Well Written Book On Image Manipulation And Enhancement For Photographers
583908
This book is different from other books covering the same Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 (PE10) software in that it is targeted toward photographers who use their digital cameras to capture images AND also use this software to modify and enhance them, or even create something new using fantastic digital tools and techniques.

Because the picture taker is also the picture manipulator on the computer, this book provides many suggestions and tips throughout the chapters on how to take pictures, so that the results can be more easily or even possibly modified later using PE10. This is very important and helpful, because there is often much less image manipulation required if the picture can be planned as much as possible in terms of the desired aperture, shutter speed, focus, lighting, color, and composition.

For example, you want to take pictures of the popular Wallstreet Bull in NYC during the busy daytime hours, but you don't want people in the picture. This is nearly impossible as there are constantly people posing in front of the Bull. PE10 has a new function called Photmerge Scene Cleaner (PSC) which will allow you to remove unwanted subjects from a picture. The book emphasizes however that PSC is only possible if you can take multiple pictures from the EXACT same location AND that the unwanted subjects cannot be stationary in all of the pictures. With this knowledge, you will then be able to take the necessary shots and produce a Bull picture without people in it. It is pointers like this that make this book useful for photographers.

The book is printed in full color and lavishly illustrated with many "Before" and "After" pictures, as well as menu functions and screenshots. Although PE10 is a lot simpler than the full blown Photoshop program, it is nonetheless a richly featured image manipulation software that will require considerable time to understand and master. This book does an excellent job of demonstrating the power of the software and provides knowledge that photographers need to produce the desired effect both in camera and on the computer.
4913528
Photography Demystified: Your Guide to Gaining Creative Control and Taking Amazing Photographs is a well written, concise guide to better utilizing your camera for creating artistic photos. David invites us to use the manual modes on our cameras, pointing out that the camera doesn't know what you are seeing when you snap a photo; only you do. In order to have full cocntrol of how your subject looks--indeed, to even identify what the subject is--you have to set up the camera properly. He also points out that great photos are created by having an understanding of both the technical aspects AND the elements of composition, the passion of the photograph. How does a photographer create a feelng in a photograph--this is the question David teaches us to answer.

After introducting us to these concepts, the author takes the reader on a tour of camera controls. He then clearly explains the elements of exposure: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. He takes each element and helps the reader understand how to find these adjustements on the camera and how adjusting each affects the photo: shutter speed controls action, aperture controls depth of field, and ISO controls noise and quality. There are many example photos, as well as challenges to get out one's camera and try things out. This technical side of the book doesn't stop with exposure, but also makes recommendations regarding flash and autofocus.

The next section of the book deals with the creative aspects of photography. Mr. McKay helps the reader understand the rule of thirds, leading lines, the use of different lenses, and the use of flash. Again, there are many example photographs, showing different ways of composing a photo.

Throughout the book, there are invitations to try it out, to get out there with our cameras and actually appy the principles taught. The book ends with a series of these challenges and a push to get our cameras out of automatic mode and to take control of the pictures we take.

This book is a must of the itnermediate photographer wanting to take their photos to the next step. It is also helpful to the person just starting out, who wants to do more than take snapshots, and the more advanced photographer, who wants a better understanding of what he or she already does.
3321788
I am a fairly new photographer, and was consistently dismayed by the quality of my photographs (especially in high contrast situations). I picked up this book, and was really glad to find that it covers the basics  of how the lightmeter in a camera works. The examples are very clear and  easy to understand. I would highly recommend this book for anyone  interested in improving the quality of their photographs.
In addition,  the author has an excellent web site, and is very helpful with answering  questions.
1733632
It's a great Nik tools tutorial, with some examples that let you see the way a pro works. Specially with color efex 3, which covers more than 50% of the book.

