Digital  Macro Photography

by Ross Hoddinott

This book would convince any photographer to run out and by a macro lens and get involved with the field of macro photography. The photographs included in the book are of amazing quality and you often find yourself saying, “I didn’t know that’s what seaweed looks like up close.” The photographs also do a nice job of supporting the concepts the author is explaining. Ross Hoddinott is an award-winning photographer who is well-known to the nature photography world. In his book he explains a variety of digital photography concepts common to all photography subjects, but discusses and demonstrates the results when applied to macro photography. Throughout the book is user-friendly layouts with tips, suggestions, and diagrams. Subjects covered in the book include equipment and technology, image capturing technique, different subjects, and post-camera processing. Anyone interested in learning more about macro photography or the impressive work of Ross Hoddinott will appreciate this book.

RATING

Text: A+

Layout: A+

Photography: A+

User: All Photography Levels

Digital Nature and Landscape Photography

by Mark Lucock

Though this book is also published by Photographers’ Institute Press – PIP (same publisher of Digital Macro Photography), unfortunately, the images and layout are not as impressive. One of the purposes of the book is to convince the reader of the adequacy of digital or traditional film photography. The collection of photographs includes a lot of creative compositions and perspectives, but the exposure, lighting, and color are not high quality. These two PIP books have very different layouts. The previous book is easy to flip through and find important points and concepts. The layout and text of Lucock’s book, on the other hand, demands reading through a few pages to figure out the concept. This book has some good tips for digital photography workflow and would help the photographer looking for more advice.

RATING

Text: B

Layout: B

Photography: B

User: Beginning to Intermediate

Understanding RAW Photography

by Andy Rouse

This book is a sequel to the successful Digital SLR Masterclass, written by the same author. Andy Rouse is known for both his ability to capture amazing images and explain digital photography concepts. This new book is full of incredibly useful information, which follows the flow of a professional digital photographer - capturing the image in the field to workflow and editing. Rouse uses his own images and diagrams of the computer screen to show and explain the concepts. The excellent layout includes “Pro Tips,” before and after diagrams, sub titles, and captions, making it easy to read from cover to cover or flip through to find what you want. This book would be good for the intermediate photographer wanting to go RAW or the advanced photographer wanting a refresher of best practices.

RATING

Text: A+

Layout: A+

Photography: A+

User: Intermediate to Advanced Photographers

The Creative Digital Darkroom

by Katrin Eismann and Seán Duggan

Every photographer, no matter the equipment, who wants quality images can benefit from darkroom skills. In this book, the authors explain the classic techniques of photography using Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom. Many photography techniques and concepts are explained in detail and how they can be applied to perfect fine art photography. There are many fine images created by the photographers that not only show examples of digital creativity, but help explain the topic or concept. There are a lot of step-by-step instructions and images to show the reader exactly how to use Photoshop to create the desired end results. Most of the techniques are post-processing guides to enhance, fix, or organize digital photographs. This book is ideal for the fine art photographer wanting to enhance their photographs to the next level of creativity.

RATING

Text: A

Layout: A

Photography: A+

User: Intermediate to Advanced Photographers

The Sadness of Men

Photographs by Philip Perkis

Introduction by Max Kozloff

This book is a fifty year retrospective of photographer Philip Perkis, Professer Emeritus at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. The sequence of these duotone images was carefully selected to build upon each image. When looking at the images in the book, there is a different feel than from a collection of traditional black and white images that have wide range of tones, selective or infinitive focus, and perfect exposure. Philip Perkis is all about the reality in photography. The back of the book includes the text from a conversation about his work. He says:

     "In the fifties, there was an acknowledgement that 35mm was grainy and blurry and dark, by its very nature. The Abstract Expressionist painters were saying that a painting should look like it was made with paint. Charlie Parker said the saxophone would sound like a saxophone, and it’s okay if you can hear the breath. De Kooning was letting the paint drip. Kerouac said, ‘You write the way you talk. You want to bring the language of the street onto the page."

This book is for the collector of photography capturing the real world. A perfect coffee table book.

RATING

Text: A+

Layout: A

Photography: A

User: All Photographers and Non-Photographers

One of the Advantages of Lightroom 1.1 is that it is so well designed and incredibly easy to figure out that many photographers will get lazy and not take advantage of the powerful tools in the program. While there is a wealth of information online, as well as the Lightroom user guide, which has some misinformation leftover from the 1.0 version guide, the focus of this book is using Lightroom 1.1 in a working environment. Many parts of the book are based upon questions that appear on the Adobe User 2 User Forum, indicating that there is something about how Lightroom works that isn’t as simple as it seems. The purpose of this book is to guide the user beyond the simple obvious tools and lead them into using Lightroom 1.1 in a way that will get them the maximum benefit from this program. Like other Focal Press books, this book is well organized, well illustrated, and well written. For any of us who like to have a hard copy book to read through in a comfortable chair or to sit next to our desk as we explore a new or unfamiliar program, this book more than meets this need.  

RATING

Text: A+

Layout: A+
Photography: A

User: All Photographers and Non-Photographers

Currently, in the digital photography field, there is a push for accepting Photoshop Elements as an adequate program for image editing; purchasing the full version of Photoshop CS3 is not necessary for most digital photographers. This is another book by the renowned Elements advocate, Philip Andrews. Like his previous books, this is packed with helpful how-to information carefully laid out and explained fully in an organized creative layout. Unlike many other authors who maximize the use of white space in their books to warrant enough pages for the publisher, Andrews’ books utilize every surface area of every page. The amount of tips, advice, step-by-steps, and demonstrations is like having a personal coach for Photoshop Elements 6.

RATING

Text: A+

Layout: A

Photography: A

User: All Photographers