he uses the same photo in various stages of manipulation so that you can see what the effect is going to look like in all the stages of manipulation that he describes.
Also covered in the book are different conceptual ideas of photography like photo journalism, architectural photography, macro photography and landscape photography to name a few.
Overall this is a good book for the person just getting into digital photograph but I'm not sure that it will be of much use to the intermediate to advanced photographer thats already familiar with digital image manipulation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