I felt it was a little bit poor in terms of knowledge content, but it's fast and easy to read. I'm a frequent user of photoshop and i believe i have many tools and workflows my own. If you have never edited a photo outside lightroom or aperture, this book will give you a huge improvement in your post processing techniques. However, i got some tips from it and i think the book was worth it. It took me around 3 hours to finish it, but that's fine.
2979785
The Soft Touch by Jim Cornfield is the work of a master photographer. It illuminates the art of focus manipulation by providing the knowledge and teaching the techniques to create it. The book is a revelation that speaks to the importance of telling a story with a photograph and demonstrates how to use focus manipulation techniques to reveal the essence of the story.

The author begins with an enlightening discussion using examples of softly focused portrait images that were popular in the early days of photography, and had a very special meaning to him as a young person. Included here is a beautiful example of his own award winning image created in the likeness of an Edgar Degas painting. The magical softness of this remarkable image was actually achieved by ..smearing margarine onto the surface of a UV filter!
The book progresses through a range of available equipment, techniques and software programs.  Excellent image examples are discussed in parallel with detailed instructions on the associated cameras, filter types, lenses, exposures, innovative capture techniques and post processing software methods required to successfully create such images.

Much of the book is devoted to enriching the art of portraiture, a genre of photography highly sensitive to nuance and interpretation. Excellent sections are included in the areas of action sports, landscape and travel photography.  The authors demonstration of highly original images that can be achieved using the soft touch post-processing techniques truly illustrates the power of the concepts and teachings of the book.

 Overall this is an excellent work of experience, knowledge and authority in the art of photography. The writing style is both engaging and professional. The book is quite user-friendly and has given me, as I believe it will give others, a new vision and a broader understanding of the meaning of focus. Im looking forward to continuing to grow my photographic skills through the adoption of the focus manipulation techniques so well covered in this remarkable book The Soft Touch, by Jim Cornfield.
4958893
There certainly aren't enough good books on the subject of low light/night photography, so I was pleased when I had an opportunity to read Jill Waterman's book.  There are a lot of things to like about this book.  The overall print quality is excellent--with a lot of excellent photo samples on every page.  This alone makes the book worthwhile.  Not only do we get exposed to the unique and varying style of each contributing artist  (and there are many), each image is accompanied by a few nuggets of background information about the shot, along with some basic Exif data, such as camera, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc.

But my biggest issue with this book (and it is big in my opinion), is Jill Waterman's overt lack of information and insight about digital photography equipment and methodologies.  Almost the entire book is dedicated to a film-based philosophy, from darkroom techniques to reciprocity failure.  Having come from the film world myself, I get it.  But in 2008--with the advent of highly capable low-light/high ISO cameras like the Nikon D3, this omission is just too big to ignore. It's almost as if the book were written in 2001 and published in 2008.

Undoubtedly, many contributors in this book continue to shoot using film.  And film certainly offers some advantages in dynamic range over digital (which is important when trying to capture the full range of highlights and shadows in any given scene), although this gap is starting to close as sensors become more sophisticated.  But ultimately, digital shooters reading Jill Waterman's book may feel that she does not go far enough to address their unique concerns and challenges.  Film is still viable and is certainly here to stay, but most of the world is shooting digital nowadays--and these will be the people buying her book.

Lastly, I would have liked Jill Waterman to expand a little more on the technical aspects of nighttime image capture--especially as it relates to aperture, shutter and ISO selection. She does touch upon this with information about how to achieve a star burst effect by stopping down.  And there is some information about opening up wide while increasing ISO to make star trails more plentiful and vibrant.  But I would have liked to see more information about why a photographer chooses one aperture over another (or shutter/ISO) based on the night scene presented in front of them and their shooting goals.  What works technically for daytime shooters does not necessarily translate into a nighttime environment.

