I have added a new feature to our book reviews.  The Book Review Rating Scale will provide you, the potential reader of the book, with more value packed, detailed information.

Book Review Rating Scale

Advanced Digital Black & White Photography

by John Beardsworth

This Lark Photography Book is an excellent resource for the fine art digital photographer. The information in the book is very useful because of the examples of before and after images, the descriptive text, and step-by-step instructions. All of the techniques use Photoshop and some are specifically for CS3. The author talks about everything the intermediate or advanced photographer would need to know, including how to capture the image, many ways of converting it to B&W, techniques for optimizing the image, creating artistic effects, and finally output techniques. One of the most impressive parts of the book is the quality of black and white images that are created. The author doesn’t just demonstrate how to make a grayscale image, but how to create a quality B&W photograph that competes with the quality and range of tones of the best silver gelatin prints. The section discussing artistic effects covers many alternative effects and goes beyond adding program filters - actually tweaking the image to create the color, texture, and style so common of photographs created by infrared, Calotype, pinhole and more.

Ratings:

Text: A+

Layout: A

Photography: A+

User: Intermediate to Advanced Photographers 

Baby Photography NOW! Shooting Stylish Portraits of New Arrivals

by David Nightingale

So many families have digital cameras, in order to capture the precious moments of their children. Some of those parents only want to point and click and nothing else. But there are some out there who want to take there images to the next step and make a higher quality image with an interesting composition, creative poses, and artistic effects. This book will help the beginning photographer do all of those things. The author starts with the basic supplies needed and then continues with examples of different points of a young child’s life worth documenting, starting with the mom’s pregnancy. There is an entire section devoted to suggesting natural poses to help make the picture taking fun. The Post Production section talks about how to fix photos and create interesting effects. This is a great gift for the soon-to-be mom or dad with that extra desire for creativity.

Ratings:

Text: A

Layout: A

Photography: A+

User: Beginning Photographers

Langford’s Advanced Photography: The Guide for Aspiring Photographers, 7^th Ed.

by Michael Langford and Efthimia Bilissi

This is an excellent resource book for any skill level of photographer. The beginning photographer would find it useful in learning about the many aspects of photography, as the more advanced photographer could easily use it as a reference for clarification. One of the most impressive aspects is the thorough explanation of both film and digital photography. Each chapter ends with a bulleted summary list and number list of projects pertaining to the chapter, making this a good textbook for a college photography class. This is not a book containing many full-page amazing photographs; its purpose is more to demonstrate concepts. The detailed and accurate illustrations are of high quality, exceptionally modeling the concept at hand. This book is a valuable reference for any photographer wanting a resource for thorough explanations of photography.

Ratings:

Text: A+

Layout: A+

Photography: A

User: All Photographers

Photography FAQs: Lighting

by Chris Weston

This book is part of a series titled Photography FAQs, a collection of small photography reference books designed for the amateur photographer. This particular book focuses on the aspects of lighting, including natural and artificial. After beginning with a description of equipment and understanding lighting, the book is organized by the type of lighting (i.e.. natural, night and low light, etc). Each section has a quick description of the concept and includes quality images and illustrations explaining the techniques to master. This is a great book for someone wanting a quick reference for photography lighting.

Ratings:

Text: A

Layout: A+

Photography: A

User: Beginning to Intermediate Photographers 

Photographing Weather

by Storm Dunlop

As with most photography how-to books, this book begins with an explanation of equipment and exposure. Although the reader might look for basic photography skill elsewhere, it is nice that those concepts are illustrated with weather photography to see how those skills specifically apply to this temperamental subject. The author of this book is not only a photographer who loves photographing the sky, but is a specialist in meteorology and astronomy. This pays off in the chapters exclusively about the atmosphere, earth’s cycles, and other weather phenomena. Towards the end of the book, the author talks about photographing weather, storm chasing and then a few tips on production. This is a perfect book for a weather enthusiast or photographer wanting to improve their images of the sky.

