Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies [Paperback]

David D. Busch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2008

It’s easy to get started in digital photography and take great photos with Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies!   This fourth edition helps you choose the right camera, compose and capture great photos, load them onto your computer, enhance them with Photoshop, and share them online or as prints. Here’s how to compare digital camera features, choose accessories, and explore digital SLRs; get great close-ups, sports and action shots, and portraits; and use image editors including Paint Shop Pro, Corel PhotoPaint, PhotoImpact, and Adobe’s popular Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You’ll also discover how to:

• Compose pictures that communicate
• Make the most of macro photography
• Get great candid photos
• Create the right lighting and use cool lighting gadgets

Take advantage of six cool improvements in digital SLRs

• Follow great ideas for getting your photos published
• Take great shots in a wide range of situations
• Learn to repair and restore treasured heirloom photos
• Turn your images into greeting cards, T-shirts, online albums, or prints

You’ll quickly find what you need in one of the seven minibooks:

• Your Digital Studio
• Using Digital SLRs
• Taking Great Pictures
• Basics of Image Editing
• Editing with Photoshop/Photoshop Elements
• Restoring Old Photos
• Printing and Sharing Digital Images

Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, 4th Edition gets you up to speed on digital cameras and all the tricks, so you can truly enjoy your digital photography experience.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a no nonsense introduction...Everything you'll need to know to get started is there...A very informative book." (Digital SLR Photography, May 2009)

From the Back Cover

All about your camera, how to take great photos, and editing tips, all right here!

Overwhelmed by the choices in cameras, the number of buttons and dials they have, and the volume of images accumulating on your memory card? Take a deep breath and grab this book! Choose a camera, compose and capture great photos, get them onto your computer and make them even better with Photoshop, and share them online or as prints.

• Set up your studio — compare digital camera features, choose accessories, and explore a minibook devoted to digital SLRs

• Learn the secrets — Book III shows you how to get great close-ups, sports and action shots, and portraits with personality

• Get elemental — use image editors including Paint Shop Pro, Corel PhotoPaint, PhotoImpact, and Adobe's popular Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

• Become a restoration expert — learn to repair and restore treasured heirloom photos

• Go creative — turn your images into greeting cards, T-shirts, online albums, or prints

Open the book and find:

• How to take control of your camera's controls

• Tips for composing pictures that communicate

• Secrets of getting great candid photos

• All about lighting, including cool lighting gadgets

• Shooting tips for a wide range of situations

• Six cool improvements in digital SLRs

• What macro photography is and how to make the most of it

• Great ideas for getting your photos published

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 4 edition (December 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470401958
• ISBN-13: 978-0470401958
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

171 of 173 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Digital Photography Book I've Seen, February 28, 2003

By 

"imladyofspain" (Tustin, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies (Paperback)

This is a real photography book! I've purchased eight or nine "digital photography" books before and most of them emphasized the digital aspect more than photography. They seem to have been written by Photoshop gurus who know a lot about image editing and very little about honest-to-gosh photography.

This book is big enough and thick enough to deal with all the topics I wanted to read about. There's the usual material about how digital cameras work, and some helpful chapters on image editing, but the most useful parts are the photography chapters in the middle. These chapters seem to have been written by an actual professional photographer with tons of experience with digital cameras. There are tips about lighting, posing, shooting close-ups, and taking pictures for publication.

Everything is written with the special needs of digital cameras in mind. For example, I've had problems shooting sports photos because of the noticeable lag between the time that I press the shutter button and when my digital camera finally takes the photo. The author addresses this problem, along with many other digital camera peculiarities, such as the noise problems you get when you use higher ISO ratings to increase sensor sensitivity.

Even though some of the advice is fairly technical in nature, the author never resorts to jargon. Everything is explained quite clearly in terms that even a beginner can understand. I never really understood why selective focus was so difficult to achieve with a digital camera until I read the explanation here.

I recommend this book for all photographers, from beginner to advanced. The neophyte can learn how to vastly improve their skills, and even veteran photo hobbyists will learn something.

112 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you need in one book!, August 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies (Paperback)

What a great extension to the Dummies concept! I love Dummies books, but always finished each book wishing there were more information. This "All in One Desk Reference" has that information! It's two or three times the size of a typical Dummies book at 800 or so pages, and it's all meat. Everything you need to know about digital photography and basic image editing is in here.

The emphasis on photography, rather than digital technology, is refreshing. Certainly, there are chapters on how digital cameras operate, and guidelines for choosing a digital camera. But the center of the book has solid chapters on good old fashioned photography, as it applies to digital cameras. There's a chapter on composition, one on close-up photography, another on sports photography, and a great travel photo section. The thick section of color photos are great, too. It's good to see color images in a book about color photography.

The sections on image editing are fairly complete and will get beginners started and more experienced people trying some new things. Both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are covered, but there is a chapter that evaluates most of the popular image editors and compares and contrasts them. This book really is thorough.

However, if you want to buy this book, purchase it for its great coverage of digital photography. That alone makes this the leading digital photography book. The other chapters make it a useful "All in One" reference book.

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm using this as a textbook in my classes., May 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Digital Photography All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies (Paperback)

I teach digital photography at a community college, both for college credit and in evening adult education classes, and have found this book to be the perfect textbook for my beginner and intermediate courses. The first Overview book is about 82 pages long, and provides a good introduction to digital photography. My students learn a little about digital equipment, how to acquire photos, do simple editing, organize them, and make prints. I generally either skip the second book or assign it for extra credit, because it talks about choosing a camera and accessories, setting up a computer, and working with printers and scanners.

The Taking Great Pictures chapters in the third book are the core of my curriculum for both the beginner and intermediate classes, as the content is easy to understand, explains photographic techniques clearly, and can be applied by any digital photographer. The beginner classes simply receive less challenging picture taking assignments, as they work with composition, close-ups, portraits, and sports photography. They also get a lot of use out of the section on scenic photography, as the landscapes here are spectacular.

The beginner classes stop when they finish the fourth book on the Basics of Image Editing. The more advanced image editing chapters, which use Adobe Photoshop Elements, are reserved for the intermediate classes. I do put both groups to work learning to restore old photos, because everyone seems to enjoy this.

All in all I have found this book to be a wonderful learning tool, and like it better than traditional textbooks for teaching digital photography.