12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Once Over Lightly, September 22, 2007
This review is from: Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)
Because digital cameras offer special advantages to photographers under nighttime conditions and because Photoshop offers nighttime photographers a broad array of tools that can overcome many of the inherent problems of nighttime photography, there has been a need for a book like this.
The author begins his book by discussing some of the basic components of nighttime photography, including cameras, computers and Adobe Photoshop. Carruci next deals with actual photography techniques like composition, exposure and artificial light sources, and photographing people. He next discusses special effects, both with the camera and in Photoshop. He then provides a step by step presentation of three projects that involve compositing, and finishes up by describing Photoshop presentation tools.
Carucci's writing style is quite good, making the book a pleasure to read. Unfortunately this helps to conceal the fact that there is not much actual meat on the bone. The book is aimed at intermediate photographers, so one has to have knowledge of both photography and Photoshop to really understand what is being discussed. There are lessons to be learned here, like shooting at twilight will render a blue sky rather than the black sky one would get by shooting later, or that one can balance flash with ambient light to avoid the problems of flash fall off.
However, other than some useful rules of thumb, most of the book seems superficial. The discussions of Photoshop tools seem like a catalog of capabilities without revealing how to best use the capabilities for nighttime photography. For example, the author acknowledges the fact that it is difficult to meter night subjects because of the presence of both darkness and spots of light. He offers no suggestions on how to overcome the problem, such as by averaging the readings, or determining what is important in the picture and setting the exposure for that, or just extensive bracket shooting and later sorting the results.
In the presentation chapter, he lists the different kinds of paper stock available for prints, but makes no suggestions of the factors that might lead to the selection of one or the other. In the discussion of the Photoshop refine edges function, he tells you what settings to use in processing a particular picture, but offers no explanation of why these settings were used.
There is a lengthy discussion of the use of the type tool that is unrelated to nighttime photography.
The book uses Adobe Camera Raw 4.0 rather than the newer version of that Photoshop plug-in.
Photos were available for download from the publisher's web site, after registering the book, which allowed the reader to follow along with the description of Photoshop processing.
Readers familiar with digital photography and Photoshop may well pick up a few useful tips from this book, but this is not the definitive work on digital nighttime photography.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Photoshop Book I Have Ever Purchased, September 21, 2007
This review is from: Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)
In my opinion, this book is a total waste of time. I have been working with Photoshop since version 5 and I have, over the years, purchased at least 40 Photoshop related books. Of all of the books I have purchased, this one rates as the worst. It is not poorly written and the photographs are for the most part very professional. However, it purports to be a book about the particular challenges of night photography and the usefulness of Photoshop CS3 in those circumstances. After reading this book, I was able to conclude that I can obtain all of the useful information in this book, plus a great deal more, by using either Scott Kelby's book (The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers) or Martin Evening's book (Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers), both of which are aimed at digital photographers. This is the first review of a book I have done, but I didn't want others to unnecessarily spend money to buy this book, only to find that it has almost nothing to do with night photography. You don't need to buy this book to know that you need a tripod to take long exposures. As for the information about cameras and storage media, it is available for free on the internet. Most of the rest of the book gives very superficial treatment of curves, layers, selections, etc., all of which are covered more succinctly and in more depth in the Kelby and Evening books. I have never been more disappointed in a Photoshop book than this one.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Truly Unique Book, October 2, 2007
This review is from: Nighttime Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Paperback)
Night photography is such a random art form, that you never know what you're gonna get every time you attempt to take a picture. Part of this problem was a lack of understanding on my part as to why night photographs turn out the way they do. Carucci makes it simple with this book by explaining all of the conditions that influence the night photograph.
It's one of the few night photography books that I've seen, and certainly the most applicable in the digital age.
Carucci addresses various available light situations by explaining both the photography and Photoshop aspects. I found this approach unique -- since it seems that most books out there concentrate on one or the other - yet both are necessary to be successful.
Carucci's writing style is clear and concise, and his examples are stellar. Not only do you learn how to take a night photograph and enhance it in Photoshop, but he also provides lessons at the end of each chapter that reiterate what was discussed while at the same time introducing new techniques. One project on perspective control takes you on a step-by-step lesson to fixing a tilted building, but then it includes a simple effect to intensify the twilight sky. It's those little touches that separate this book from the others.
While the book doesn't come with any extras (CD, DVD) the project images are downloadable over the web. If I have one criticism for this book, it's that some of the pictures could be bigger. But being that this is a technique book, and not a monograph, it's something I could live with.
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