Customer Reviews

The Digital Printing Handbook: A Photographer's Guide to Creative Printing Techniques

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the age of digital photography has dawned, more and more serious photographers have begun to use Photoshop software to manipulate their photographs. But even after going through the arcane tricks of "levels" and "curves" they sometimes have difficulty transforming what they see on their monitor to what comes out of their printer. Even more committed digital photographers wonder if there are alternate ways to use the technology to create art. This book is aimed at the audience of advanced Photoshop users.

This is not a tutorial for photographers to learn Photoshop. For that I recommend "Photoshop 7 Artistry by Barry Haynes". Instead, this book is aimed at what happens when a file manipulated in Photoshop gets sent to the printer.

The section that I believe will be of most interest deals with printer color management. Photoshop users want to insure that what they see on their monitor will be what they get on their printer. Most Photoshop books discuss using Adobe Gamma to adjust a monitor but few give the details of calibrating a printer. In just 8 pages Daly tells exactly how to set up a profile for your printer so that your monitor and printer will match up. That alone makes this book worth the price.

For photographers interested in going beyond sending the command to print a photo, this book will offer a number of ideas. Some will be quite practical, like a discussion of monochrome printing techniques, or instructions on how to make a CD cover for the CDR on which you might save a photo file. Some will be of interest to the photographer looking to push his work into a more artful stage, like a discussion of how to create a rough-edged negative border around a print. And some will serve to remind us of just how far we can push our photographic art, like discussions of overprinting old manuscripts or creating a hand-bound book of photographs.

The book is not without fault. The discussion of custom printing modes is much too cursory. And even though printed in 2002, the book only refers to the 6.0 version of Photoshop. On the other hand, given the general nature of the discussions, in most cases, this is not a serious limitation.

If you are not interested in tinkering with your computer to get a better digital photograph, this book isn't for you. But for the Photoshop user who wants to get more out of his or her printer, this book focuses on that task more clearly and concisely than any other I've encountered.

This isn't a bad book. It's a little basic. It might function well as your first book to answer elementary questions about digital printing.

I found the sections on color management to be a little thin. If you are looking to graduate to the next level, and want more in-depth knowledge and a better interpretation I'd recommend Photoshop Artistry.

I was looking for some help in printing photographs to my inkjet.
There were many issues I didnt understand in color management.
This book was great for me as it discussed every detail including
color management, differient types of papers, file formats and
print quaility issues. In addition were some good PhotoShop tips
for improving your photo prior to printing. Glad I bought it!

Excellent reference on how to set-up your computer monitor and printer to get the best possible photographic prints. It is well written and provides pictorial guidance and how-to's. The section on color techniques has provided me a more clear understanding of color management and approaches with my digital camera photos. It also has a very useful chapter on references & resources.

This is an excellent book for the creative photographer filled with images and ideas presented in a clear, concise manner. The good and the bad. The concepts Daly teaches are timeless, but the techniques have been changed by the advancement of Photoshop and printers.

This is an amazing book. Not only is it beautiful, it is user friendly and I found it to cover exactly the subjects I've been hungering to learn more about. I am an old dark room practitioner and was working in lith when I went digital. I have been unable to get that look again with Photoshop, which surprised me. But Time Daly has covered it and many other "alternative" processes. Wonderful!