Customer Reviews

Mastering Black and White Digital Photography (A Lark Photography Book)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am impressed with this book. I have read many run-of-the-mill Photoshop books and this isn't one of them for all the right reasons. This book is chock full of useful, long term learning about black and white photography from the moment you look at a scene to the final print. While it is geared toward work in Photoshop, it spends enough time in basic design principles and how to shoot, that after practicing the principles in the book I will be a much better photographer rather than just a more skilled user of Photoshop.

The examples in the book are plentiful, useful, and gorgeous. Many side-by-side photos show you the before and after, and in fact many of them are 6 or 8 side-by-side comparison shots of different techniques or adjustments. This is the book for someone who loves looking at spectacular black and white work and wants to bring her work closer to that level.

There are five large chapters: The Language of Mono, Color into Grayscale, Digital Black and White, Image Editing & Effects, and The Print. In the first two chapters, the basic thrust is on colors -- the colors we see and that the camera records -- and how they can be manipulated to create stunning black and whites. The sections on filters I found particularly helpful. I often stopped and tried the various techniques on some of my own photos.

Digital Black and White, Image Editing & Effects are the meat and potatoes. Freeman is of the Ansel Adams school and so begins to talk about tonal ranges using the zone system. Then he does so much more, covering gradient maps, multiple exposure composites, and how to mimic specific film types. He uses a series of case studies interspersed throughout the text to show how various techniques might be brought into the workflow on a given photo.

At first glance, I was disappointed in the book because his sections are usually only two pages long. But it turns out he is a good writer who conveys precisely what he needs to in a minimum of words. The book is remarkably clear while discussing complex artistic issues and techniques. It requires dedicated study and experimentation: especially spending time evaluating the photos. If you're willing to do this, indeed if you're looking for a guide to do this, then Michael Freeman is the one to help. The book is inspiring as well as instructive, and will remain a reference on my desk for a long time to come.

This is wonderfully organised book and presents a multitude of techniques to use in Photoshop to create black and white images from color images. The book transitions from beginner techniques to more advanced methods. Freeman describes all of the steps taken in converting color images to black and white while showing all of the creative aspects in adjusting the channel mixer to elicit the effect desired. This is a great "cookbook" of techniques and has found a space on my desk by my computer.

This is one of several books on digital B&W photography that I own. I find that the author is too economical in his explanations of how he got from step to step, often leaving significantly large gaps of assumed reader knowledge or prescience. But my main complaint is the horrible job of editing. There are mistakes and disagreements between the text and the illustrations and the illustrations and their headings. If you're not already comfortable with fooling around with Photoshop tools, and just trying things, you can get totally lost trying to figure out whether the text, heading or illustration is correct.

The book is attractive and well presented. However, after many years as a technical editor, I'd have been embarrassed to let this one go.

This book presents an introductory exposition of techniques for producing "fine art" black and white images from digital color images. Its intended audience is amateur digital photographers and Photoshop users with limited experience. The technical depth of the discussion is fairly high-level. The book is laid out in a glitzy fashion that indicates heavy influence from the graphic arts department. In this regard, the book is better suited for coffee table display than for use as a workroom reference.

The book divides its discussion into five chapters:
· The Language of Mono
· Color into Grayscale
· Digital Black and White
· Image Editing and Effects
· The Print

The Language of Mono
This is good place to start a discussion of black and white images, by looking at what makes black and white images work. Here, the author introduces his "case study" method, where he uses an image as an example to illustrate his points.

Color into Grayscale
In this chapter, the author explores ways to use the Channel Mixer in Photoshop to manipulate the individual color channels for red, green and blue to produce the black and white tones intended by the photographer. He also introduces the technique of manipulating hues to control tones. Again, he uses case studies of individual images to illustrate his ideas.

Digital Black and White
In this section, the author explores the management of tonal ranges using Photoshop. He discusses setting white and black points to expand tonal range, and introduces methods for managing scenes with high dynamic range. Zone System is introduced, and the author briefly discusses scanning images.

Image Editing and Effects
In this abbreviated section, the author introduces ideas for modifying images to enhance mood. He also provides brief introductions to concepts including adding color tones (e.g., sepia), using duotones and other print finishing techniques.

The Print
In this final section, the author presents a brief discussion of printer types (dye-sublimation vs. inkjet). He introduces the concept of printer calibration, and goes on to introduce ink issues (mainly suggesting external ink supplies). He finishes with a brief discussion of print mounting and display.

Critical Assessment
Clearly, the real value of this book is in introducing the reader to the concepts involved in digital black and white photography. The discussions that have the greatest value are in the first three sections, where the author provides the greatest depth. Topics broached in the final two sections are passed over too lightly to add much to the readers understanding.

