Digital Art Photography For Dummies [Paperback]

Matthew Bamberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 19, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0764598015 | ISBN-13: 978-0764598012 | Edition: 1

So you’ve made the jump to digital photography and you’re having a ball with your new camera, right? Now, you’re wondering just what it would take to make your photos a little more than just snapshots. Well, Digital Art Photography For Dummies is a great place to find out!

You’ll not only discover great new ideas, you’ll see the effects in full color. This book will help you

• Get fabulous, well-exposed photos, no matter what your shooting conditions may be
• Tweak, edit, and enhance your images to create something a lot better than what you started with, or maybe something entirely new
• Produce gallery-worthy art prints that people are willing to pay for
• Find out if it’s time to upgrade your computer to handle graphics work

Sound like fun? This plain-English guide makes it easy, too! You’ll find out just what makes a picture artistic, how to plan and set up a good photo shoot, what kinds of tools are available in Photoshop to help you enhance or even completely revamp an image, and how to be sure that what comes out of your printer meets all your expectations.   Best of all, this book is jam-packed with full-color images that show you just what you can produce. You’ll find out how to

• Select the right digital equipment
• Shoot in color, black-and-white, and at night
• Choose subject matter that fits your style
• Understand and use your camera’s settings to get the best shots
• Photograph landscapes, people, action, and just about anything else
• Create special effects in Photoshop
• Improve the quality of your photos or turn them into true works of art
• Mat and frame your work for maximum effect

If you’re comfortable with your digital camera but want to find out more about creating cool effects in Photoshop, you can jump directly to Part III and discover tips and techniques that turn ordinary pictures into extraordinary art. Or maybe you’ve been trying to get better nighttime photos. Part II is all about setting up your equipment and getting the perfect shot. Like all For Dummies books, Digital Art Photography For Dummies is designed so you can go directly to the part that most interests you.

Whether you’ve been thinking of selling your work or you just want to create a knock-their-socks-off family gallery that your relatives can view online, this book shows you how to take your photography hobby to the next level. Even if you just want to look at the pictures for inspiration, you can’t go wrong!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"there is a lot of content packed into 370 pages…served up in a friendly manner…" (Amateur Photographer, September 2006)

Journalist/photo artist Bamberg provides a thorough overview not only of digital photography but also of photography in general. In Part 1, he offers solid, practical advice on defining one's audience and personal approach to photography and discusses the process of making photographs, various compositional elements (e.g., color, light and shadow, perspective), and the transition to digital photography. Part 2 contains wide-ranging tips about photographing outdoors and indoors, photographing people and animals, and taking color, black-and-white, and night shots. Part 3 deals with the use of PhotoShop; Part 4 is about managing digital files, printing photographs, and matting and framing one's work. In Part 5, and in a bonus section titled "On the Web," Bamberg imparts additional tips that address everything from photographing on a cloudy day to enhancing one's photographs with text. The book includes a useful index for locating specific information and is illustrated with more than 300 full-color photographs. Bamberg has written a remarkably clear and comprehensive overview of digital photography; recommended for all libraries, especially for public libraries where there is interest in amateur photography.
—Raymond Bial, First Light Photography, Urbana, IL (Library Journal, April 1, 2006)

From the Back Cover

Take great shots in a variety of artistic styles

Go from hobbyist to photographic artist with digital technology!

So, you've made the jump to digital photography, but you're still not sure how to shoot and print gallery-quality images? Find out what the pros know! This power-packed book helps you shoot landscapes and portraits, work with special effects, enhance photos with Photoshop®, and create art worthy of gallery space. Illustrated with more than 300 full-color photos.

Discover how to

• Create a gallery-quality art print
• Make the leap from film to digital photography
• Shoot in color, black-and-white, and at night
• Choose subject matter that fits your style
• Select digital equipment

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (December 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764598015
• ISBN-13: 978-0764598012
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #972,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matthew Bamberg was born in Miami. His mother, a writer, and father, a CPA, were New Yorkers who moved to Florida to escape the brutal Northeastern winters.

After graduating Coral Gables High School, Bamberg attended Miami Dade College and Florida State University where he studied meteorology. During this time and a few years after he finished his B.S. degree at FSU, he studied cloud structure as part of a NOAA Florida cloud seeding experiment. Part of his job was to photograph clouds from a Cessna aircraft before and after silver iodine was deposited into them.

