18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Okay!!!!, December 1, 2007
There are definitely better books out there. There are several great pictures in the book but the author leaves out one of the most important parts: the settings used to take the photo (lens, f-stop, etc.)For basic information check out Scott Kelby's The Digial Photography Book and for detailed info The Better Photo Guide to Digital Photography is great. It gives you quick lessons as well as all the settings used to shoot the pictures discussed in the book. Again the book is okay but I feel there are a lot better ones out there.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
David Graham's MyMac.com Review, November 25, 2007
Like other excellent titles in Wiley's Visual series, Rob Sheppard's book on digital photography is well organized and makes extremely good use of photos to illustrate techniques described in the text. In some ways, the title of the book may do it a disservice: don't think that you will only get 100 tips; there are tips and tricks lodged within the 100 labeled tips. Also, the book provides sound advice for taking better photos, be they digital or not.
In this book I saw great explanations of fundamental photographic information such as WHAT METERS REALLY DO (Tip 22) -- and why it really is important to understand. In the past I've often drawn blank stares when I've tried to explain this topic, and Sheppard (with the help of some great photos) does it simply and succinctly in a way that most people would be able to grasp. In similar manner, more advanced topics are handled such that photographers are encouraged to stretch their abilities to new levels.
Readers who like to flip open a book in random places will really enjoy Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks, 3rd Edition, as it is definitely not necessary to read through methodically starting at page one. You can just crack open the book, pick a tip, any tip, and give it a try the next time you are out with a camera or sitting at a computer with some photo files to play with.
As is customary in Wiley's Visual series, each tip is assigned a Difficulty Level so the readers has some ideas of what they are getting into. The book covers a broad range of topics beyond the fundamentals of taking good photos. While not getting too deep into the fine points, space is devoted to basic digital editing for taking advantage of photo-improvement techniques that were unavailable when darkrooms were full of nasty chemicals. That said, this isn't a book of advanced photo-editing techniques using Photoshop CS3, but it does a dandy job of demonstrating some of the amazing improvements that can be made using Photoshop Elements.
Sheppard gets bonus points for not assuming that everyone uses a PC; key combinations are given for Macs as well as PCs. Just because Mac users are substantially smarter than a typical shoulder roast and can usually translate instructions given for PCs, it is nice that we are not taken for granted as happens in many books on digital editing.
Maybe after taking some great photos and then doing some digital editing to bring out their strong points and minimize any flaws, readers will want to explore some of the many ways that they can make use of their images. Sheppard doesn't let them down here either, as several Tips and Tricks are devoted to various ways of sharing photos on the web, DVDs, and in print.
If this book isn't worth the price of ten cups of java, I don't know what is. It adroitly covers many of the issues involved with the taking, improving, and use of digital photos and does so in ways that are accessible to readers of varied skill levels. It is hard to give a comprehensive review of such a wide ranging book, but I'm quite certain that many people will part with about twenty bucks if they visit a bookstore and flip through the pages. And most of these people will shortly find themselves understanding something that was fuzzy in the past, or trying new ways of taking photos, or getting a little bolder with their digital editing, or trying new ways of sharing their photos. If so, buying and working through Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks, 3rd Edition will have been money well spent.
MyMac.com Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Originally Published at http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=3087
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice presentaion, and "Simplified" is true, December 4, 2009
This review is from: Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks) (Paperback)
This book is excellent with respect to presentation. All glossy printing, and good organization. However, it is certainly "simplified", too simplified for my taste. It is based upon Photoshop Elements 4, and I have Photoshop Elements 8. Simply following instructions was not always possible due to difference in versions 4 and 8. With insufficient detailed description of what the program was actually trying to accomplish, it took some experimenting to figure out how to do some of the things shown in the book. Still it is useful and interesting.
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