Customer Reviews

Photo Finish: The Digital Photographer's Guide to Printing, Showing, and Selling Images

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

 

 

One of the co-authors of this book is Tim Grey, who has apparently become the publisher's utility infielder, appearing as author or co-author of a whole series of new books. Fortunately Grey, who also publishes the daily on-line newsletter, DDQ (Digital Darkroom Questions), writes clearly and succinctly. The publisher has apparently decided to launch a series of books that deal at a micro-level with digital photography. For example one of Grey's other recent books is "Color Confidence, which tells the digital photographer how to match up the tones, tints and hues of his camera, monitor and printer.

Perhaps a better title would have been the Output Book, since the book is concerned with the output of the digital photography process: printed images; on-line displays; and slideshows. The book is a strange potpourri of information, some of it easily available elsewhere and other information harder to find. For example, the authors tell you how to use outside print services, either in the form of a local lab or an on-line service. Most of this information is readily available by walking into a lab or going to an on-line printing site. On the other hand, some of the information on setting up a web site was completely new to me. Oh, I knew a little bit about coding, but I certainly didn't know that search engines were more likely to index your site if you included alternative text in the HTML "img" tag.

If your eyes glazed over after that last sentence, don't worry. The authors don't advocate HTML coding for most people. Instead they recommend programs like Dreamweaver and Front Page for the development of full-blown websites and even provide a little instruction, although no one should think that they could use these programs without some more study. But they don't ignore PhotoShop's Web Photo Gallery facility that can turn out a professional web site with very little effort.

There is a companion website to the book, where one may examine more detailed examples and even download some templates.

Even though the book's subtitle says it is about selling images, that section of the book is very limited. It really only talks about finding galleries to show your work, and selling on the Internet. There is no mention of stock sales. Given that John Shaw's "The Business of Nature Photography", which is probably the premier book in this field, was published in 1996, there certainly is a need for a volume that goes into more details on marketing in the digital age.

If you are looking for a book on preparing your photos digitally for output, Barry Haynes' "PhotoShop Artistry" series is one of the best, although it may require augmentation by books like Mikkel Aaland's "Shooting Digital", or Bruce Fraser's "Camera Raw with Adobe PhotoShop CS" and even Grey's "Color Confidence". But for a book about the output of the digital photography process, while some parts of this book will seem elementary, other sections will make you reconsider your approach and probably teach you a thing or two you didn't know.

"Photo Finish" is an extremely well-written and clear guide to 3 major ways of presenting your work; prints, website and slideshow. Each section is as strong as the other, so if you need to find out about at least one of them, then this book is worth buying. And even if you already print your own images or run your own website, "Photo Finish" is well worth reading to see the processes that experienced working photographers recommend and follow. Being so recently published (August 2004), it is also very up-to-date in terms of the products and techniques that it talks about, so you won't be reading about anything that has already been superceded (not for a while anyway!). If you want to get up to speed and learn how to present your photographs in the best possible way from a digital point of view, then "Photo Finish" provides plenty of shortcuts without leaving out any valuable content. A must-buy for all digital photographers.

I really thought the book would be more geared to professional photographers and workflow, etc. with regard to digital photos. Much more space was spent on website building, which I would have expected from a website book, not a book titled as a digital photographer's guide. Did I get $30 worth of information? Probably, but I would have liked more information on digital workflow, file management, professional lab tips, etc. as a professional photographer making the move from film to digital.

When I found Photo Finish listed in Outdoor Photographer I thought it would help me with selling my photos. I didn't realize the amount of material it covers in helping prepare to sell. Not only does it cover the actual preparation of the photo, it will take you through a complete web site construction in order for you to place you images on the Internet. It also covers a lot of material in between. I find Photo Finish to be a resource that I return to frequently as a text in hand as I proceed with various photography projects.

This book was a huge disappointment. It's content is weak in almost all sections with much of the information available from either the Internet or you local photo lab. I didn't find it very useful at all and I'm even tempted to send it back.

The book is pretty much broken up into the three section as described in the book's title. The first part brushes over optimising your workspace - calibrating your monitor - and selecting a printer and then basic printing output. Things most people know already.

The second goes into a bit more depth regarding getting your pics on the web: registering a domain name, selecting a hosting company, etc. Information you'll find better provided by a quick search in any web search engine. However, one of my main gripes is that it reads like a magazine review of 3rd party programs you should buy to help with the web authoring in html. In fact it advises using Macromedia Dreamweaver. A program which cost more than 500 USD. Now, I understand that writing html sounds complicated to the novice but you would - honestly - be better served and save some money from learning a bit from any basic html/web authoring book(any of the O'Reilly books are well recommended) Creating a basic html web gallery is not complicated.

The final part of the book continues on the team of glossing over the subject. It briefly mentions approaching galleries and selling on the Interent. I was expecting so much more from ths section but I really didn't learn much more than I knew already.

I find it hard to believe that one of the reviews here gives this book 5 stars yet points out some of the same failings of the book as me. The book has good intentions but just doesn't deliver the level of content and information required to make really useful.

This is an excellent book for anyone needing the basic on producing web content or printed media. However, I found it not up to the standards I have come to expect from Tim Grey. It borrows from a lot of his other work and does go into great detail on how to produce web files or printed media. It falls well short of providing content on Showing and Selling Images. While there is certainly an art to these two processes, I had hoped to see some examples of how to incorporate these into my current procedures. There really was no content on these subjects.

Great book for the beginning to intermediate photographer wanting to improve their product. Falls well short of useful content for the more advanced photographer.

Gauging by the general level of knowledge in my photography club, this book is geared for the newcomer to digital imaging. For example, it covers topics like choosing matte or glossy paper. Even photographers who use film have already encountered such choices. There is a light touch on calibrating a monitor and profiling printers, using online photo printing services and setting up your own photo web site. Anyone who subscribes to a photo magazine has likely encountered all of the same information before. Similarly, a simple web search on any specific topic will produce more detail than the book conveys. Overall, I was a little disappointed with the depth of the content.

This is the fourth Tim Gray book and second Jon Canfield book I have bought and read. While this book treats many of its various subjects in much less detail as Tim and Jon do in their other books I still found it useful. The section on creating digital slideshows was particularly helpful and all of the other subject matter is covered at least a summary level, providing good review and synopsis of the more detailed treatments in their other books.