Taking the first three sections on their own merit, however, they do justify the price of the book. Although introductory in scope, they delve deeply enough into the topics to provide real help for beginners. There is enough here to keep beginning photographers busy for some time, exploring the techniques he describes. Soon enough, however, students will reach the point where they will need additional information not provided in this book. To be fair, many of the topics the author covers lightly are worthy of books in themselves. For example: the author devotes four pages to zone system, but manages to say nothing that might actually help the reader understand what zone system is about. (I recommend reading Ansel Adams' The Negative again. Just remember, in digital photography the zone system admonition to "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" morphs into, "expose for the highlights, expose again for the shadows." And, while you're about reading Ansel Adams, The Print has much good information. Just skip all the lab chemistry parts.)

The layout of this book is such that it is not so much read as explored. Major content is provided in sidebars and captions. The heavy influence of the graphic arts department in the layout can be annoying at times, for instance when it is unclear which supplementary text belongs with which main text, or when an entire column is devoted to a pull-quote in large type of a paragraph we just read on the preceding page. The book does not invite highlighting with a marker or scribbling notes in the margins (it would seem almost a desecration).

On balance, I am glad I discovered this book. It provided me with essential help in getting started with black and white digital photography. I was disappointed that the book lacked the depth to help me with steps beyond the first, so in this sense it does not live up to its title, Mastering Black and White Digital Photography. The book would have more accurately been titled, Introducing Black and White Digital Photography, which it well accomplishes.

Whenever I read a photogrpahy book such as this one, I always carry around those little plastic post-it notes to mark any important pages. After reading it, I found that I had marked almost half of the entire book! Freeman explains different ways of converting color files to black and white using layer masks, contrast, desaturating, and everything else. The great thing, though, is that he gives you solid examples and a step-by-step process for each one. He tells you how to fix a washed-out sky that unbalances the photo, how to manipulate each color when it has already been converted to black and white and why this is such a useful tool, how to work with skin tones, how to get great contrast without clipping, and even how to use layers with each color. As a bonus, at the end of the book he talks aboout printing; what inks are good, what paper is good, etc. A very thorough and easy to understand book with great detail. I recommend this book for anyone interested in B&W photography or B&W Photoshop techniques.

While color photography has clearly taken over the world of photography, who can forget the imagery of an Ansel Adams black and white print. For some images, for some applications such as black and white printing in newspapers, magazines and books, for a lot of industrial applications you will still be called on for black and white images.

The first thought of many photographers is to go back to film cameras and shoot using your old equipment. This book is by a professional photographer with work published by the Smithsonian, Time-Life Books, Readers Digest and many more. In the book he points out that the advantages of going digital in the first place apply even more to black and white than to color.

The power of image processing allows you to have greater control, greater experimental reach than is possible with film. He covers several aspects of photography not covered elsewhere. This including the black and white monotone image, as well as duotones, tritones and producing images that appear to be hand colored.

All in all, this book opens up new capabilities in producing photographs.

As a professional photographer I found Michael Freeman's book to be the most informative and concise study on the complex and somewhat baffling world of digital photography. He is a master of his craft and opens one's eyes to the major developments. His writing and illustrations are supberb, he simplifies what could be compex adjustments and tasks.
Excellent, a must for any serious photographer.
Thanks Michael

I found this book to be very confusing. Many of the images did not match up with the text and I spent most of my time trying to decifer what was meant to be said.

The author obviously knows his material well, but the editing made it very unenjoyable to read.

This book was a little too advanced for me when I first picked it up, but I just re-read it, and found it absolutely fascinating. There are in depth instructions on a variety of advanced photography and digital darkroom techniques. Beginners will definetly find this book confusing and technical, but I highly recommend it for intermediate photographers who are looking for techniques that go beyond the basics of composition and exposure.

This book is an excellent reference for intermediate to advanced photographers. Absolute beginners would need a basic photoshop book to help fill in the gaps or details to understand some techniques instead of blindly following a recipe.
The author has brought together under one book a large variety of creative ideas and techniques that not too long ago were only available from a collection of books and magazine articles. It's written in concise 1 to 2 page sections and in many places use a sequence of images to show the different steps of a process. Most of the images are very suitable to demonstrate that technique.
I can see how this book could seem confusing and disjointed in places as described by other reviewers, especially to an absolute beginner, but there is so much good stuff in this book that I would consider it a definite must have reference for any serious Digital B/W photographer. A second edition could fix some of these issues, e.g. key information being relegated to captions under images vs. in the text and minor tweaks to the logical sequence of a few topics. Adding summary outlines of the steps would make it even more useful for quick review and reference instead of wading through the text and images every time. However, the book is still very useable. These suggestions would just make it clearer. As a photography instructor, I have applied and taught several of the methods in this book. Using this book has further clarified my understanding of Digital B/W techniques to create compelling images.
One area of weakness is that this book lacks a good comprehensive section on image composition. This would make it more complete as a useful class text book. B/W imagery lets you look at composition in it's elemental form without distractions from color. If the author could round up a good collection of images demonstrating various composition and design concepts in a revised edition, I would go as far to say this book has the potential to become a "standard" intermediate text on B/W Photography for the digital era.