Would I still recommend this book--well, probably.  There is great reference material throughout, and many of the images are compelling and will provide good inspiration for any photographer looking to venture into the exciting and mysterious world that happens when the sun goes down.  If you're looking for a definitive "how to book" on night photography, this may not be it--especially if you shoot digital.  But it does contain enough good information to make the trip worthwhile--especially given the lack of good material on the subject.
4625850
There are a lot of books out there that claim to be for photographers or digital photographers but Phiiip Andrews' approach to his latest book focus on the Photoshop Elements as an extension of your digital camera experence. Missing are endless pages of running reharsh of material that is well covered in the user manual. In its place you will discover well laid out explainations of the essential features in Elements that can transform interesting photos into prize winners. He could have devoted more space to Raw conversion but as a Photoshop Elements author I am aware of the cold hard facts that exteremely few Elements users actually use Raw format so any additional coverage of the topic would have been a waste of ink and paper. If you are a digital photographer that wants to move beyond the point-and-shoot world of vacation photos this is the perfect guidebook. I would be remiss if I failed to point out one major flaw in the book. While the photos in the book are beautiful, the author insists that the photos are colour. If you can overlook the fact that the author has a misguided devotion to the UK spelling of color you won't find a better book on this topic.
3764580
This book is an encyclopaedia of basic information about photography, starting with equipment, covering exposure and composition, and ending with various photo editing techniques and printing.

I like the format of the book - topics get an easy-to-read two page spread, with lots of sample photographs and  sidebars.  The photographs are not really drool-worthy from a 2010 technical standpoint, but the composition is usually quite good, and they are helpful in illustrating the concepts.

The photo-editing section covers the basics of photo retouching, and a few interesting creative techniques as well.

I find this book interesting enough that I hung on to it when I was weeding through my photography library.
2041650
This book is one of the best Photoshop Elements books available today.  It is packed with an enormous amount of information.  I am a brand new user to Photoshop Elements, and after reading this book, I am able to accomplish intermediate manipulations on photos.  I am using version 7.0, and even though this book is written for version 8.0, the author always provides directions for the 7.0 version if the instructions are different from the 8.0 version.

This book includes a DVD filled with images and movies that you can manipulate using the step-by-step procedures.  The DVD is viewable directly, or through the Organizer in Photoshop Elements.  The DVD also provides over 7 hours of movie tutorials recorded for version 7.0 and 8.0.  The DVD also contains, RAW, TIFF, and JPEG images, as well as printable PDFS containing shortcuts.

What makes this book great?  It's easy to understand, with full instructions on how to accomplish each step, usually supported by a full color photo.  This book is filled with full-color photos on each page supporting the instructions given.  I admit that I did have to read a few instructions a few times only because I was still learning where everything is in Photoshop Elements.  And this book also contains a glossary filled with words from Photography and Photoshop Elements.

The book is broken into three parts, with seven to nine projects in each part.

Different projects include the following:
Part 1) Working with RAW images (ACR-Adobe Camera Raw), Local adjustments in photos, adjusting levels & correcting clipping, Curves (control contrast using adjustment layers), Hue/Saturation & Luminance, Sharpening images, and preparing your computer/printer/Photoshop for printing.
Part 2) Manipulating Depth of Field, creating dramatic lighting effects, turning color images black and white & luminance, adjusting tone/shadows/highlights, enhancing character portraits, enhancing glamour portraits, creating motion blur and manipulating backgrounds, fixing low-key images and adjusting exposure to perfection, and working with the Channels panel.
Part 3) Creating photo montages and replacing backgrounds, replacing a sky, layer blending (blending layers of two photos together), manipulating multiple images to create a single perfect picture, preserving shadows, working with high dynamic range, Merging photos (Photostitching), Transplanting/manipulating Hair.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in developing advanced techniques with Photoshop. My rating: 5 out of 5.
4877628
This book is excellent. You don't need to have Photoshop skills. Scott gives you a lot of tips that will help you to improve the quality of your photos. If the Digital Photography is your hobby I recommend you this book. You will see the difference.
794560
I read Mr. Bloch' first book on this subject and compared to this one it was written in Sanskrit. The volume (all 650+ pages) is a comprehensive class of learning on what HDRI is and how best to use it. In using it Mr. Bloch had really explained and illustrated what is happening and what needs to be done.