In 1980 he moved to California to attend San Francisco State University and became a public school teacher where he won several technology awards and wrote many grants procuring dozens of Macs for the school districts in which he worked. After teaching for 14 years, Bamberg went back to school get a master's degree. He studied art and technology education.

In the late 1990s, Bamberg moved to Palm Springs and become a writer and photographer. His writing focused on interdisciplinary art and popular culture, including the mid-century modern architecture revival around the world.

As a freelance writer he took many photographs for hundreds of articles he wrote, which were published in the "Desert Sun," "Palm Springs Life" and the "Riverside Press-Enterprise." Curious by light striking his lens (direct and bold or soft and willowy) and the sounds (especially of the shutter opening and closing), he struck a relationship first with film and then, like so many, with the digital camera's sensor.

After traveling around the world as a photographer, he began printing, framing and selling his photographs in many Southern California stores. His books, "Digital Art Photography for Dummies" and three books in the "Quick and Easy Secrets" photography book series describes the process from taking the picture to printing and framing it.

For his latest book, "New Image Frontiers--Defining the Future of Photography," Bamberg interviewed top world engineers, photographers and gallery owners seeking to find answers to sensor research, new camera models (including the new mirrorless line manufactured by a number of companies), and sought an answer the proverbial question: "How does a photographer get his work into a gallery?"

Currently, he is working on two new state-of-the-art books--Beginning HDR Photography and Photography Applications to Cloud Computing.

Aside from his writing about f-stops, shutter speeds, and the fabulous job the digital camera manufacturers have done that permit photographers to take almost noiseless pictures in the dark at high ISO speeds, Matt teaches photography at UCR and writing at the the University of Phoenix.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You must get "Digital Art Photography for Dummies" if you shoot digital., January 24, 2006

By 

W. N. Hartwell "Wcoyote" (Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digital Art Photography For Dummies (Paperback)

If you are a digital photographer that is starting out or trying to get into the "art" side, then this book is for you. This book is well written, easy to understand, and full of excellent images and great walk throughs. I can tell that Matt is very comfortable with this topic and is an expert in his field. It touches on many easy ways for new shutterbugs to expand their knowledge without taking the fun out of photography. His Adobe Photoshop knowledge is also very useful when post processing scans of film, slides, or negatives as well as existing digital images.

Matt, thanks for your time and energy in writing this book. I will recommend it to both family and friends.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Work, October 15, 2006

By 

Jack Missal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Art Photography For Dummies (Paperback)

Matt Bamberg's book Digital Art Photography for Dummies is an excellent resource for both the beginner and the advanced student of Digital Photography. I have read the book and of especial interest to me were the numerous overt and subtle suggestions about technique and execution. Suggestions which I have used to great effect to dramatically improve my own compositions and to better concentrate and focus my shots.

In addition I really benefited from the suggestions regarding how to process and enhance your work, post shooting. One of the more important foci of the book regards how to transform your work from more simple photographic imagery into more complex renditions which can be considered artistic. Matt explains these techniques for image modification easily and logically and it was not difficult with the right equipment and software for me to begin experimenting with altering my works to produce far more spectacular work. Work which others have expressed interest in. I have even become my church photographer and have recently had other people ask me to undertake photographic assignments on their behalf. In addition I have started the process of taking previous shots and altering them for inclusion into my written works, as graphic enhancements to my writings.

However the book also contains a myriad of techniques which are useful and helpful for the amateur and for the individual who uses photography as a part of their other work. I am often involved in investigations and through some experimentation and adaptation I have used techniques suggested and explained by Matt in order to clarify, focus, and render my investigative photographs far sharper, clearer, and more relevant for my clients. So the book has indirectly benefited me professionally as well.

I have enjoyed Matt's book, have visited his blog and site, and found him to be an accessible and helpful author. Additionally he obviously knows his subject matter and is therefore professionally well-qualified. He seems very experienced and yet eagerly experimental, two traits I like in any individual who is trying to teach me something new.

I have Matt's book and consider it a valuable addition to my personal library on the subjects of both art and photography.

I recommend the book.

Jack.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Digital Art Photography for Dummies, December 27, 2005

By 

Mark Grumet (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Digital Art Photography For Dummies (Paperback)

I liked this book because it helped me in my work as a Realtor. I now frame and compose pictures better for my listings.

It has some good techniques for taking pictures indoors using available light rather than flash.

If I get back to the office and a picture did not come out quite right, I can fix it with photoshop using Matt's tips.

I would highly recommend this book.