digital photography

It is very diffucult to write a book useful to absolute beginner's and to professionals who work every day with digital camera equipment. A true professional would probally only find a few chapters worth reading, and a beginner would struggle through the Photoshop lessons. The book in my opinion would be most useful to anyone in the intermediate range that is interesting in learning more. I read the book cover to cover, and found that it filled in a lot of holes in my knowledge on the topic. Overall the book provides an excellent overview of digital photography.

And like the reviewer who gave the book 2 stars said, specialized books on more specific topics would be more benefical. For example there's a chapter on Quicktime VR; if you really want to learn about this topic, you're better off buying a book on it specifically. For photoshop, a book like Photoshop Artistry 5.5 would be far superior. But if you're looking for an overview of digital photography, this book is great.

I am a newcomer (9 months) to the world of photography, graphic design, digital imaging, and since Christmas, digital photography. I have had a crash course in these subjects because of a new job, as I am now a magazine editor and webmaster with no training in any related topics. I have been frustrated all along the way as I've pieced together the basic concepts about scanning and fought to learn the horridly obscure Adobe tool interfaces of GoLive, PageMaker, and Photoshop. (Hard-core Office user here.)

This book brought it all together for me and made me a true convert to digital cameras. It provides step-by-step principles for anyone who needs things laid out a bit at a time, yet you can choose the chapters that relate to your present needs. For example, since I got a digital camera for Christmas, I skipped the chapters on buying one, and didn't miss out on a thing. But even better, they provide some basics for photography and for digital image correction in Photoshop, which was PRECISELY what I needed right now. If you're a beginner, but a fast, systematic learner, this book's for you.

I loved it, and I'm looking for more books by these two authors. I love their sense of humor and appreciate that they haven't made me feel stupid for not having learned all of this material somewhere else already. They're fun, kind, and supportive--not like that awful Dan Margulis of "Professional Photoshop," who spends as much time panning other professionals and making me feel dumb as he does teaching anything.

This book not only covers settings for the camera but takes you into saving, organizing and most important, into editing, particularly with Photoshop CS. This is not sugar coated obvious stuff but really gets into the pros and cons and the whys of their recommendations. Great for ex-film users and for the serious amateur.