Customer Reviews

Digital Photography Just The Steps For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

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I think I finally found a book I could give my dad if and when he ever decides to buy a digital camera... Digital Photography Just The Steps For Dummies by Frederic H. Jones. It's a very attractive work that doesn't stray from it's purpose.

Contents:
Part 1 - Acquiring Digital Photos: Selecting a Camera and Accessories; Setting Up and Using the Camera; Snapping Digital Pictures; Viewing and Transferring Images; Digitizing Existing Pictures
Part 2 - Editing and Enhancing Digital Photos: Manipulating Image Attributes; Fixing Common Image Problems; Repairing Digital Images; Adding Photo Editor Special Effects; Adding Photoshop Elements Effects; Using Layers
Part 3 - Choosing and Using a Printer; Organizing and Sharing Photos
Part 4 - Special Projects: Taking Close-Up Photos for eBay; Restoring Old Photos; Documenting Your Travels; Creative Mini-Projects; Index

The author's intent is simple: write a book for people who just want to do stuff with their camera and don't want to read 500 pages to figure it all out. Jones writes this book as a series of "steps" attached to each "thing" that you would want to do. Lengthen depth of field? Five steps to follow. Reduce battery usage? Two steps. Scan a photo using Windows scanner wizard? Nine steps... All very easy to follow and you'll get results in short order.

For the software manipulation of your pictures, he uses Adobe Photoshop in most of the examples. At first I thought that if you had some other package, you could just find the menu option that does the same thing. But for the type of reader that would have this book, they probably just want to follow directions and not dive deeply (yet?) into their graphics software. So if you don't have Adobe Photoshop, you may not get as much out of this book as you could.

Another thing I like about this book... It should appeal to a couple different types of photographers. The person who is making the leap into digital photography can use half the book to figure out how best to take pictures. The other person who has the camera but wants to start manipulating their pictures can use the other half to get some great digital images to show off to their friends. And if the bug bites and you get totally wrapped up in this subject, you'll have a solid foundation on which to build...

Nice book, extremely practical, and very easy to use...

This was a good introduction for those of us who were maybe leery of the digital camera revolution. It explains what to look for in a camera, how to use it and how to download to the computer. It's basically a more indepth camera user's guide. It, like the other book on the subject I own and reviewed (Perfect Digital Photography), talks about how to Photoshop your pictures after downloading them.

All in all, it is maybe a smidge too basic, but a good intro to digital photography.

This was very helpful and answered the questions I had. I have several 'For Dummies' books and they have all been helpful.