I read the entire book while at Bryce Canyon, in Utah. I was immediately able to process some of my images as never before. If you follow the step by step explanations you will be amazed as to the enhancement of your images. I actually tried some of the instruction on portraits and the results we fantastic.

If you are a photographer, amateur or professional, you need this reference book on your shelf!
4180758
This book was definitely  worth the money. The author simplifies complicated concepts and through innumerable examples, he makes the reader understand when andd where to use which modes. It won't make you a pro overnight, but it will definitely give you insight into becoming a better photographer.

The examples  he uses are very simple in terms  of analogy so it makes the concepts very easy to understand. His pictures also give you ideas  of what you can photograph and does make you a bit more creative. Overall I couldn't be happier with the purchase, the pictures are very good quality in full color and there are pictures on pretty much every page and take up quite a bit of the page thus you can see the results of his expertise. If you have an SLR and are a biggener or want a little bit more insight, this is the book for you!
3060316
This full-color book offers clear and concise instruction that takes you step-by-step through the process of using the Camera RAW plug-in in Photoshop as well as the related sections of Bridge and CS2. The author not only explains how to use the settings but devotes entire chapters to some of the problems that can, and often do occur - like dealing with digital noise. I appreciate the fact that he doesn't treat the Camera Raw plug-in as the be-all, do-all tool in Photoshop but rather presents equivalent tools in CS2 that many times are a better choice for particular lighting situations. The layout and organization of the book reminds me of one of Scott Kelby's books; the two major differences being the author doesn't include rambling witticisms throughout the text and unlike the aforementioned books, I think that he thoroughly covers the topic rather than just the highlights. The book's organization allows you to quickly find the desired topic (or in my case, problem area) and read a brief description and ways to either perform the action or resolve the problem.  To date I have read three books on the topic of working with Raw files using the Camera Raw plug-in filter and this book is far superior to any title I have reviewed. If you are a photographer shooting Raw images this is the only book you will need - period.
1393192
What an excellent book this is! If you're an intermediate photograph--or at least no longer a beginner--and you want to improve your skills, this is the book for you. It's a thick book, but it's very modular so that you can read only what you need help with, or do as I did and read it from beginning to end, but a little at a time. The result will be a much better understanding of photography and noticably better photographs.
1734632
This book provides strategies to make the most of your photographic equipment and make the best photos as you can. Author describes mostly exposure. You will also learn some great photography techniques. Book content is detailed but also easy to understand. This is very helpful book not only for beginners but also for more advanced photographers.
4440761
I haven't been able to get through the whole book as of yet, but it has a lot of information included that is very helpful. It's well written, with clear instruction & great instructional photos as well. This will be a good reference book to keep near when working with Photoshop. I'm very pleased with the purchase & even though I've been working with Photoshop for several years now, I think I'll get a lot of use from it.
3578065
Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3: A Photographer's Handbook by Stephen Lakevitch is an excellent book!
Very well organized & easy to read.
This book generously shows how a similar procedure can be done in either Photoshop CS5, Camera Raw 6, or Lightroom 3,
and uses visual anchors/icons of the application being presented on the side of each page to remind you which application is being focused on.
Technical jargon is simplified so anyone at any level can understand, and keyboard shortcuts are introduced step-by-step
in a practical way as you learn more, and not as an intimidating list that you feel forced to memorize.
Stephen Lakevitch is an Adobe Certified Instructor, and has consulted with Adobe to prepare the Photoshop Certified Expert exams.
Stephen shows his expertise by taking you through his time tested workflow, and by sharing various photography tips such as creating panoramas and High Dynamic Range images.
Like getting 3 books in one without the superfluous explanations, this book will get you up to speed in no time creating great images!