Ratings:

Text: A+

Layout: A

Photography: A

User: All Photographers

Start Taking Great Family Photographs

by Mark Cleghorn

This book does an excellent job of quickly explaining photography concepts to a new photographer. This is accomplished by using icons that help the reader quickly find important facts, by using bad and good images to explain a concept, and by using lists to compare the advantages and disadvantages of cameras. The layout also includes boxes with quick tips on almost every page. This book makes an excellent reference or how-to resource for the family member who wants some quick tips to improve their photographs towards a more advanced quality.

Ratings:

Text: A

Layout: A+

Photography: A

User: Beginning Photographer

Complete Guide to Ultimate Digital Photo Quality: Optimize Your Photos at Every Step

by Derek Doeffinger

This book is about optimizing the quality of your photographs at the moment they are captured on your camera. Derek Doeffinger tells the reader that the “superior image” includes correct exposure and color balance, sharpness, high resolution, and lack of flaws. He uses this book to show how to create this image of perfection. Although Doeffinger talks about capturing an “ultimate photo” as a new idea, his book is about the same basics that any other digital photography book discusses. The layout is organized well, with helpful photos of equipment and demonstrations. The text is also well thought out; clear and concise. This is nice quality book for someone wanting an explanation of the basics of digital photography.

Ratings:

Text: B

Layout: A

Photography: A

User: Beginner

The Complete Raw Workflow Guide: How to Get the Most From Your Raw Images in Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, Photoshop and Elements

by Philip Andrews

This How-to book, published by Focal Press, is an excellent resource for the intermediate photographer ready to delve into the raw workflow or the more advanced photographer wanting to fine-tune their raw imaging skills. The first section of the book is completely devoted to describing and explaining raw.  Andrews explains how to use the raw format in a variety of image editing programs and includes helpful diagrams showing the steps to follow and menus to find. Each page is full of a lot of information and images, which could be considered either an overwhelming or efficient layout. This is a good resource for any digital photographer.

Ratings:

Text: B

Layout: B

Photography: B

User: Intermediate to Advanced

2 NEW Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 Books:

Both of these books represent the belief among a growing number of Photoshop professionals that Photoshop Elements 6 is a viable alternate to the full version of Photoshop for most professional image editing tasks. According to Mark Galer, one of the authors, “Professional post-production image editing does NOT have to be compromised by using Photoshop Elements.” Both books aim to show you that Elements is better equipped than what you were previously lead to believe.

How to Cheat in Photoshop Elements 6: Create Stunning Photomontages on a Budget

by David Asch & Steve Caplin

Authors Asch and Caplin say in their introduction, “Photoshop Elements has long suffered the stigma of being a cheap, unprofessional product. Cheap it may be; but it contains 90% of the features of the full Photoshop.” This book presents you with project after project of professional quality techniques in photomontage. They are organized by type of effect - for example there are sections on text alterations, surface techniques, people, three dimensions, and more. Each technique is described with step-by-step instructions with examples of the changes made to the image throughout the process. The authors say, “As a montage application, Elements is only as limited as your imagination.” The book also includes a CD.

Ratings:

Text: A+

Layout: A+

Photography: A

User: Intermediate to Advanced Photographers

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 Maximum Performance: Unleash the Hidden Performance of Elements

by Mark Galer

This book covers some of the most advanced post-processing techniques using Photoshop Elements. Author, Mark Galer, shows you elegant work-arounds for projects that most would have thought only possible in the full blown Photoshop. Some of the projects include creating a shallow depth of field, creating light shafts on a landscape, motion blur, and more. Each project includes not only images with the steps being applied and text describing the steps to take, but also shows the illustrations of the menus and tools used in the process. Compared to the previous book, this one is not as step-by-step organized as far as layout, but has a lot more depth information in each instruction. The book includes a CD with additional images to practice the techniques demonstrated.

Ratings:

Text: A+

Layout: A

Photography: A

User: Intermediate to Advanced Photographers